Keller Rinaudo

Keller C. Rinaudo is an American robotics and autonomous airplane entrepreneur and the CEO and a co-founder of Zipline.[1][2]

Keller Rinaudo
Rinaudo beside Zipline's first generation drone
Education
  • Harvard University 2009
Alma materHarvard University
Occupation
  • entrepreneur/CEO
  • rock climber
Spouse(s)Stephanie Nevins

Zipline began drone deliveries in Rwanda in late 2016, and primarily delivers blood to urgent medical situations.[3] In addition to whole blood, the drones deliver platelets, fresh frozen plasma, and cryoprecipitate.[4] As of May 2019, more than 65% of blood deliveries in Rwanda outside of the capital city Kigali use Zipline drones.[5]

In Ghana, the company began using drones in April 2019 to deliver vaccines, blood, and drugs.[6]

He was also the CEO and a co-founder of Romotive, a former company established in 2011 with Kickstarter funding that made inexpensive small robots that use mobile phones as their computing system, machine vision system, and wireless communication system.[2] Romotive essentially shut down in 2014 and morphed into Zipline.[7] Rinaudo presented a TED Talk about Romotive in April 2013 and another in November 2017 about Zipline.[2]

Education

Early education

Keller attended North High School in Phoenix Arizona, receiving an IB diploma and being named a National Merit Scholar.[8]

College and internships

Rinaudo is a graduate of Harvard University,[1][9] where he was the founder of the Harvard climbing wall. The wall was initially founded by Rinaudo with help from Harvard Business School student Karl R. R. Kuryla as a relatively primitive construction in Lowell House in 2006, and was later upgraded and reopened in the Quadrangle Recreational Athletic Center in 2017.[10][11][1]

While a student, Keller built computers out of RNA and DNA that he said could operate in human cells as "molecular doctors". He published this research in Nature Biotechnology, becoming one of the youngest first authors in that publication's history.[12]

Keller graduated from Harvard magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa with a 3.9 GPA and was designated a Harvard College Scholar for superior academic achievement both freshman and sophomore years and also won the Detur Book Prize (top 5% of the class).[13]

While in his undergrad at Harvard, Keller spent several summers (2006–2008) working at the management consulting firm, Boston Consulting Group (BCG).[14] He signed a full-time offer at BCG following his junior year internship to return to the firm following graduation (for fall of 2009). During his time at BCG, Keller "Conducted in-depth financial analysis of 140 competitors in the engineering construction industry and co-wrote new international strategy for a US company with $8B in revenue."[13]

MBA

In his senior year at Harvard, Keller was also admitted into Harvard Business School (HBS) for the class of 2013 - through the 2+2 program. However, Keller ultimately chose not to attend HBS due to the success of Romotive.

Early career

Following his graduation from Harvard, Keller spent 2.5 months at BCG in their San Francisco office before quitting to live out of his van and become a professional rock climber.[8]

Keller grew up rock climbing and quickly found professional success in the sport. As a professional rock climber he was ranked in the top 10 in sport climbing.[2] He has scaled alpine cliffs in France, underwater caves in Kentucky[2] and the limestone towers of Yangshuo, China.[2][15][16]

Keller has experience founding companies and raising capital. Zipline International is Keller's third venture. Previously, he founded JobSpice with Dane Hurtubise and Andrew McCollum. JobSpice went through the business accelerator Y Combinator in the fall of 2009.[17] Rinaudo worked with his co-founders and grew JobSpice organically to 30,000 users and signed contracts with major universities to provide JobSpice to over 600,000 college students in the fall of 2010.

Keller holds over 9 patents.[18][19]

Romotive

In 2011, Keller founded Romotive, an iPhone-controlled toy robot.[20] Keller sold the first version through Kickstarter.[20] Romotive morphed into Zipline in 2014 when Keller realized that the competition was not other toys but Minecraft and phone apps.[21] "If we’d compared ourselves to true competition-- competition for a 12-year-old’s time-- this is not a battle that robotics was going to win."[21]

Romotive proved that the company could build things fast and ship product which is rare for a hardware startup.[21]

Zipline

Keller is the CEO and Co-founder of Zipline, an American medical product delivery company headquartered in South San Francisco, California, that designs, builds, and operates drone aircraft. The company operates distribution centers in Rwanda and Ghana. The company began drone deliveries in Rwanda in 2016 and primarily delivers blood. In addition to whole blood, the drones deliver platelets, frozen plasma and cryoprecipitate.[22]

During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the US Federal Aviation Administration approved Zipline for the delivery of medical supplies and personal protective equipment to hospitals in North Carolina. The company also plans to offer deliveries to people's homes.[23]

References
  1. "Keller Rinaudo". www.bloomberg.com. Retrieved 2018-11-04.
  2. Rinaudo, Keller. "Keller Rinaudo". TED. Retrieved 2018-11-04.
  3. Rosen, Jonathan W. (June 8, 2017). "Zipline's Ambitious Medical Drone Delivery in Africa". MIT Technology Review. Retrieved 2018-08-24.
  4. Ezell, Stephen (August 7, 2017). "Zipline Enables Real-time Delivery of Essential Medical Supplies in Rwanda". Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  5. "UPS Foundation supports Ghana's vaccine drone delivery network". May 3, 2019.
  6. Kelland, Kate (April 24, 2019). "Drones to deliver vaccines, blood and drugs across Ghana". Reuters. Retrieved 2019-05-21.
  7. simplebotics (2016-02-08). "Why Romotive shut down". Simplebotics. Retrieved 2018-12-05.
  8. Podcast, Flux (2018-08-19). "16: Keller Rinaudo — Building the Sky Ambulance". Medium. Retrieved 2019-12-01.
  9. "Keller Rinaudo: Co-founder, Zipline". Forbes. Retrieved December 7, 2018.
  10. Tran, Melissa (October 18, 2006). "Hard as a Rock Wall". The Harvard Crimson. Retrieved December 7, 2018.
  11. Burnes, Henry W.; Shimozaki, Kenton K. (September 28, 2017). "Expanded Climbing Wall Reopens at QRAC". The Harvard Crimson. Retrieved December 7, 2018.
  12. "A universal RNAi-based logic evaluator that operates in mammalian cells" (PDF). doi:10.1038/nbt1307. Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  13. Department of Construction Management & Civil Engineering
  14. "Keller Rinaudo - Co-Founder and CEO @ Zipline". Crunchbase. Retrieved 2019-12-01.
  15. "Yangshuo (Moon Hill)". Climbing Away. Retrieved 2018-11-04.
  16. Keller Rinaudo – China Climb 5.14b. Vimeo. Retrieved December 7, 2018.
  17. "JobSpice". Crunchbase. Retrieved 2019-12-01.
  18. "Hollis list of patents". hollis.harvard.edu. Retrieved 2019-12-02.
  19. Rinaudo, Keller. "Patents by Inventor Keller Rinaudo". Justia Patents. Retrieved 2019-12-01.
  20. "Live from the Engadget CES Stage: an interview with Romotive's Keller Rinaudo (update: video embedded)". engadget. Retrieved 16 January 2020.
  21. ""People were questioning my sanity": The improbable comeback of Keller Rinaudo". Pando. Retrieved 16 January 2020.
  22. "Zipline (drone delivery)", Wikipedia, 2019-11-27, retrieved 2019-12-02
  23. "Drones deliver medical supplies and PPE in US". BBC News. 2020-05-27. Retrieved 2020-05-28.
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