Hummingbird Drones
Just over a year ago, two TRU students and wildfire fighters had an idea that they felt could change the landscape of the natural resource, agriculture and oil and gas industries. On a whim, Robert Atwood, TRU natural resource science alumnus, and Richard Sullivan, TRU business student, purchased a drone and Hummingbird Drones was developed.
A year later, their brainchild has come to fruition along with a team of three other TRU Alumni to create a company that has the potential to greatly impact wildfire management and the way data is collected.
Atwood and Sullivan with one of the drones.
Hummingbird Drones is an aerial imaging, remote sensing and software development company that does a lot of work with surveying, mapping and data acquisition from the air. The company’s big focus right now is on thermal imaging software.
“We are really excited about the software that we have developed which does inside data analysis to find hot spots,” said Atwood. “We believe this is our competitive advantage. There is similar hardware out there, but our software is unique.”
Although not experts in technology Atwood and Sullivan thought that drones were an innovative and exciting field to get involved in and with their background in wildfire management this was a perfect way to meld their two passions. They had an idea and realized that the software wasn’t available leaving the market wide open for a company like Hummingbird Drones.
They hired TRU computer science alumnus Jay Bell as the lead software developer and have spent the last year developing software and installing cameras onto drones which will be able to do work with mapping, data acquisition and thermal imaging.
Atwood says they owe a lot to TRU and the TRU Generator.
“If it hadn’t been for my time in the natural resource science program I would have never become a wildfire fighter, and if it hadn’t been for the TRU Generator there is no way we would have been able to gain the momentum we did,” said Atwood. “The guidance and mentorship we received from the TRU Generator and Kamloops Innovation Centre have enabled us to build our business to what it is today.”
Part of the Hummingbird Drones team.
The Hummingbird Drone team is made up of four TRU Alumni and one TRU student: Robert Atwood -President and CEO, Richard Sullivan – Vice President and CFO, Jay Bell – lead software developer and CTO, Jamie Shippit – GIS technician and Gavin Keusch – software developer.
When putting together the team it wasn’t on purpose that every employee came from TRU but rather a byproduct of the fact the TRU is producing young, technologically savvy alumni with the right skills.
When asked about future plans for the company, Atwood said the sky is the limit.
“This has been such an exciting and rewarding experience, I really love it. Our software has so much potential with data collection and fire suppression activity – the sky is the limit.”
