A University of Waterloo alumnus has received a prestigious award recognizing his efforts in advancing self-flying planes through his Toronto-based startup.
Jeremy Wang was presented with the Mitacs Change Agent Entrepreneur Award at a ceremony last night and was one of five recipients of a Mitacs Entrepreneur Award who are being recognized for turning their research into an innovative business that impacts the lives of Canadians.
Wang’s groundbreaking work to develop Canada’s first autonomous cargo airline is on track to start a commercial pilot project by the middle of next year.
“Our goal is to rewire the transportation network to be faster, more efficient and more accessible to remote communities that right now, don’t have reliable air transportation,” said Wang.
Wang, Co-founder and COO of Ribbit along with Carl Pigeon, Ribbit Co-founder and CEO, started their careers developing drone technology but soon recognized the need to focus on full-size aircraft to truly make an impact on transportation at scale.
“We’re not talking about shuttling executives from city to city, we’re talking about providing basic access to reliable transportation so that people living in rural and remote communities can get necessities like food and medicine on time,” says Wang.
Working in collaboration with Transport Canada since its inception in 2020, Ribbit completed its first gate-to-gate, hands-free flight in 2021 — marking a first for Canada — and has demonstrated nearly 200 hours of successful autonomous flight since then, always with a human safety pilot on board.
Mitacs helps companies solve business challenges with research solutions developed at academic institutions.
Read more about Ribbit and the award: