Meet the Surrey man who created the Academy of Robotics to build futuristic inventions – Surrey Live

Driverless cars are already a reality in some countries and their regular use on the UK's roads is on the horizon.

But William Sachiti, a self-described "serial entrepreneur", has jumped one step ahead and created Europe's first street-legal self-driving vehicle which is already being used to trial deliveries of goods to households, including in Surrey.

His Kar-Go invention has been used in his home town of Banstead as part of its trials which have also taken part over the Surrey/London border in Hounslow.

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While he's created and sold several projects, he's currently focusing on the future of automation.

"After I sold my last company I thought I could do pretty much anything," he said. "All of the money was going towards these Silicon Valley type apps that don't really change anything positively in the world."

For Mr Sachiti, creating with a positive purpose is an important factor.

"I would say making the world a better place is what motivates me," he said. "Because if we want a utopian future we have to create it."

One of his many projects has made steps towards this future, by transforming trees in Africa to hubs of educational content through AI software. "As someone that grew up in Africa I saw that the difference between me and the children there is education," he said.

Mr Sachiti designed micro-computers that could be implanted into the trees to produce wifi, and made this technology open source so that anybody can create and replicate it for free, opening up the world of information to people who wouldn't otherwise have access.

"I thought someone needs to rebalance this and I'll take a step that will hopefully inspire more people to run with it," he said. "Later in my career I'd like to focus on rebalancing that."

Mr Sachiti had already gained the equivalent of a degree by the age of 16 in Zimbabwe before moving to the UK, but believing that the world needed automation is what prompted him to go back to university at the age of 31 to study Artificial Intelligence and Robotics at Aberystwyth University. It was here that he invented the world's first AI robot librarian, called Hugh.

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In 2016, the university gave him 10,000 which he used to start the Academy of Robotics.

"I started the Academy of Robotics in 2017, robotics and automation were sort of new at the time."

Mr Sachiti had started to consider solving the 'last mile' problem in logistics at university, which looks at the massive costs involved in delivering items to their final addresses. He initially thought that the solution was drone technology, but found the user experience to be terrible.

"The biggest problem in the online industry is simply that 'last mile' of moving something from that local depot to your house," he explained. This is what inspired Mr Sachiti to invent the Kar-Go autonomous delivery system which he believes solves this issue.

"At the moment deliveries are on average 7 per delivery with drivers doing up to 50 deliveries a day, so ]it's costing] hundreds of pounds a day," he explained. "We can do the same job for less than 1 a day. The cost has gone completely because you're only paying for the cost of electricity, that's what automation does."

When Mr Sachiti first started trialling driverless deliveries in the UK, it was for sending prescription medicines to care homes in Hounslow.

"It was not to represent some corporation or about capitalism," he said. "But it was just hopefully changing the world one step at a time and using our technology to solve actual problems."

This technology is now being used to help Banstead boutique Something Special offer driverless deliveries, making it one of the first stores in the UK to do so.

The Kar-Go completely forgoes the cost of petrol, insurance, road tax and the cost of the driver. It's what Sachiti describes as "optimal efficiency".

While electric vehicles prove most cost-efficient, the green aspect is hugely important for Mr Sachiti. He said: "I'm a bit of a self-professed hippie so I'm all for green vehicles. I believe in the principles of 'leave no trace in the environment' when you do something."

While artificial intelligence appears to be the inevitable future, Mr Sachiti worries about what this could mean ethically.

"The thing that keeps me up at night is the possibility that we create a really advanced artificial intelligence that is even a tiny bit sentient, and even just 1% unhappy," he explained. "Does this mean that we've made a being that suffers, or that we've made a hell and then populated it? Where is the line?"

Though the concept is akin to a Black Mirror episode, Mr Sachiti is keen to monitor the issue. "I love AI and I do think it's the future, but I also think we have to be careful," he said. "Maybe one day I'll be an activist representing the rights of 'the differently sentient'."

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Meet the Surrey man who created the Academy of Robotics to build futuristic inventions - Surrey Live