UplinkRobotics LLC, a company designing inspection robotics and drones, has won the John P. Ellbogen $50k Entrepreneurship Competition, earning $30,000 to aid in developing their company further.
The competition took place April 22-23, both in-person and online, via WyoCast. It provides innovative companies and projects in Wyoming to earn funding used to develop their business.
“I was shocked that we won. Not because I didn’t believe in us but because we couldn’t comprehend the amount of money we won. It went from a just out of grasp company to a ‘wow, we can actually do this now,’” senior Zoe Worthen said.
UplinkRobotics currently consists of four UW seniors: Worthen, Oreoluwa Babatunde, Christian Bitzas, and Brady Wagstaff.
“We were so honored when the judges awarded us that money because it showed that they believed in us and that we can do anything when we set our minds to it,” Worthen said.
Worthen is studying business management entrepreneurship and plans to continue working on and developing the UplinkRobotics business after graduation.
“We hope that our product will help home inspectors inspect homes faster, cheaper, and better,” Worthen said. “We also are excited to help the community of Wyoming by providing jobs in STEM and robotics, support high schools and middle schools with robotics club, and help students work and research here at the university.”
UplinkRobotics won the grant by developing a device that will allow people to take closer looks at places like homes and businesses by broadcasting a video feed to tablets for viewing.
“Our product, an inspection rover, has been in prototyping stages since late 2021. It is far from perfect, but we were able to demo our third generation during the Ellbogen $50k Competition. It is currently being upgraded and replaced to make progress on an MVP [Minimum Viable Product] that we hope to launch into real-world testing sometime in Q3 of 2022,” Bitzas said.
“Our hope is for our home inspection rover to ease the jobs of home inspectors throughout the United States. Our rover will help increase the safety and efficiency of crawlspace inspections while improving the quality of life of home inspectors through convenience.”
“Our next step for the company is to use our awarded funds to help bring an MVP to testing stages and turn it into a commercial product in Q4 of 2022. We hope to leverage our commercial product launch to help us bring opportunities and future jobs in the fields of STEM and robotics to the state of Wyoming!”
More information on UplinkRobotics can be found on their website, www.uplinkrobotics.com.
In addition to the grand prize of $30,000 given to UplinkRobotics, Laboratory Inventory Management Systems was awarded $12,000, GigaChar LLC was awarded $5,000, and GS Solar was awarded $3,000.
