Around the Net
UPS Partners For Drone Deliveries
- MarketWatch, Tuesday, May 10, 2016 9:05 AM
United Parcel Service Inc. has for decades been the company that delivers packages to your doorstep with its signature brown trucks, but the company has quietly begun expanding into drone delivery. The UPS Foundation announced Monday it has entered into a partnership with drone startup Zipline and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, to deliver blood for transfusions by drone throughout Rwanda. UPS offered an $800,000 grant to kick off the deliveries. While major corporations like Amazon.com Inc. AMZN, +0.71% and Domino’s Pizza Inc. DPZ, +1.86% have theorized about drones delivering shoes and pizza to your doorstep, UPS UPS, +0.21% has quietly been experimenting in the drone industry—and taking the humanitarian approach. UPS last April participated in a study with the American Red Cross on making deliveries to disaster areas. UPS’s Director of Autonomous Systems Jerome Ferguson, whose purview includes everything from delivery messaging to robotic technologies, has expressed a particular interest in drones.
