A former Waterloo Engineering student is giving up his 2022 salary and bonus at the multi-billion-dollar autonomous trucking company he co-founded to support youth robotics and STEM education.
Alex Rodrigues, who left the mechatronics engineering program at Waterloo to pursue his passion for self-driving vehicles in Silicon Valley, is CEO of Embark Trucks, which went public last year with an approximate valuation of US $5 billion.At the time, shares held by Rodrigues and Brandon Moak, his former classmate and fellow founder at Embark, made them both worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
“With supportive mentors as a child, I was able to build my first robots and organize my own robotics team. Now, my mission is to pay that forward.”
His foregone salary will be used to launch Little Robots, a grant fund meant to inspire young people to pursue technology and give them a head start on careers in the field. It will begin taking applications from groups and individuals March 25.