Matthew Sweeny is an Australian-born American aviation and technology entrepreneur and

inventor An invention is a unique or novel device, method, composition, idea or process. An invention may be an improvement upon a machine, product, or process for increasing efficiency or lowering cost. It may also be an entirely new concept. If an id ...

. He is the co-founder and CEO of

Flirtey Flirtey is a Reno, Nevada-based drone delivery company. The company completed the first Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)-approved drone delivery in the United States in 2015, the first FAA-approved urban delivery in March 2016 and the firs ...

, a drone delivery service.

Education

Sweeny earned a bachelor's degree in international relations and philosophy from the

University of Sydney The University of Sydney (USYD), also known as Sydney University, or informally Sydney Uni, is a public university, public research university located in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and is one o ...

. He became interested in

unmanned aerial vehicles An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft without any human pilot, crew, or passengers on board. UAVs are a component of an unmanned aircraft system (UAS), which includes adding a ground-based controlle ...

while studying economics in

Shanghai, China Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flowin ...

on a scholarship and exchange program. He built the prototype delivery drones in his dorm room.

Career

After graduating, Sweeny co-founded

with Ahmed Haider and Tom Bass in 2013, as the first

drone delivery A delivery drone is an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) used to transport packages for use cases that include medical supplies, fresh food, live ammunition, or other goods. Delivery drones are typically autonomous and electric, and operated as a pa ...

service in the world. He moved to the United States in 2014 and based his company in

Reno, Nevada Reno ( ) is a city in the northwest section of the U.S. state of Nevada, along the Nevada-California border, about north from Lake Tahoe, known as "The Biggest Little City in the World". Known for its casino and tourism industry, Reno is the c ...

, because the city was chosen by the

Federal Aviation Administration The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is the largest transportation agency of the U.S. government and regulates all aspects of civil aviation in the country as well as over surrounding international waters. Its powers include air traffic m ...

as one of six test sites for commercial drones. He partnered with the

University of Nevada, Reno The University of Nevada, Reno (Nevada, the University of Nevada, or UNR) is a public land-grant research university in Reno, Nevada. It is the state's flagship public university and primary land grant institution. It was founded on October 12 ...

, established a Flirtey office on campus, and hired graduates from the university’s Unmanned Autonomous Systems program. In 2014, Sweeny submitted evidence to the Internal Market, Infrastructure and Employment Sub-Committee of the House of Lords European Union Committee On The Civilian Use of Drones in the EU. After moving Flirtey to the United States, Sweeny was selected in

Y Combinator Y Combinator (YC) is an American technology startup accelerator launched in March 2005. It has been used to launch more than 3,000 companies, including Airbnb, Coinbase, Cruise, DoorDash, Dropbox, Instacart, Quora, PagerDuty, Reddit, Str ...

’s summer 2015 program. In 2018, Sweeny was included on

CNBC CNBC (formerly Consumer News and Business Channel) is an American basic cable business news channel. It provides business news programming on weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., Eastern Time, while broadcasting talk sh ...

’s Disruptor 50 list.

References

Year of birth missing (living people) Living people University of Sydney alumni Australian emigrants to the United States 21st-century Australian inventors

External links

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