William Sachiti


Pasihapaori Chidziva known as Pasi William Sachiti is a Zimbabwean born British serial entrepreneur and inventor. He is founder and CEO of the driverless car manufacturer, Kar-go, which is known for being the UK startup competing with multinational incumbents such as Google and Tesla, Inc.

Biography

Early life

Sachiti was born in Harare, Zimbabwe, where he grew up before moving to the UK at 17.

Business career

At 19, Sachiti started his first start-up 123-registration a domain registration business which was acquired year after its inception. Sachiti first reached the public eye after appearing on the BBC investment programme Dragons' Den, where he was seeking 65K for his company Clever Bins. Clever Bins was a solar powered digital advertising bin which was aimed as an advertising platform for cities. In what was described by the BBC as a slick pitch, but described by Peter Jones as "the biggest load of bull I've ever heard in the Den" Sachiti was unable to raise funding in the den. The company continued to trade for three years during which time it successfully licensed its technology to 6 countries and local governments before closing in 2013.
In 2013, Sachiti founded mycityvenue, a digital concierge and holiday company which grew to approximately 1.6 million users before it was acquired by UK holiday company Secret Escapes.
In 2015 Sachiti went to university at Aberystwyth University in Wales, where he studied artificial intelligence and robotics. While at university he was credited with inventing the world's first artificially intelligent robot librarian, Hugh. The robot was capable of holding a conversation or taking verbal commands and would be able to navigate users to any one of several million books in the library.
While at university, Sachiti and a team of scientists had been working on a way to autonomously deliver packages to try to solve the last mile delivery problem. In 2016, after receiving a £10 000 cheque from Aberystwyth University, Sachiti founded the Academy of Robotics, a vehicle manufacturer company to develop Kar-go. Kar-go is driverless car able to deliver multiple packages by using a combination of advanced robotics and driverless vehicle technology. The company later went to raise more money from venture capital at an initial £2M valuation. Kar-go has been nominated for several awards and has a production facility in Small Dole near Brighton in the UK.
In 2018 William appeared on National Assembly for Wales where he discussed with MP's the state of Self-driving vehicles - Automation and the Welsh Economy. The appearance was part of the Welsh Economy, Infrastructure and Skills Committee which was televised live on the Welsh Senate TV. The BBC later reported that William Sachiti warned AM's that Self-driving vehicles could threaten cars and buses. The company later reported to have closed a funding round in six hours.
July 2019, Sachiti launched Europe's first street-legal self-driving vehicles at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. On July 12, Sachiti was visited by foreign dignitaries, The Zimbabwean Minister of Foreign Affairs Minister Sibusiso Moyo together with Ambassador to the UK H.E. Christian Katsande who inspected to autonomous vehicle in London.
November 2019, Sachiti toured the UK with Kar-go and was pictured demonstrating the vehicle to the UK Transport Secretary Michael Matheson at a Glasgow CAV event and then in London with Mayor of London Sadiq Khan. In late 2019, Sachiti was reported to have traveled to Warsaw, Poland where he gave a lecture to pupils at CXXXVII Liceum Ogólnokształcące z Oddziałami Dwujęzycznymi im Roberta Schumana after which he was awarded the title of Honorary Teacher
In February 2020 Sachiti published an 18 page white-paper titled ‘Trees of Knowledge’. The paper, detailed Sachiti's invention to improve access to education using micro-computing an A.I. assistant and 'clever software' to turn landmarks such as trees growing in the wild Africa into hubs of educational content. The innovation is designed to help play a part in educating some of the 32 million children in Africa who are currently out of education. Sachiti released the invention as an open-source, free-to-develop technology free of patents. The technology allows a tree to broadcast the pre-loaded educational content stored on the micro-computer to allow anyone in the vicinity to have access to the digital store of information using any mobile device. The technology is all then moulded into the landmark or tree using a process called potting to protect it from theft or damage.

Personal life

Sachiti was married in 2009 to his Italian wife. In 2013 he received a lot of press attention after his “jealous wife” hired a private investigator to track his movements. The investigator planted a tracking device underneath Sachiti's £40K sports car. After being pulled over, the flashing device under his car was mistaken for a bomb and led to a bomb scare, shutting down a town and the military being called in. No evidence of a bomb or an affair was found but the story became popular and continued to circulate in tabloids.

Awards and recognition