San Diego South Bay Entrepreneurs Meetup

CROSS POSTING COOL HW EVENT
Please be sure to also sign up on their eventship event:
https://eventship.com/event/8th-sd-hardware-meetup-downtown-works-mission-valley-hardware-for-defense

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​We're back for another Hardware Meetup!

​This month we're meeting at Downtown Works - Mission Valley! Downtown Works is San Diego's premier co-working experience designed to fuel your startup & entrepreneurial ventures. Check them out here.

​Hardware Meetups happen across over 50 cities around the world every month, helping bring together founders, engineers, and other hardware professionals to networks, share insights, and collaborate with each other.

​Our guest speakers
​Tom Cotton is leading a small product team at Motive Labs (start-up of <10) translating biomechanics research into passive exoskeleton footwear for defense and medical applications, with plans to break into consumer athletics. He coordinates design, prototyping, and manufacturing between in-house teams and international partners to deliver grant-funded innovations. His approach centers on building products collaboratively with end-users, using participant interviews and field research to balance biomechanical performance with real-world manufacturability. When not building shoes or boots, Tom enjoys running, hiking, and golfing around San Diego.
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​Clayton Karmel, founder of Dronekyll, launched the company about a year ago after researching how to give soldiers an effective defense against small drones, then assembled the team to bring the solution to life. A veteran electronics entrepreneur and product builder, he previously ran a successful consulting firm for 26 years delivering everything from bicycle lights and irrigation/moisture controls to heart and muscle monitors, wireless routers, and other commercial devices, and earlier led RF and defense programs at Watkins-Johnson and helped build National Semiconductor’s wireless business line, developing high-performance PLL chips up to 2GHz that achieved major market share across GSM and CDMA. Karmel holds ~27 U.S. patents (with three additional Dronekyll applications in process) and earned a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University and an MBA from Santa Clara University; outside of work he wing-foils, races ILCA/Laser dinghies in Mission Bay, and backcountry skis the Eastern Sierra, and he has lived in California since 1979 (San Diego since 1996).
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Ryan Roberts, CEO of QHR, leads development of mission-critical comms for high-noise environments. QHR blends Qualcomm-enabled hybrid noise control, ML voice detection, and multi-modal connectivity for defense, aviation, and eVTOL teams, refining performance through field-driven iteration with operators and manufacturers. Its headsets also capture and route what users hear to radios, networks, or cameras for recording and review.

Agenda
​5:00-5:30 - Arrival, mingle, grab refreshments
​5:30-6:30 - Welcome and Introductions
​6:30-7:30 - Mix, mingle, and close out the night
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Thank you to our partners
​​​​​informal is a freelance collective for the most talented independent professionals in hardware and hardtech.
​If you want to help support the next meetup, please reach out to nate@informal.cc & nadimameguid@gmail.com for sponsorship/logistics inquiries.