IGeTECH

The average driver in the Greek city of Thessaloniki spends around 80 hours per year waiting in traffic. In Athens, it’s even higher, at 111 hours. With the number of tourists visiting Greece rising each year, the problem is only set to get worse.

To tackle the challenge, pioneering Greek start-up IGeTECH has developed Hummingbird, an all-electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) vehicle designed to revolutionize the way people travel over short distances. Compact and efficient, Hummingbird is a fully autonomous single-seater air taxi that can be flown without the need for a pilot’s license, since it only operates on pre-defined routes.

“We were inspired by the challenges of urban congestion,” said Irakleia Palaska, IGeTECH’s managing director and co-founder. “In big cities like Thessaloniki, traffic jams are part of daily life. If someone is in a hurry to go from the airport to the port for a meeting, it can take an hour by taxi. With Hummingbird, it would take just six minutes.”

Every part of Hummingbird – from its battery system and charger, to its aerodynamic body – was designed by IGeTECH’s engineers from scratch. This approach ensured the team had total control over how their eVTOL would perform.

“The battery was especially important because it needed to occupy minimal space to allow room for the passenger and luggage,” Palaska said. “Every detail was considered – because if you want to revolutionize travel, you must design around people.”

To bring their design vision to reality, IGeTECH deployed Dassault Systèmes’ 3DEXPERIENCE platform on the cloud, including CATIA for design and ENOVIA for project and product data management.

Developing a complex vehicle like Hummingbird from the ground up is an ambitious task. It’s especially challenging for a business like IGeTECH, which is rapidly growing its team.

“We started out with just one engineer, so work was straightforward – everything was his responsibility,” Palaska said. “But then we added a second engineer, then a third, and quickly realized that scaling without having a shared platform would bring big problems.”

In fact, Palaska had already experienced the issues that come with working across separate solutions in a previous role. There, one system was used for CAD, another for data management and another for progress tracking.

“It was inefficient and brought a lot of trouble,” Palaska said. “It significantly slowed down operations, requiring weeks of training before a new employee could get started. We needed to do things differently at IGeTECH and adopt a system that would bring everything together in a common environment.”

Local Dassault Systèmes business partner ΩVISION steered IGeTECH to the 3DEXPERIENCE for Startups Offer, a cloud package designed to support early-stage startups with the product development solutions they need in the long term, but without the initial outlay. ΩVISION provided implementation support as and when needed and has continued to deliver technical expertise when required.

“Joining this program gave us the opportunity to speed-up the process – it provided significant support for a start-up company,” Palaska said. “Whenever we face a challenge, ΩVISION is our first call. They are a partner we can count on – and that’s been crucial for us.”

By leveraging the capabilities afforded by the 3DEXPERIENCE platform, IGeTECH’s entire team saw immediate benefits. Using CATIA, the company’s engineers have not only designed Hummingbird itself, but the ecosystem required to support it. An intelligent charging station, for example, can power multiple battery sets or charge a parked Hummingbird directly, while an autonomous swapping vehicle removes discharged batteries and replaces them with charged ones – minimizing downtime between flights.

“The 3DEXPERIENCE platform made the design process much easier,” Palaska said. “It allowed multiple designers to work on the same challenge and gave us space to investigate alternative component scenarios – for the chassis, for example, while keeping the original design intact. Each IGeTECH engineer has centralized access to datasheets, requirements, the bill of materials (BoM), supplier offers, drawings and more – all related to their assigned components.”

Working entirely in the cloud has brought benefits in itself. Everything is now organized logically, and in one place, and users can access the platform from anywhere, as long as they have an internet connection. 

“We can now work seamlessly across locations and scale without worrying about maintaining a local server infrastructure or upgrading software – that’s a huge advantage for a start-up,” Palaska said.

ENOVIA’s project and product data management capabilities have made life much easier for engineers and management alike. Its version control and file locking features have proven particularly useful: each design file is automatically linked to its designer, ensuring that no one else can overwrite or alter it. And if mistakes happen – as they inevitably do in the creative process – the team can easily retrieve an earlier version.

“We can collaborate from anywhere using ENOVIA, safe in the knowledge that we are always accessing the latest version of a design,” Palaska said. “I, as a manager, can work through the platform and check everything – share timelines, track progress and see modifications to designs.

On one occasion, an unauthorized change was made to a component. Fortunately, we were able to restore the previous version immediately, which reinforces our trust in the system. For me, managing data is effortless.”

Having worked with other software, Palaska can appreciate the time savings offered by the 3DEXPERIENCE platform. “It’s not just a one-time benefit—it’s consistent,” she said. “Every hour saved is an hour we can dedicate to enhancing Hummingbird. Based on our experience, we estimate we’ve cut design time by at least 30%.

With the initial Hummingbird concept finalized, IGeTECH is advancing to the next phases: Seeking investor buy-in to help build of prototypes, testing and evaluation. Palaska is confident this will be a smooth journey.

“From the very beginning, we designed Hummingbird in full alignment with European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulations,” she said. “It’s not cost-effective to redesign later. The 3DEXPERIENCE platform made this easy because we have full traceability – we have complete visibility into every component and its connections. 3D models, the bills of materials (BOM), supplier offers, and regulatory files are all stored and linked together.”

This is the start of an exciting future for IGeTECH – one that Palaska believes will see Hummingbird transform the way we travel. For example, many businessmen have to make laborious journeys from Athens to Greek islands that are in close proximity, spending hours waiting in queues at the airport or ferry terminals. With Hummingbird, they could save that time.

“Greece’s geography – with its thousands of islands and many historical sites – inspired us to think more broadly about accessibility and how Hummingbird could help, not only in urban centers, but beyond,” Palaska concludes. “Imagine transforming the way we experience sky-reaching monuments – not only providing practical access for the elderly and those with disabilities, but creating an entirely new perspective on iconic landmarks. I’m excited to turn this vision into reality and explore what the future brings.”