Rod Walker (co-founder of Challenge) passes away

October 11, 2011

It is with great sadness that we must inform friends of the UAV Challenge that Professor Rodney Walker, one of the Challenge’s founders has passed away.

Rod was a respected professor at Queensland University of Technology, the Director of the Australian Research Centre for Aerospace Automation (ARCAA), and a co-founder of the UAV Challenge.

In late 2005, Rod along with CSIRO’s Jon Roberts and George Curran, created the UAV Challenge concept. The first event took place in September 2007 after nearly two years hard work in development. As friends of the Challenge know, there have been highly successful events every year since.

Rod was passionate about the Challenge and loved the idea that this event could inspire young people around the world to take up a serious engineering challenge. Rod’s ultimate goal was to help shape the UAV industry, including regulations, so that unmanned aircraft could be used to deliver urgent medical supplies to the remote parts of Australia. The Challenge was part of that grand plan.

Rod’s passion for everything UAV will be continued and we will strive to make the Challenge even more successful and to one day realise his dream.