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Proven Expertise

About Us

We have entered the 4th Industrial Revolution1, and Top Flight is at its epicenter.

Industry is at the beginning of a revolution that is fundamentally changing the way we live, work, and relate to one another through the unprecedented integration of technologies that range from the 3-D printing and the internet of things (IoT), to robotics and energy storage.2

At Top Flight, we have solved previously insurmountable problems, like payload capacity and range constraints, in the agile aerospace 2.0 arena. In true MIT fashion, we are currently working on the biggest hurdles ahead for major industrial companies and the nations they represent:  scale, reliability, fault tolerance, and security.

Success in meeting the challenges ahead demands a first principles approach and collaborative relationships that are ushering in the second machine age3.

It is a new paradigm, but the economic potential is boundless, and the primary winners will be decided within the next 10 years.

People

We, at Top Flight, are …

Proud to have been founded at MIT, and imbued with its long heritage of innovation and resourcefulness.

A culture of industry leaders and pioneers.

Creators of revolutionary patented technology and solutions.

The leaders in the technology and economics of agile aerospace.

Strong advocates of the first principles approach.

Team

Dr. Long Phan

CEO & President, CTO

John Polo

Chief Operating Officer

Masa Kawaguchi

Business Development, Japan

Nancy DeCicco

Acting Chief Financial Officer

Professor Sanjay Sarma

Co-Founder & Board Member

Close Team Member Description

Dr. Long Phan

CEO & President, CTO

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Dr. Long Phan is responsible for executing the overall vision for Top Flight Technologies. In addition, he leads research, product development, strategic software and services partnerships to be used in the Company’s products. Long has over 20 years of experience in the field of robotics and autonomous systems.  At MIT, he was an initial member of the MIT/Draper Aerial Robotics team in 1994, the first team in the world to demonstrate a fully autonomous helicopter from takeoff to landing at Disney World’s Epcot Center in 1996.  He has created a product development roadmap for Top Flight that leverages original designs and existing advanced technologies through strategic partnerships. Long was also a veteran on Wall Street where he was an early pioneer in remote algorithmic trading systems, high frequency trading, and a high volume contributor on the NYSE (over 1% daily volume).  He is a visionary and passionate entrepreneur who enjoys solving some of the most challenging problems in the world.  Long received his Bachelor of Science, Master of Science, and PhD in Mechanical Engineering from MIT.  https://www.linkedin.com/in/long-n-phan-phd

Close Team Member Description

John Polo

Chief Operating Officer

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John Polo is responsible for the operational leadership with Top Flight’s organizational structure and all company policies to support its employees, investors and clients. He has solid, hands-on business leadership from numerous senior management and IT leadership positions at $400m to $31b manufacturing, consumer products, and IT management consulting/product companies worldwide. John has 35 years of expertise leading companies such as Gartner Group, Kraft Foods North America and Perkin-Elmer (The Hubble Space Telescope), including strategic management consulting and mergers & acquisition roles. In addition he has been instrumental leading 8 investor-led IT and high-tech global start-ups as President, COO, VP/Business Strategy, Board Member and Founder, bringing each organization through business/product strategy, funding, market introduction, and a liquidity event. John received his Bachelor’s degree in Business Management and IT from the University of Connecticut. https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnpolo

Close Team Member Description

Masa Kawaguchi

Business Development, Japan

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Masa is an independent business development consultant with more than 20 years of marketing experience working at Dentsu, the largest ad agency in Japan and Interbrand, a worldwide brand consulting firm.  In the entertainment industry, Masa developed new venture partnerships including those with 20th Century Fox, Universal Music, Sony Music, Aeon Group and Nippon Airlines. He led the team that received the Top 10 App Award from Apple. Masa graduated from Parsons School of Design in New York.

Close Team Member Description

Nancy DeCicco

Acting Chief Financial Officer

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Nancy oversees the financial planning, accounting, and company policies. Her 30+ years of experience includes providing clients with solutions to their financial, structural, and organizational needs, including taxation, accounting, investment relations, and human resources. Her expertise and experience include the recent funding, corporate structure and financial strategies for several IT global start-ups. As CFO of several IT companies, Nancy brings a wealth of mergers and acquisitions experience to the group and has been involved, at a high level, in the due diligence process.  Nancy received her Bachelor’s degree in Accounting from Rutgers University.

Close Team Member Description

Professor Sanjay Sarma

Co-Founder & Board Member

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Professor Sarma is the Fred Fort Flowers and Daniel Fort Flowers Professor of Mechanical Engineering at MIT, and he is also the Vice President for Open Learning, which oversees MIT OpenCourseWare and supports the development and use of digital technology for on-campus teaching and massive open online courses. A co-founder of the Auto-ID Center at MIT, Sanjay developed many of the key technologies behind the RFID standards now used worldwide. Dr. Sarma’s principal areas of expertise include sensors, energy, IR thermography, RFID, mobility, Internet of Things, transportation, supply chain management, mechanical design, and computational geometry. He was the founder and CTO of OATSystems, which was acquired by Checkpoint Systems (NYSE: CKP) in 2008, and he has worked at Schlumberger Oilfield Services in Aberdeen, UK, and at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratories in Berkeley, California.   In addition, he has stay linked to commercial business applying his 20+ years of engineering leadership to a number of high technology start-ups, national governments and global companies. 

Advisors

Tak Miyata

Strategic Business Advisor & Board Member

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Tak Miyata is General Partner at Scrum Ventures. He has invested in over 40 startups related to commerce, health care, SaaS, video, and IoT in the U.S.. Tak also manages the shared space “Zen Square” in the heart of San Francisco. To promote awareness of technology and startup culture in Asia, Tak collaborates with media companies and events, such as, TechCrunch Japan, and B Dash Camp. Previously, Tak has had an international experience in the IT industry both as an entrepreneur and as a senior executive. He was the CEO of mixi America. Tak holds a Master’s degree in Nano Science from Waseda University. At Top Flight, in addition to being one of the Board Members, Tak is instrumental in advising the Company with customer and business partnerships throughout Asia. https://www.linkedin.com/in/takmiyata 

Dr. Thomas Campbell

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Dr. Thomas A. Campbell — recognized analyst and researcher in emerging and disruptive technologies — is the Founder & President of FutureGrasp, LLC, which advises organizations on trends and implications of emerging technologies. From February 2015 to August 2017, he was the first National Intelligence Officer for Technology (NIO-TECH) with the National Intelligence Council (NIC) in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). As NIO-TECH, he served as the focal point at the ODNI for all activities related to emerging and disruptive civil technologies. Tom established and managed liaison relationships with academia, industry, and others to ensure a comprehensive understanding of technology and its intersection with global military, security, economic, financial and energy issues. He drafted and briefed a broad portfolio of intelligence products for senior policymakers at the National Security Council, Office of Science and Technology Policy, and to Senators, Congressmen, and senior ranking officers within the Department of Defense. Tom holds a Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering Sciences from the University of Colorado at Boulder, and B.E. in Mechanical Engineering (with Honors) from Vanderbilt University. https://www.linkedin.com/in/ThomasAndrewCampbell/

Dr. William Hall

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Advisor (Aerospace/MIT) and Managing Director of the Commercial Applications and Services for Mosaic ATM, a company that conducts ground breaking research in Air Traffic Management. These complex systems drive dynamic decision support systems in airspace configuration. Bill worked for several airlines leading similar decision support tool deployments that improve service/efficiency while saving over $100 million. https://www.linkedin.com/in/wmdhall

Dr. Alexander Slocum

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Advisor (MIT) and the Professor of Mechanical Engineering at MIT. He has 100+ patents and has helped develop 12 products that have received R&D 100 award for “one of the one hundred best new technical products the year”. He has helped start several successful companies and has a passion for working with industry to solve real problems and identify fundamental research topics. https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-slocum

Gus Coldebella

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Gus Coldebella is the Chief Legal Officer at Circle, a global crypto finance company, where he is responsible for all legal, compliance, regulatory, and government affairs. Coldebella’s work in crypto finance and regulation complements his experience in homeland and cyber security. From 2005 to 2009, he was the Deputy General Counsel, of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, focusing on all major security issues confronting the nation. He helped lead implementation of President Bush’s Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative, designed to shore up the government’s civilian networks from attack and to promote information sharing and cooperation between the public and private sector. He completed his J.D. from Cornell Law School in 1994 (magna cum laude) and B.A. from Colgate University in 1991, where he is currently on the Board of Trustees and serves as Audit, Legal Affairs, and Risk Committee chair.  https://www.linkedin.com/in/coldebella/ 

Steven Fargo

Company Advisor

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Steven is a founder and CEO of DataWing Global, a company dedicated to helping organizations integrate drones into routine operations. Steven is also a decorated military officer and fighter pilot instructor with over 15 years of successively challenging leadership roles and over 2,000 hours of flight time in the F-16. His expertise helped grow DataWing into a nation-wide, multi-industry, and tech-enabled solution for clients of all sizes. Steven is a member of the Commercial Drone Alliance and the Energy Drone Coalition and spends significant time educating industry leaders on the advantages of UAS and associated technologies.  https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevenfargo/

Taka Nakamura

Company Advisor, Japan

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Takahiro is CEO and Founder of Polar Star Space (PSS) which was founded at Hokkaido University in Japan 2017. PSS is the first company in the world to identify early stage diseases of large agriculture plantations using micro satellites with hyper-spectral cameras. Prior to founding PSS, Takahiro worked at Mitsubishi Electronics as an engineer in the Missile Development Project for the Ministry of Defense and for Himawari in a satellite development project for the Land Infrastructure Ministry of Japan. Takahiro worked for the space development committee after he graduated from the National Defense University. His doctoral courses are from Aoyama Gakuin University.

Partnership

Development Partnerships

We partner with innovative industry leaders to support new achievements for business, government, and data-driven organizations. Learn more about how you can apply your expertise to Top Flight’s proven platform.

If you would like to be considered as a Top Flight Solution Partner contact partners@topflighttech.com

Data Wing Global
Close Partner Description Data Wing Global

DataWing is a manned and unmanned (UAS) aircraft service company which leverages expert competencies in aviation, project management, industry compliance, and data analytics. The company is led by Air Force fighter pilots who set the highest of flight safety standards. We collect extremely large amounts of data. Applying powerful analytics, we provide actionable reports for asset health, comparative analysis, and prediction of trends. Our cloud-based platform continuously updates as new data is uploaded. Bottom-line, DataWing is fast and accurate.

MIT Lincoln Laboratory
Close Partner Description MIT Lincoln Laboratory

MIT Lincoln Labs is a federally funded research and development center that applies advanced technology to problems of national security. Research and development activities focus on long-term technology development as well as rapid system prototyping and demonstration. The Laboratory works with industry to transition new concepts and technology for system development and deployment. 

MIT
Close Partner Description MIT

MIT mission is to advance knowledge and educate students in science, technology and other areas of scholarship that will best serve the nation and the world in the 21st century.

Georgia Tech Flight Mechanics and Controls
Close Partner Description Georgia Tech Flight Mechanics and Controls

The UAV Research Facility at Georgia Tech does research related to Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), aerial robots, and autonomous vehicle systems. Current research and testing topics include vision aided navigation and control; highly capable adaptive control methods; active environmental perception; obstacle avoidance; navigation and estimation theory and sensor fusion.

Ohio State University
Close Partner Description Ohio State University

The Ohio State Center for Aviation Studies incorporates engineering, business, and behavioral philosophies into a multi-disciplinary approach to the many components of the aviation industry, supporting world class flight education programs, academic degree programs, research initiatives, and outreach activities on local, regional, national, and international levels.

VIA Science
Close Partner Description VIA Science

Via Science uses the latest in mathematics and massively parallel computing power to create software models that help clients make predictions, discover cause and effect and determine the optimal set of conditions to shape the future in their favor. 

Frost & Sullivan
Close Partner Description Frost & Sullivan

Frost & Sullivan is a growth partnership company focused on helping our clients achieve transformational growth as they are impacted by accelerating change, driven by disruptive technologies, mega trends, and new business models. As a Top Flight Technologies partner, Frost & Sullivan help clients with the vision, strategy and business impact that Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) can bring to new streams of revenues and/or operational efficiencies transforming many industries and applications by different market segments for targeted UAV platforms such as the Top Flight Airborg(TM).

Careers

We are always searching for innovators in mechanical engineering, machine vision and software development, as well as pilots and pre/post technical sales engineers, to play key roles on our team.

Do you want to …

Be the difference?

Design, test (fly) and build application-specific commercial UAVs – hardware, software, services?

Collaborate with the rest of the team on current and future product lines (including line-of-sight, semi- and fully automatic flight-controlled UAVs)?

Work with partner channels and customers to train, support and scale UAV operations?

Be 100% hands-on in terms of design, testing, flying, training and delivery of solutions?

Be part of a can-do, smart and ambitious team?

Help drive ideas from prototypes to production?

Current Openings

There are no job openings at this time. 

(Note to complete and send survey with resume to jobs@topflighttech.com)

 

 

Join our team.

You must be authorized to work in the United States on a full-time basis for any employer. Please send your resume to jobs@topflighttech.com. No recruiters please.

Investors

ff Venture Capital Logo
Scrum Ventures Logo
One Asia US Logo
Neoteny Labs Logo
Translink Capital Logo

Challenges Solved

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Our Partners