James Spoke at Tabor...

Last week I had the pleasure of speaking at Tabor College for the Nachtigall Lecture Series, and I was also invited to lecture in a couple of Computer Science classes. 

I walked away from the whole experience — and from conversations with Dr. David Janzen and the students — with a real burst of energy. What Tabor is doing in Computer Science is genuinely cool. David also showed me the plans for the new entrepreneurship center… very nice! I’m hoping that center becomes a place where I can collaborate with students on campus, somehow, someway.

For those I haven’t met here yet: I lead Radiant Technology, (radiantinstruments.com) where we design & build professional-grade aviation electronics. Our aim is simple to say and hard to do well: make safety-critical cockpit technology more capable, more accessible, and more affordable — not just for well-equipped fleets, but for pilots and operators everywhere. We have a couple of niches: experimental and portable instrumentation; along with an industry leading position in non-TSO'd Carbon Monoxide detectors (who would have seen that coming!?)

A big part of my push right now is leveraging AI in ways that respect real-world aviation constraints: noisy environments, low bandwidth, messy edge cases, and the need for tools that are trustworthy and fast when things get sporty. I’m excited about what happens when solid analog and microprocessor engineering meets practical machine learning — especially when the result is a safer pilot, a better-trained student, or a more resilient aircraft.

In our lab-bench lately, I’ve been “freshening up” our line of turn coordinators — a humble instrument that helps keep pilots pointed and banked in the right direction. Over the last six years I’ve been increasingly focused on sensor-driven products that turn raw physics into useful cockpit displays. And yes, I’m still wrestling embedded code in very small environments… and getting great results that are surprisingly smooth and easy to interpret.

I’ll be sharing more here again — not just what we’re building, but what we’re learning along the way about engineering, entrepreneurship, and the human side of flight.

One more shout-out to Tabor: my degree was in Math / CS (G ’79). I see that combo as fully relevant and advancing in the age of AI, and I’m using AI directly in my own development work. It’s letting me foster code and ideas at a level above what I used to be able to do on my own. Basically, I drive ideas into AI, and it provides implementation guidance. I test & refine. All happening a lot faster than it used to!

If you’re working at the intersection of aviation, embedded systems, or applied AI, I’d love to connect.

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