Last fall, San Francisco International Airport (SFO) hosted its first-ever Tech Day. And based on the results, there will likely be more. The convergence of airport staff, technology firms and academia was crafted to upend the industry norm of tech firms cold calling the airport in favor of collaborative partnerships that will address SFO’s unique challenges and plans.
“We’re trying to give a platform to everybody that is willing to take a different approach into how technology is developed,” explains Iyad Hindiyeh, the airport’s chief digital transformation officer. “We can be there as a partner.”
By all accounts, flipping the script worked. Airport leaders were elated by attendance and interest in the event, and vendors were thrilled to be invited. To be clear, SFO Tech Day wasn’t a chance for vendors to pitch their wares and ideas based on assumptions of what airports need. It was SFO representatives stating their specific challenges and goals in an attempt to spur providers toward focused solutions.
| facts&figures
Project: Tech Day Location: San Francisco Int’l Airport Format: Inform vendors & academia about airport’s specific technology needs & challenges Objective: Replace practice of tech vendors cold calling with collaborative partnerships focused on airport’s unique goals Technology Improvement Program: Fluid document detailing airport’s strategies/needs for next 3-5 years Response: More than 70% attendance rate Feedback: Overwhelmingly positive; attendees hope other airports will hold similar events |
Full Agenda
The event was held last November in the airport’s onsite aviation museum. Ana Živanović, principal of strategic initiatives with SFO’s Technology Team, notes that the number of invitations had to be capped due to the venue size, but the airport made a conscious effort to cast a broad net by including existing partners, tech startups and academia. Video of the event is also available digitally from SFO’s library. In order to share content with even more organizations, the team might livestream future Tech Days.
The day-long 2024 event included about 10 presentations from SFO technology staff, who shared details about expected technology needs and challenges. Information booths and networking between sessions provided opportunities for attendees to learn about the airport’s procurement method. “We wanted to demystify any misunderstandings of vendors and fill knowledge gaps about what our city processes are,” Živanović explains. SFO is owned and operated by the city and county of San Francisco.
Hindiyeh, who has previous experience on the vendor side, says there is often a lack of understanding about the complexity of challenges that specific airports face. “The saying, ‘If you’ve seen one airport, you’ve seen one airport,’ is absolutely true,” he remarks. “We wanted to basically provide all the prerequisites to vendors so when they come in and start to talk to us, they are focused exactly on how their products and services address the challenges and future concerns that SFO is facing.”
An event like this brings the discussion “down to ground level” and is an opportunity to be “very open with the industry about the challenges we have,” Hindiyeh adds.
It was also a chance to challenge the status quo and demonstrate to vendors that SFO is willing to consider new technologies and ideas. To that end, the airport presented architectural work for new database designs it has been verifying with academia. “We want to share this information with the hope that we can push the industry into a direction where there’s a lot of innovation,” Hindiyeh explains.
Collaboration—both vendors-to-airport and airport-to-airport—is critical to leading the industry toward the right technology solutions, he emphasizes
Živanović notes that SFO’s 2024 Tech Day was also an opportunity to uplift and give a voice to staff who don’t typically interact with vendors because they are busy creating solutions. “We can’t necessarily be successful or innovate in isolation,” she says. “Employees having that exposure to the vendors, speaking out about their ideas and having the opportunity to network, really establishes us as a knowledge hub moving forward—which is really exciting from a technology perspective.”
Opening the Playbook
The airport’s first step to organize Tech Day was formalizing its technology vision.
Staff examined about 40 business users across multiple airport departments to better understand what their requirements are and what they plan to achieve in the next three to five years, or more. “We also looked at the future strategy of the airport and coupled that with the known constraints of the airport,” Hindiyeh explains. For example, SFO is landlocked and expected to reach maximum capacity of 72 to 73 million annual passengers by 2030. This begs the questions: What can the airport do now to prepare? and How could technology help?
After assembling those components, the airport finalized its Technology Improvement Program (TIP) in January 2025. By nature, it is meant to evolve, but the initial version includes a roadmap for the next three to five years that is validated across the airport and supported by executive leadership.
Key focus areas are:
- infrastructure enablement,
- augmenting the guest experience,
- technology upskilling, and
- cybersecurity enhancements.
The Technology Improvement Program is designed to be a system-wide and continually evolving program that can adapt to the airport’s changing needs and help staff deploy new systems effectively. “We want to ensure that technology is not purchased in silos, because data stays in its silo and then after a while it becomes a technical debt,” Hindiyeh says. Centrally managed technology offers centrally managed databases, which can then be used to improve operational efficiency.
“Data is the most important digital asset of an airport,” emphasizes Hindiyeh. “Through data, you can start to not only optimize your current operation, but start to have a vision into the future, and start to predict your operations and how you can address the challenges that you might face and manage your assets accordingly.”
Infrastructure—especially upgrading or optimizing existing infrastructure—is also critical, he adds. Project Next Gen will analyze the airport’s network infrastructure and upgrade plans to make sure it is capable of carrying data as operations continue to grow.
Naturally, cybersecurity remains a major concern, and SFO wants to ensure that vendors understand the complexity of its cyber position.
Hindiyeh and his peers also expect future technologies to help elevate customer service through consistent information experiences. “We want to make sure that our guests, our passengers, have an extremely seamless experience as they come to the airport,” he says. SFO’s “keyboard to door” concept is an effort to go beyond “curb to gate” and improve processes from the moment passengers purchase their tickets online to the moment they return home.
Technology that increases non-aeronautical revenue is another priority for SFO. Because of the airport’s physical constraints, leaders know that aeronautical revenue will eventually stagnate. “We have to think about creative ways of using the digital world for potentially generating more non-aeronautical revenue,” Hindiyeh says.
Given all of these goals and initiatives, SFO is addressing how to “upskill” staff as it deploys more technology. In addition to supporting personnel development, this will increase the likelihood that technology is used to maximum efficiency.
The Ripple Effect
More than 70% of those invited to SFO Tech Day attended, and Hindiyeh reports the airport received a lot of positive feedback afterward, particularly from the vendor community.
Samuel Ingalls, a principal at Barich Inc., jumped at the chance to attend and describes the event as exceptionally informative. “I came away with a very clear view of the [Technology Improvement Program], both at a macro and micro level,” says Ingalls. “Plenty of networking time was provided and hosted by the airport, with all of the presenters available and happy to discuss their respective areas of focus.”
In addition, he hopes the event serves as a model for other airports. That seems likely, as some have already contacted SFO with questions and are planning onsite visits to learn more about hosting their own versions.
“This makes us proud that what we’ve done actually had not only an impact on the vendor community, but also an impact at other airports that they would like to come in and collaborate with us,” says Hindiyeh.
Enhancing the passenger experience is one of the airport’s four key focus areas for technology improvements.
After the full day of programming, attendees were asked to identify which area(s) of SFO’s Technology Improvement Program they could assist with and were given the opportunity to schedule a future meeting. Hindiyeh reports that an overwhelming number have requested follow-up meetings and many are surprising the airport with their out-of-the-box thinking. “Some are starting to talk the language that we want to hear—‘Let’s collaborate on developing new approaches to the way technology has been deployed at airports.’”
Moving forward, SFO is continuing to meet with vendors while it works to secure funding to support the initiatives outlined in its Technology Improvement Plan. The next steps will include procurement and the implementation of new technologies. “This is a continuous cycle,” Hindiyeh notes. “The [Technology Improvement Program] will always continue to grow as the needs of the airport change.”
