The Canadian entrepreneur venturing into the world’s last frontiers with solar airships

Andrew Seale ~ Special to The Globe and Mail

Jay Godsall has watched the definition of the frontier evolve in real time.

More than a decade ago, the founder of Solar Ship – a Canadian company that designs and flies solar-powered airships to move people, aid and cargo into some of the world’s most remote and unforgiving environments – bought a satellite phone for a trip into northern Madagascar with what he describes as a “famous and difficult” high-profile client.

“It cost me $7,700 just to get the phone and then every minute was $100,” says Mr. Godsall, who founded Solar Ship in 2006. “Now, I could call the same place using WhatsApp for free and talk for two hours.”

In his world, adventure and risk are interchangeable. But he is careful to distinguish danger from fear.

“The world’s divided up with people who are willing to go into the unknown and try things and those who aren’t,” he says.

Raised in Ottawa, Mr. Godsall grew up around risk. His father was a “macho, risk-taking race car driver,” and through one of his father’s friends – another driver whose son was working on solar-powered airships in California – he first heard the idea that would later shape his life.

Entrepreneurial from an early age, he mowed lawns, shoveled driveways and drove cars to and from Florida for snowbirds. In high school, he befriended students from Burundi and found himself an unlikely guest at a lunch at the Burundian embassy, debating transportation logistics with representatives from other landlocked African countries, including Malawi, Rwanda and Zambia.

Mr. Godsall, whose grandfather was in the bush plane business, started rattling off transportation options. “Why don’t you get a train? They said, well, we don’t control the access to the coast. Why don’t you get a plane? Way too expensive. We’ll go bankrupt. And I said, ‘why don’t you get an airship? We’ll put a solar panel on it.”

The group seemed intrigued.

“I was just pitching them on the idea, because I’m in high school and Belgian french fries are on the table so why not?”

Read original full article by Andrew Seale:
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-the-canadian-entrepreneur-venturing-into-the-worlds-last-frontiers/