Rowan Smith

I want to be known for leading innovation so that I can deliver assistive technologies that positively impact lives.

About

Position: Founder
Expertise: Robotic Engineering Proudest Achievement: Finalist of Young Achiever of the Year - Innovation 2019 Favourite Entrepeneur: Casey Neistat
Education: University of Technology Sydney

improving lives through technology

As an engineer I will invent and design a future that allows billions of people to leverage technology to improve their quality of life. My first venture enables me to work towards this vision by building technology for those living with disabilities.
Inspired by helping my 94-year-old grandmother through her stroke rehabilitation I wanted to improve the rehabilitation process for patients and therapists. I started Tech Gym in 2018 to enable stroke survivors to return home with higher levels of independence. Every day I meet with people, like my grandmother, who will be positively impacted by using my technology. Knowing that I can improve even one person’s life motivates me to pursue this dream.

Highlights

  • UTS Startup of the Year 2019
  • IBISWorld 3P's Innovation Winner 2019
  • Finalist of Young Achiever of the Year 2019

Founding Tech Gym

Career Portfolio

2007 - 2014
The Early Entrepreneur
I created my first job when I was 12 years old. I grew up along the Hawkesbury River and many of houses in my street were weekend properties. The neighbours would always complain about how poor a job their grounds keeper did so I put my hand up and took over the role. I managed 2 properities for 7 years. It wasn't glamorous cutting grass and washing bins but it taught me from an early age that hard work pays off and that it will set you ahead in life.
2012 - 2013
Frisbee Shooting Robots
The need to understand how a car was powered, how a solar battery was charged, how the Opera House was built is what drove me to pursue engineering. To this though I needed to find a school to teach me. St Mary's Senior High School - the only school within 1.5 hours that offered Engineering Studies. I was 16 when I decided that I wanted to pursue engineering and build robots for a career. In my final year of high school I built a frisbee shooting robot to compete in a NSW wide competition.
January 20, 2019
Fast Cars, Travelling and The Defense Industry - Becoming an Engineer
The first opportunity was in 2016 when I started my first engineering internship with the BMW Group. I worked as a quality management engineer and project steerer at MINI Plant Oxford in the United Kingdom. This was one of the most important times of my life as it not only showed me what kind of engineer, I want to be but who I want to be as person. Living overseas for 10 months required huge adjustments to my life and developed my skills as an independent person. Upon completion of this internship I returned to UTS to continue my studies until my second internship would commence.
In 2018 I begun my second internship with Thales as an aviation engineering intern. My experience at Thales as vastly different to BMW. At BMW I had almost full autonomy over how and when I completed my work complemented with an extroverted work culture. My experience at Thales met the typical engineering stereotype, dark rooms, introverted colleagues and lots of sitting at your computer getting work done. Needless to say I was falling asleep at my desk and waiting to leave to work on my hobbies and interests instead. I quickly learnt from this that it doesn’t matter how well known the name is, it doesn’t mean that the experience will be as special and amazing.
Simultaneous to working at Thales I had begun work on my startup company and was preparing to compete with my co-founder, Nisha Thirumurugan, at the Virginia Tech Global Entrepreneur’s Challenge. Tech Gym was in its early stages and barely any prototyping or customer research had been done, but my gut had started to detect that this idea has the potential for global impact.
February 5, 2019
Pitching My First Business - VT Global Entrepreneur's Challenge
The Virginia Tech Global Entrepreneur’s Challenge brings together 14 startup companies from universities around the world. I had quickly found myself in the United States with 30 of the most inspirational student leaders and innovators. In essence I had found ‘my people’ and it was like no other moment in my life. I quickly bonded and made relationships that felt like I had already known them for years. After spending a very intimate and intense week traveling the east coast with the US I found myself inspired. Inspired to take a risk, a risk that a week before I had not ever considered – I quit a very safe and reliable job with a fortune 500 company.
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608 Harris St, Ultimo NSW 2007
Contact Us
Email: hello@techgym.com.au