Driving towards autonomous vehicles – David Keene, CEO, Aurrigo

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5 • 6 Ratings

🗓️ 28 April 2025

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

David Keene, CEO of Aurrigo, discusses how autonomous driving will progress in the UK, how a chance encounter pivoted his company’s entire market and the journey of turning grant funding into an initial public offering.

Aurrigo is an autonomous driving company that specialises in vehicles for the aviation industry, including self-driving baggage carriers. The Coventry-based company was founded in 2017, initially focussed on autonomous passenger vehicles. A call from the head of innovation at International Airlines Group, convinced Keene that the future of Aurrigo’s technology was in supporting aviation. The group listed publicly on London’s AIM market in 2022.

Transcript

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0:00.0	We're not in there to destroy or remove thousands of people.
0:12.0	There aren't enough people actually working in the airport currently to handle the expansion
0:17.0	that most of the airports around the world are seeking to achieve.
0:23.9	So how do you convince relatively conservative stakeholders to make this jump into this new world?
0:32.1	But what you do is you model it and simulate the whole thing.
0:37.2	I think we've probably in the UK got the best position, I think, in the world in terms of
0:44.3	how you bring automated vehicles into society and onto the roads or like we're doing into airports.
0:59.2	From the first time founders to the funds that back them, innovation needs different. Our episode partner, HSBC innovation banking, is proud to accelerate growth for tech
1:06.0	and life science businesses, creating meaningful connections and opening up a world of opportunity for entrepreneurs
1:12.2	and investors alike. Discover more at www.h.hsbc InnovationBanking.com slash EN-GB.
1:26.9	Hello and welcome to the UKTN podcast, a weekly chat with the movers and shakers of the UK
1:33.1	tech industry and the destination for all things UK tech related.
1:37.9	I'm your host, Jane Wakefield, and today I'm joined by David Keane, the CEO of Origo,
1:43.9	a firm which is offering automated tech to the aviation industry.
1:48.0	Welcome, David.
1:49.3	Hi, thanks, Jane. It's great to be on the show.
1:51.5	So let's start off, as we often do on this podcast, by explaining exactly what it is that Origo does.
1:57.3	Yeah, that's a good question and probably will take half an hour, but I'll try and condense it into one minute.
2:05.0	A little bit of background, I started the company 32 years ago, so we're the youngest, oldest company you've never heard of.
2:13.2	Love that description.
2:15.2	Yeah, yeah.
2:15.8	And we originally started in automotive, and we still are in automotive.
	...

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