Advisory Board

Chris Baker holds the University of Birmingham chair in intelligent sensor systems previously having the position of Chief Technology Officer for Aveillant, a Thales company. Prior to this he was the Ohio State Research Scholar in Integrated Sensor Systems at The Ohio State University. Until June 2011 he was the Dean and Director of the College of Engineering and Computer Science at the Australian National University (ANU). Before this he held the Thales-Royal Academy of Engineering Chair of intelligent radar systems based at University College London. He has been actively engaged in radar systems research since 1984 and is the author of over three hundred publications. His research interests include, coherent radar techniques, radar signal processing, radar signal interpretation, electronically scanned radar systems, radar imaging, natural and cognitive echo locating systems. He is the recipient of the IEE Mountbatten premium (twice), the IEE Institute premium and is a Fellow of the IET and the IEEE.

I am currently working as a Business Advisor to Dragonfly Aerospace. My previous role was group CEO of Space Commercial Services and also served as Chairman of the board for one of the group companies. My aerospace experience was gained through over 15 years in the industry and I held the position as Chief System Engineer for the first aerospace company in South Africa. This included a full launch and EO satellite system.

I have worked in Europe/UK for over 13 years in the telecommunications industry and held the position of Chief Operating Officer and Chief Technical Officer. I worked in France, as part of Thales Training & Simulation, where I took on the responsibility of building a nuclear power plant training simulator for Holland. I have also been involved in building a few new companies across Europe and South Africa. I served on numerous company boards.

I have established a Dragonfly Advisory Council that provides market, industry, technical and business advice to the Dragonfly executive team.

After completing a Higher Diploma in Telecommunications at the Cape Technicon for Higher Education, I graduated from Stellenbosch University with a B Eng (Electronics).

Favourite quote:

“Always be positive about anything you take on in life”

Michael Inggs was born and educated in the Eastern Cape, South Africa (Uitenhage and Grahamstown). He has an Honours degree in Physics and Applied Mathematics from Rhodes University (1973) and a PhD, DIC from Imperial College, London (1979). He has worked in industry in the UK, USA and South Africa, and joined the Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Cape Town in 1988, from where he retired in 2016 and now holds the rank of Emeritus Professor. He holds a Visiting Professorship at University College London, and was a visiting Professor at TU Delft in 2015. His research is in the area of radar sensor networks, radar remote sensing and high-performance computing. He has more than 210 journal and conference publications, four patents, and has supervised more than 100 M.Sc. and 20 Ph.D. to completion. He is a Senior Life Member of the IEEE, was a member of the Administration Committee of the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society 2011-2016, as Director of Education, member IEEE AESS Radar Panel, and was the convenor of the taught masters M.Eng. (Radar) programme at UCT from inception in 2011 to 2015. In 2015 a paper in the IEEE AESS Magazine won the Harry Mimno award for the UCT team.

During a career spanning more than three decades Simon Godfrey has worked with and advised a number of high profile technology businesses, helping them to navigate the complexities of the UK Government. He has enabled a deeper understanding between clients and suppliers, built strong foundational relationships, and has helped to facilitate the faster adoption and take up of new technologies.

Simon has also worked in and with a number of FTSE 500 businesses, as well as many large enterprises. As Chair of the UK technology trade association body, techUK, Simon advocates and champions for access to innovation, SME enablement and a broader set of opportunities to build differentiated value, jobs, and compelling technology propositions.

His depth of understanding of politics, the political landscape, priorities, machinery of government and processes, allows Simon to help businesses navigate what can be daunting and often complex tasks.