Luke Cole

The CEO and CTO of the team is Luke Cole [B.Eng. & B.Tech(IT)]. Luke Cole has a history as the "go to man" for many colleagues, and is well known to have "a knack for making things work". Luke Cole has had extensive experience working with leading autonomous mobile robotics industrial and research organisations such as Hemisphere GPS (formerly BEELINE, and now acquired by AgJunction), NICTA (now called CSIRO Data61), CSIRO ICT Centre, Seeing Machines and the "Robotics Systems Lab" at Research School of Information Sciences and Engineering at the Australian National University (from the age of 16). To learn more about Luke see his LinkedIn page or personal home page.

Luke Cole comes from a family of tech-heads with very humble beginnings in Southern Highlands and Wollongong, NSW. Luke built his first 100% custom robot at age 11, and second mobile robot at age 13. The Cole family crest motto is "Persevere". His grandfathers (both coal miners and war vets) retried to play with tech. Before high school - one of their grandfathers (Ken Clark - RIP) taught him fitting and turning, and the other grandfather (Ken Cole - RIP) taught him electronics (soldering, troubleshooting, PCB rework) and computers (Commodore 64, Amiga 500). Before high school - his father (Shane Cole) let his two sons use nail guns to build a two story cubby house between two trees, and showed them how to draft building plans, and use various power and air tools. Luke was very keen and skilled at mathematics at high school, coming 2nd in 4 unit maths ("Geordie Williamson" came 1st, and went on to be the youngest living Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2018 at age 36). Luke's father has a background in hardware as a brilliant craftsman and automotive mechanic, before completing a Diploma in IT after studying UNIX computer systems. Luke's brother (Lance Cole), has a background of various hardware development, such as working for a contract company to the US military (EOS), building the Common Remotely Operated Weapon Station (CROWS), and robotics research and development at the Research School of Information Sciences and Engineering at the Australian National University. Their mum (Chris Cole) worked very hard to put Luke through good schooling, so that his dreams could come true. Their mum also found a newspaper about the Robotics Systems Lab in ACT, and after writting a letter to Alex Zelinsky (AO). Luke (age 16), was invited to the Robotics Systems Lab for an interview to show his skills and experience. Luke was then hired! The rest is history.