Wingcopter awarded as a Technology Pioneer by the World Economic Forum

Wing­copter has been select­ed out of hun­dreds of can­di­dates as one of the World Eco­nom­ic Forum’s lat­est ‘Tech­nol­o­gy Pio­neers’.

Fol­low­ing its selec­tion, Tom Plüm­mer, Co-founder & CEO of Wing­copter, will be invit­ed to par­tic­i­pate at World Eco­nom­ic Forum activ­i­ties, events and dis­cus­sions through­out the year. Wing­copter will also con­tribute to forum ini­tia­tives over the next two years, work­ing with pol­i­cy­mak­ers and pri­vate sec­tor lead­ers to help define the glob­al agen­da on key issues.

“Being acknowl­edged as a Tech­nol­o­gy Pio­neer by the World Eco­nom­ic Forum, one of the world’s most influ­en­tial insti­tu­tions, is an immense hon­our for us. It recog­nis­es that our tech­nol­o­gy is already dis­rupt­ing tra­di­tion­al indus­tries and at the same time has the pow­er to improve the lives of mil­lions of peo­ple”, he said.

“It also proves that you can focus on hav­ing a pos­i­tive social impact while still being com­mer­cial­ly suc­cess­ful. We look for­ward to a fruit­ful exchange with the Forum’s mem­bers and the oth­er Tech Pio­neers to joint­ly address some of the world’s biggest chal­lenges.”

Tech­nol­o­gy Pio­neers have been select­ed based on the community’s selec­tion cri­te­ria, which include inno­va­tion, impact and lead­er­ship as well as the company’s rel­e­vance with the World Eco­nom­ic Forum’s Plat­forms.

Those select­ed as a Tech­nol­o­gy Pio­neer are ear­ly to growth-stage com­pa­nies from around the world that are involved in the design, devel­op­ment and deploy­ment of new tech­nolo­gies and inno­va­tions, and are poised to have a sig­nif­i­cant impact on busi­ness and soci­ety. 

2020 Tech Pio­neer firms are shap­ing the future by advanc­ing tech­nolo­gies such as AI, IoT, robot­ics, blockchain, biotech­nol­o­gy and many more. The diver­si­ty of these com­pa­nies extends to their lead­er­ship as well, as over 25 per cent of 2020 Tech Pio­neers are female-led. The firms also come from regions all around the world, extend­ing their com­mu­ni­ty far beyond Sil­i­con Val­ley.

This year’s cohort selec­tion marks the 20^th anniver­sary of the Tech Pio­neers com­mu­ni­ty. Dur­ing this time, many Tech­nol­o­gy Pio­neers have con­tin­u­ous­ly con­tributed to advance­ment in their indus­tries while some have even gone on to become house­hold names. Past recip­i­ents include Airbnb, Google, Kick­starter, Mozil­la, Palan­tir Tech­nolo­gies, Spo­ti­fy, Trans­fer­Wise, Twit­ter and Wiki­me­dia.

“We’re excit­ed to wel­come Wing­copter to our 20^th cohort of Tech­nol­o­gy Pio­neers,” says Susan Nes­bitt, Head of the Glob­al Inno­va­tors Com­mu­ni­ty, World Eco­nom­ic Forum. “Wing­copter and its fel­low pio­neers are devel­op­ing cut­ting edge tech­nolo­gies all over the world. Beyond their inno­va­tions, these firms are con­tribut­ing great­ly to improv­ing the state of the world.”

Ded­i­cat­ed to improv­ing the lives of peo­ple world­wide, Wing­copter has been engaged in numer­ous drone deliv­ery projects – from com­mer­cial, long-range fac­to­ry-to-fac­to­ry deliv­er­ies in Ger­many, to life-sav­ing human­i­tar­i­an projects and emer­gency med­ical sup­ply in var­i­ous coun­tries around the world.

On the South Pacif­ic of Van­u­atu, the start-up set up a drone-based on-demand sup­ply net­work, deliv­er­ing vac­cines for chil­dren with­in min­utes to 19 remote health clin­ics on behalf of the local Min­istry of Health and sup­port­ed by UNICEF.

In Tan­za­nia and Malawi, Wing­copter was able to prove that drone deliv­ery can short­en patients’ wait­ing times, espe­cial­ly for urgent­ly need­ed med­i­cines, from sev­er­al hours or even days to a few min­utes.

And recent­ly, the com­pa­ny suc­cess­ful­ly com­plet­ed a COVID-19 response tri­al togeth­er with Sky­ports and Thales on behalf of the NHS Scot­land to pro­vide the Isle of Mull with faster Covid-19 test­ing by trans­port­ing test kits and sam­ples back and forth from the main­land.

The core inno­va­tion behind the company’s high­ly effi­cient elec­tric deliv­ery drones is the patent­ed tilt-rotor mech­a­nism, which enables a seam­less tran­si­tion between two drone modes with­in sec­onds: mul­ti­copter for ver­ti­cal take-off and land­ing and fixed-wing for fast and qui­et long-range for­ward flight. Thanks to a pro­pri­etary winch mech­a­nism the drones can safe­ly and accu­rate­ly low­er the car­go at the point of des­ti­na­tion with­out the need for any land­ing infra­struc­ture.

All info on this year’s Tech­nol­o­gy Pio­neers can be found at http://wef.ch/techpioneers20