11 Jun 2015
Outstanding MIT enterprise award for inbound placement studen
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology business plan competition has awarded Eddie Obropta and his team $100k for their invention, RaptorMaps.
Eddie spent a summer working at the Sports Technology Institute at Loughborough University, and with Progressive Sports. He was one of just 15 MIT graduates to have participated in the Loughborough exchange to work on projects on campus.
The prize-winning development, RaptorMaps builds, and operates unmanned aircraft to provide crop analytics to agribusiness clients. One third of crops planted in the world are destroyed by diseases, insects, and weeds. RaptorMaps spots these troubled plants and enables focused pesticide application, increasing crop yields while reducing environmental impact.
MIT are one of the world’s leading Universities, ranked 6th in the World University Rankings. The MIT $100K is widely regarded as the premier business plan competition in the US, with many of the winning teams going on to become global business success stories.
Speaking about the ongoing collaborations and positive working relationships which are building apace between Loughborough University and MIT, Pro Vice Chancellor Enterprise Steve Rothberg said: “We are delighted to hear of Eddie’s success – it is an ingenious invention, and a scale of achievement that should inspire all of us”.