The race to find the ‘holy grail’ of drone technology

CBC News featured UBC alumnus Alexander Harmsen, CEO and co-founder of Iris Automation.

The company aims to use industrial drones to explore distant mining sites, search for missing people in remote locations and even deliver food.

Harmsen briefly worked at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory before starting Iris Automation with fellow graduate James Howard. This summer, their team won a spot at a Silicon Valley seed accelerator that jump-started companies including Reddit, Dropbox and Airbnb.