Keller Rinaudo: How can delivery drones save lives?

VPM | By Manoush Zomorodi, Sylvie Douglis and Sanaz Meshkinpour

Published October 29, 2021 at 2:26 PM EDT

Updated April 24, 2024

Part 4 of TED Radio Hour episode: Special Delivery

In rural areas, basic health care can be out of reach. Keller Rinaudo founded Zipline, a delivery company that uses drones to deliver necessary medical supplies within hours, even minutes.

About Keller Rinaudo

Keller Rinaudo is the CEO and co-founder of Zipline, a drone delivery company that delivers life-saving medicine to remote places. The company began by focusing on delivering blood for urgent medical situations.

Previously, Rinaudo was also the CEO and a co-founder of Romotive, a former company established in 2011 that made inexpensive small robots that use mobile phones as their computing system, machine vision system, and wireless communication system. In addition to being an entrepreneur, Rinaudo was briefly a professional rock climber and has climbed sites all over the world.

Rinaudo received his bachelors degree in economics and biotechnology from Harvard University.

This segment of TED Radio Hour was produced by Sylvie Douglis and edited by Sanaz Meshkinpour. You can follow us on Facebook @TEDRadioHour and email us at [email protected].

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Manoush Zomorodi

Manoush Zomorodi is the host of TED Radio Hour. She is a journalist, podcaster and media entrepreneur, and her work reflects her passion for investigating how technology and business are transforming humanity.

Zomorodi is a co-founder of Stable Genius Productions and is the co-host and co-creator of ZigZag, the business podcast about being human. She also created, hosted, and was managing editor of the podcast Note to Self in partnership with WNYC Studios, which was named Best Tech Podcast of 2017 by The Academy of Podcasters.

Prior to her time at WNYC, Zomorodi reported and produced around the world for BBC News and Thomson Reuters, including a few years in Berlin.

She was named one of Fast Company's 100 Most Creative People in Business for 2018 and has received numerous awards for her work, including The Gracie for Best Radio Host in 2014 and 2018. Her book "Bored and Brilliant: How Spacing Out Can Unlock Your Most Creative Self" (2017, St. Martin's Press) and her TED Talk are guides to surviving information overload and the "Attention Economy."

Zomorodi received a bachelor's degree from Georgetown University in English and fine arts. She is half-Persian and half-Swiss but was born in New York City, where she lives with her family.

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