Meet the Founder: Support Comes First

When you call ZiiLIF with a question about your scooter, there's a good chance the person helping you troubleshoot isn't reading from a script. It might even be our founder.

That's not a coincidence, it's baked into why this company exists.

From Robotics Lab to Living Room

Long before ZiiLIF built its first folding scooter, Dr. Yuan F. Zheng was already changing what robots could do. He built the first computer-controlled biped walking robot in the United States, a breakthrough that earned him the Presidential Young Investigator Award from President Ronald Reagan.

That's not a small credential. It's the kind of recognition that comes from years of solving problems nobody else had solved yet.

After more than three decades of research pushing robotics forward, Dr. Zheng made a decision that shaped everything ZiiLIF does today: rather than keep that expertise inside a research lab, he wanted to put it directly into people's hands. He founded ZiiROBOT Mobility with a simple, human-centered mission: to bring robotics and AI out of the lab and into people's lives.

Why That Story Matters to You

You're not shopping for a scooter because you care about robotics history. You're shopping because you or someone you love wants to keep going outside, keep visiting family, keep traveling, without a heavy, clunky machine getting in the way.

But the "why" behind a company shows up in the product. ZiiLIF is guided by a mission to create next-generation intelligent mobility products that combine innovation and empathy, with the goal of helping people with mobility challenges hold onto their independence and confidence. That's why the R3B was engineered to fold down to a compact 18.1 inches tall and weigh just 37.5 lbs without the battery — light enough that carrying it isn't the thing standing between you and your day.

Support That Doesn't Disappear After the Sale

A lot of mobility equipment gets sold once and forgotten. ZiiLIF was built differently, on purpose. Because the person who founded this company came from decades of hands-on engineering work, "hands-on" carries into how the business runs day to day, including staying close to technical support instead of outsourcing it and walking away.

If your scooter needs a setting adjusted, a battery question answered, or you're just not sure how a feature works, that's the kind of thing this company was built to handle directly, not bounce you between departments.

The Bigger Picture

ZiiLIF isn't trying to be the biggest scooter company. It's trying to be the one that actually picks up the phone, actually knows the product inside and out, and was founded by someone who has spent his career building things meant to help real people move through the world more easily.

About Dr. Yuan F. Zheng

Professor Yuan F. Zheng received his MS and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical and Computer Engineering at The Ohio State University, in Columbus, Ohio in 1980 and 1984, respectively. His undergraduate degree was received at Tsinghua University, Beijing, China in 1970. From 1984 to 1989, he was with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Clemson University, in Clemson, South Carolina. While at Clemson in 1986 Dr. Zheng invented the first Humanoid (Biped) Robot called CURBi in the U.S. Since August 1989, he has been with The Ohio State University, where he was Winbigler Designated Chair Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Professor Zheng was the Chairman of the Department between 1993 and 2004, and was elected an IEEE Fellow in 1997. Professor Zheng received the Presidential Young Investigator Award from President Ronald Reagan in 1986, and Research Awards three times from the OSU College of Engineering. In 2017 he received the OSU Innovator of the Year Award for inventing a new Speed Reducer for robot joints. From 2004 to 2008, Professor Zheng served, on a part-time basis, as Dean of School of Electronic, Information, and Electrical Engineering at the Shanghai Jiao Tong University in Shanghai, China. He became faculty emeritus in 2017 and has continued his R&D activities by founding a startup to commercialize research results generated in laboratories.

Have questions about whether the R3B fits your specific travel plans, or are you a dealer interested in carrying ZiiLIF products? Call or email our Partner Support Manager directly:

📞 (888) 528-7898 — Monday–Friday, 9am–6pm Eastern ✉️ ben@ziirobot.com 🌐 www.ziirobot.com

About the author Ben Congrove is the Partner Support Manager at ZiiROBOT Mobility, where he works directly with customers and dealers on everything from setup questions to travel logistics for the ZiiLIF product line.