Prince Alexander of Serbia visits Darwin in Oxfordshire

On 28 February 2024, Darwin was honoured and delighted to welcome Crown Prince Alexander of Serbia to our UK headquarters, six months after our own visit to him at Serbia’s White Palace. The prince and his son Alexander paid a visit to Harwell Science and Innovation Campus in Oxfordshire, where they learnt about the campus and Darwin’s work there.

Prince Alexander has longstanding ties to the UK. He was born in Claridge’s Hotel in London, in what is now called the Prince Alexander Suite, and Queen Elizabeth II was his godmother.

‘HRH Prince Alexander is filming his life story and wants to share how Serbian royals have supported the innovation of scientists of Serbian origins,’ said Daniela Petrovic, co-founder of Darwin. ‘He mentioned Tesla, Mihajlo Pupin, Mileva Marić-Einstein and other giants of Serbian science, so we were deeply honoured to form a small part in his overview of the scientific endeavours of my Serbian countrymen and women.’

At Harwell HQ, we spoke about the history of the campus and Darwin’s role in it. We then paid a visit to the European Space Agency (ESA), where we discussed Darwin and ESA’s past and future collaborative projects, including the Darwin Autonomous Shuttle.

We also discussed the charity Lifeline, which recently celebrated its thirtieth anniversary. Lifeline, which was founded by Prince Alexander’s wife Princess Katherine in 1993, has provided humanitarian aid to the people of Serbia over the last three decades, and Darwin is proud to support its work.

We concluded the visit at the Darwin remote control centre, located at the Satellite Applications Catapult, where Prince Alexander had the opportunity to remotely control the Darwin Autonomous Shuttle itself.

Afterwards, Prince Alexander thanked the Darwin, Harwell and ESA teams for an inspiring visit. It was a pleasure to welcome him, his son and his team, and we’re glad to know he enjoyed the day as well.

Darwin Innovation Group is a UK-based company that provides services related to autonomous vehicles and communications. If you’re interested in working with us, take a look at our careers page. If you’d like to know how we can help your organisation make use of autonomous vehicles, contact us. You can also follow us on LinkedIn or Twitter.