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.
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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.
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.
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..
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.
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.
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.
