90 percent of potential markets for UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles, or commonly known as drones) will be accounted for by public safety and precision agriculture including agriculture and environmental engineering. UAVs will inject $82 billion in economic activity and generate up to 100,000 new jobs between 2015 and 2025. (http://www.auvsi.org/econreport) UC Merced is uniquely geographically located to establish CIDER (California Institute of Drone Engineering Research) with significant national and international prominence and local and regional economic impacts. Our ultimate vision is to build “Data Drone Valley” between Silicon Valley and Yosemite National Park through this unique intellectual and engineering platform – CIDER. UC Merced already has a significant preparation for this “Data Drone Valley” vision to become true. It could also be expected to symbolize “data drones” as one of the distinguishing aspects of UC Merced from other campuses.