Pearcey NSW Awards

New South Wales Technology Entrepreneur of the Year




2025 NSW Award

The 2025 NSW Pearcey Entrepreneur of the Year Award recipient is "robot nerd turned drone lover turned CEO/cofounder" (in his words) Rory San Miguel. The award was presented at a special Pearcey Foundation event on Tuesday 14 October in Sydney by Emma Weston, the 2023 NSW award recipient.

Rory San Miguel is CEO and cofounder of Propeller Aero, which is revolutionising site surveying in construction and mining through drone-enabled analytics. Propeller’s integrated platform, which combines drone imagery with ground control technology and cloud-based analysis, allows teams to measure, model and manage worksite progress with unprecedented ease.

A Mechatronics, Robotics and Engineering Graduate from UNSW in Sydney, Rory co-founded Propeller in 2014 to revolutionise site surveying in construction and mining through drone-enabled analytics. Propeller’s integrated platform, which combines drone imagery with ground control technology and cloud-based analysis, allows teams to measure, model and manage worksite progress with unprecedented ease. Under Rory’s leadership, Propeller has grown into a global business with operations in Australia and the US, and partnerships with DJI and Trimble. His work has brought enterprise-grade geospatial insights to industrial sectors, enabling more efficient and safer worksites.

(L-R): 2025 winner Rory San Miguel, 2023 winner Emma Weston,
Wayne Fitzsimmons (Chair, Pearcey Foundation)

Propeller now has more than 300 employees globally, and has raised over US$35m from investors including Blackbird, Costanoa Ventures, Aware Super, Canva co-founder Cliff Obrecht, and Aconex co-founder Leigh Jasper’s fund Saniel Ventures.

As the NSW Pearcey Award recipient, Rory will represent the State in the Pearcey National Awards to be held in November.

Benjamin Chong, partner at Right Click Capital and chair of the NSW Pearcey judging committee, commented,

At the Pearcey Foundation we love to see Australian entrepreneurs forging ahead in new and emerging technology fields and taking that success globally. Rory is the perfect example of this, applying drone technology with Propeller to solve intractable problems and create greater efficiencies across a range of industries in innovative and revolutionary ways.

Other finalists for the 2025 award were: Michael De Nil, Morse Micro; David Doral, Dovetail Electric Aviation; Steve Frisken, Cylite (also a winner in 2011); Cate Hull, FreightExchange; and Richard Kimber, Daisee. All finalists will be entered into the NSW Pearcey Hall of Fame.

Rory was also a winner of a prior University Pitching competition, a time-honored highlight at the Pearcey NSW Entrepeneur Awards nights. This year saw pitches from UNSW, Sydney University , Macquarie University, University of Newcastle, and Western Sydney University, with first place going to Sydney University's The Extra Terrestrials, second place to UNSW's What's On and third place to University of Newcastle's Joborra.


Thank you to our 2025 sponsors

We couldn't run this event without our loyal sponsors. If you would like to sponsor future events, please get in touch. To learn more, select an organisation, below.


Platinum Sponsor

Macquarie Government's cybersecurity services give government IT and Security teams unprecedented visibility and protection from the threats faced by their agencies right now. Our threat intelligence is compiled through monitoring 42% of Australian Government internet traffic activity and ingesting over 30 threat intelligence feeds. Cybersecurity can be delivered as a fully managed service or operated alongside your team.

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Platinum Sponsor

The Next Generation’s is the family foundation of Nick and Gabi Molnar with a mission to expand the change-making influence of visionary humans. It funds organisations with leaders who are thinking about future generations and the big issues that are facing Australia now and into the future with a focus on intergenerational leadership. The Next Generation aims to do, to innovate, to be curious and sometimes rebellious.

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Silver Sponsor


The Australian Computer Society (ACS) is the professional association for Australia’s tech sector, supporting ICT professionals at every stage of their career journey. Simply put, they exist to build capacity, capability and act as a catalyst for innovation within the ICT sector. Join an unrivalled ICT member network that’s growing every day – from ICT students and educators, through to CIOs of leading Australian corporations, to tech startup teams.


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Award Nominations

The Pearcey NSW Entrepreneur Award is presented to an outstanding individual who has "taken a risk, made a difference and is an inspiration to others" in the NSW ICT industry.

The process draws on nominations from the public and the Pearcey Foundation network. Selection is made in consultation with past award recipients to ensure the continued integrity and quality of this peer based recognition.
View Criteria View Criteria 

Previous Pearcey NSW Awards

Nov 6, 2024

2024 NSW Award

At a special Pearcey Foundation awards night in Sydney on Thursday 7 November 2024, Prof Michael J. Biercuk PhD, CEO and founder of Q-CTRL, was announced as the recipient of the 2024 NSW Pearcey Entrepreneur of the Year Award.  Professor Biercuk is a global science and technology innovator building the greenfield quantum technology industry.

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Oct 4, 2023

2023 NSW Award

The 2023 Pearcey Entrepreneur of the Year award for NSW was presented to Emma Weston, co-founder and CEO of AgriDigital, on 4 October at ASX. The award was presented by Wayne Fitzsimmons, OAM. Under Emma's leadership, AgriDigital has become a pioneering force in digitalising global agricultural supply chains, connecting farmers directly to consumers.

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Oct 31, 2022

2022 NSW Award

The 2022 NSW Pearcey Entrepreneur of the Year award was presented to Dr. Mark Englund of FiberSense, by David Thodey, AO, on October 31 at the Sydney Startup Hub. Founded in 2015, FiberSense provides SONAR like sensing capabilities over optical fiber telecoms cables, providing awareness of objects and events near the fibre cable infrastructure. The service is being taken up by the world’s most valuable companies including Amazon, Google and Meta..

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Oct 14, 2021

2021 NSW Award

The NSW Entrepreneur of the Year was awarded to brother and sister team Jordan O'Reilly and Laura O'Reilly OAM. The presentation was held online on October 14, as part of Spark Festival. Jordan and Laura have cofounded both not-for-profit and profit-for-purpose businesses helping people with disabilities and their families manage their needs and support services. Over the last ten years, they have helped hundreds of thousands of people and proven that for-purpose business can have significant social impact.

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Oct 13, 2020

2020 NSW Award

In a widely attended Pearcey virtual event, Jamila Gordon received the 2020 NSW Pearcey Entrepreneur of the Year Award. Jamila is the CEO and founder of Lumachain, a technology platform using AI, IoT and blockchain to bring transparency to global supply chains, benefitting producers, enterprises and consumers. Jamila was presented with her award by 2014 Pearcey Medallist and inaugural Ada Lovelace Medallist Professor Mary O'Kane.

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Oct 10, 2019

2019 NSW Award

The 2019 NSW ICT Entrepreneur of the Year award was presented to Ashik Ahmed, co-founder, CTO and CEO of Deputy. The award was presented at a special Pearcey Awards event at the NSW Startup Hub on 10 October 2019.

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