Frank Wang-tao
While growing up in Hangzhou, drone billionaire Frank Wang Tao dreamed of making a helicopter that could follow him. He studied electronic engineering at Hong Kong University of Science & Technology where he and his team built a helicopter flight-control system in his senior year. He proceeded to build prototypes of flight controllers out of his dorm room until 2006 when he and two friends set up DJI (Daijing Innovation Technology Co) in a three-bedroom apartment in Shenzhen, with Tao using leftover scholarship money to fund his dream. DJI now accounts for 70% of the consumer drone market, selling over 400,000 units last year. His four-propellered Phantom 3 drone takes sweeping footage with its high-quality 4k onboard video camera and has been used by farmers, relief workers and enthusiasts across the globe to capture live footage of the earth from a bird’s eye view.
