All About Airships

All About Airships is a blog that seeks to educate the public about airship technology and provide a glimpse of the massive transportation revolution that the world can look forward to if rigid lighter-than-air airships (a.k.a. zeppelins) get enough capital investment to be built at efficient scale.

Barry E. Prentice, PhD, is a professor of transportation economics at the University of Manitoba. In 2011, Dr. Prentice founded Buoyant Aircraft Systems International (BASI) as the first airship research centre in Canada. In 2018, he won the CanInfra Challenge People’s Choice, Award, for his “Electric Airship Transportation System” proposal. Professor Prentice has published over 20 papers on various aspects of airship market applications and economics.

Nathan Smith is a PhD economist and technology policy consultant, currently focused on the telecommunications space in his day job, but with a strong twenty-year interest in airships, including a stint at an airship startup, and a passionate belief in the transformative power of giant airship technology to enhance globalization and accelerate economic development in Africa and other infrastructure-poor regions.

John Wilms is a Business Executive with over two decades of leadership and technology experience. During his career with IBM Canada, John held a variety of sales and business development roles, including leading an Emerging Technologies portfolio and involvement with IBM’s Global Air Freight team, focusing on improving supply chain and air logistics capabilities.
He was later Sales Director and President of a North American medical technology company, where he opened new markets and established partner sales channels in a number of East Asian countries. John is a member of the University of Manitoba Transport Institute (UMTI) and the Canadian Transportation Research Forum.