Drone Maker Sees Business Opportunity In Keeping Workers And Warfighters Safe (Forbes)

This is the story of UF startup Altavian’s beginnings and a little hint of the role UF Innovate | Tech Licensing played in it.

For intrepid wildlife biologists stomping around in the bush, it’s not an animal mauling or an attacking microbe that most often spells doom.

Statistically speaking, it’s the aircraft they use to enter remote areas that does them in. In fact, one study found that two-thirds of wildlife biologists who were killed in the 20th century while working had met their end via aviation accidents.

That figure surprised Thomas Rambo while he was in the middle of pursuing a master’s degree at the University of Florida in Gainesville. It turns out that mishaps are a life-threatening danger to everyone who relies on aircraft for their work, from natural resource managers to power line maintenance crews.

Unlike most who encounter that upsetting fact, Rambo, an aerospace engineer, was in a position to do something about it.

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