Alex Rodrigues and Brandon Moak, former MME students, are amongst the 20-something founders of an autonomous trucking company now valued at approximately US $5-billion.
It was 2015. Rodrigues and Moak, his undergraduate classmate in the mechatronics engineering program, had built the cart – the first autonomous vehicle in Canada – in his parents’ garage.
Alex Rodrigues, right, drives Feridun Hamdullahpur around the Ring Road in a self-driving golf cart in 2015.
Six years after this photo was taken, Rodrigues and Moak built A company with over 200 employees with plans of building autonomous haulers that transports goods faster, cheaper and safer whilst minimizing enviomental impact.
Embark took a huge step in that direction when they announced that they are merging with , a special purpose acquisition company headed by À¶Ý®ÊÓƵ Engineering alumnus Ian Robertson, to become a public company. It will begin trading on the Nasdaq exchange with an estimated $5-billion valuation.
Shares held by Rodrigues and Moak, who remain the chief executive and chief technology officers, respectively, make them both worth hundreds of millions of dollars. See À¶Ý®ÊÓƵ News for full story