Our Hardware Startup Accelerator Program’s Mentors

Here's a lineup of the professionals we work with to transfer highly specific industry knowledge and skills to you.

Once you’ve joined Innovation Drive’s Idea-Stage Hardware Startup Accelerator Program, you will immediately unlock access to the first-hand knowledge and a community of exceptional mentors from various industries, leading you from product idea brainstorming to product design, prototyping to manufacturing, and branding to GoToMarket, including legal related and intellectual property.

“The lone wolf dies, but the pack survives.”

Yet, you are not a lone inventor. Instead, you are with a group of enthusiastic innovators who are passionate about “making sparks” in their everyday lives. They are here with you to deliver a message to every passionate inventor like you that innovative ideas matter to everyone. No more working alone and take one step forward NOW with our 14-week comprehensive training and mentoring pre-seed accelerator program, designed for inventors or hardware startups at ideation stage.

The people with purple colored names were our mentors of the 2021 cohort. The people with black colored names are confirmed mentors for Innovation Drive 2022.

Ahmed Rafiq
Ahmed Rafiq

Founder at DeepDish Engineering

Alejandro Patterson
Alejandro Patterson

Seasoned Venture Builder & Product Manager at IAG

Andrew Day
Andrew Day

Managing Director at New Forge Engineering

Ben Pecotich
Ben Pecotich

Designer & Innovation Coach at Dynamic4. Social Enterprise / Startup Founder

Bojan Smiljanic
Bojan Smiljanic

Freelance Industrial Designer at BojanDesign

Bruno Caetano
Bruno Caetano

Owner at PlugtoChina

Callum Bir
Callum Bir

Chair AI Australia | Global Ventures and Advisory

Chad Renando
Chad Renando

Managing Director at Startup Status

Cheryl Mack
Cheryl Mack

Community @ Stone & Chalk | Startup Mentor & Advisor

Are you that badass mentor who is missing from this list?

Daniel Foh
Daniel FAh

CEO Strategic & The Virangana Project

Dennis Ash
Dennis Ash

Serial entrepreneur, mentor, educator, consultant and AI practitioner

Emma Shen
Emma Shen

Senior Associate at Shanghai BNLS Law Firm

Enora Rogers
Enora Rogers

3D Process Advisor & Regulatory

Filip Kuttner
Filip Kuttner

Sales Director at
Dassault Systèmes

Is this you?
Is this you?

We are still looking for some mentors!

Firas Khalifeh
Firas Khalifeh

CEO / CTO at Carbon Mobile

George Lin 林洲志 (Joris)
George LAM 林洲志 (Joris)

Founder at Yang Gao Crowdfunding Consultancy

Greg Fisher
Greg Fisher

Founder/CEO at Berkeley Sourcing Group | Hardware Massive | Hardware Con

Igbal Syre
Igbal Syre

QA & Regulatory Advisor

Jelena Lucic
Jelena Lucic

Founder & CEO at Innovate Voronoi | Consulting in sustainability and innovation

Jennifer Beverly Grant
Jennifer Beverly Grant

Marketing Manager at HAIZOL

Jill Storey
Jill Storey

CEO ReadyFundGo I Non-Executive Director I Strategy, Innovation, Sustainability, Digital Disruption, CSR

Kons Chatziioannou
Kons Chatziioannou

Founder – Managing Director at Ye Consultants | Content2Sell

Leo Xiao
Leo Xiao

General Director at Shenzhen Lexcent Technology

Are you ready to turn your product ideas into reality?

Matt Wills

Floob Creative Ltd. Founder | Brand Mascot Creator | Consumer Products Specialist

Nick Aldewereld
Nick aldewereld

Owner at Aldewereld Consultancy

Omar Najjar
omar najjar

Co-Founder at Innovation Drive | Co-Director at Sydney Hardware Incubator

Stella Xu
Stella Xu

Deep tech investing at Main Sequence Ventures

Ted Esdaile-Watts
Ted Esdaile-Watts

Innovator at techcreators

Trevor Prentice
Trevor prentice

Founder at The IP Link

Tony McAuslan
Tony McAuslan

Co-Founder Innovation Drive Queensland

Vaggelis Monogyios
Vaggelis Monogyios

Owner and General Manager at boutique OEM manufacturer MicroChina

Vitaly Stockman
Vitaly Stockman (維塔利)

Co-Founder and CEO at DeskMe, Vice President at DataPartner

Wojciech Wawrzyniak
Wojciech Wawrzyniak

Seasoned Industrial Designer, 3D Printing Applications Engineer & Technical Sales Specialist at Konica Minolta Australia

Is this you?
IS THIS YOU?

We are still looking for some mentors!

Zara Crichton
Zara Crichton

Executive Director at Venture Café Sydney

Still have questions about our global hardware startup accelerator program?

>