Nickolas Hughes

I am the founder of Minerva, where I design and build modular fixed-wing drones and edge AI vision systems for contested and GPS-denied environments. I lead product design, engineering, and strategy, from 3D-printed airframes to custom avionics and onboard AI compute modules. Before Minerva, I was an early team member at a fast-growing medical startup, where I built data systems and automation that supported scaling from 5 to over 300 employees nationwide. I have a track record of turning concepts into deployed defense and dual-use technologies, including hardware currently used in Ukraine.