Mentors

Abhinav Gautam

Abhinav Gautam is an entrepreneur with over 10 years experience of running and mentoring startups in Africa, Asia, and the Americas. He has mentored over dozens of entrepreneurs in the USA, India, and Rwanda. He has designed and facilitated business training to over 500 entrepreneurs across the world. Most recently he led the pitching and customer persona workshops in an Entrepreneurship Bootcamp targeted to Indian High School students. 
He loves working with early-stage startups by helping them to grow beyond the idea stage into a scaleable, growth stage. He is passionate about applying tech-based solutions to make a positive impact on people’s lives, which led to him co-founding his current startup, FreshBox. FreshBox Rwanda is reducing post-harvest losses with an on-demand produce aggregating and delivery system for fresh produce.

Evan Robinson

Evan is an inventor, serial entrepreneur and conscious human, interested in working on the world's biggest problems. His tools are scientific and technological in nature. He is a self-taught computer programmer with over 25 years of experience in building digital tools, apps, games, websites and software. He has been building (and taking apart) electronic devices and circuitry since childhood. He has a Masters degree in Biochemistry and Biotechnology. Passionate about entrepreneurship, Evan started his first business at age 16, has started four businesses to date and exited three.

Simon Stockley

Simon is a Senior Executive with over 30 years experience in Financial Services.
Simon was the first CEO for South African Home Loans (SAHL), South Africa’s first discount home loan specialist and non-bank mortgage lender. 
Simon has received numerous awards in recognition of his management & marketing expertise. 
They include The Institute of Marketing Managers’ KwaZulu-Natal Marketing Man of the Year Award, The British Airways/Natal Mercury Business Excellence Award.
In addition to Simon’s executive responsibilities, he has acted as Non-executive Chairman of Ghana Home Loans, a specialist mortgage finance company in Ghana, and Deputy Chairman of Diamond Mortgages in Nigeria.

Ariel Sumeruk

Ariel is a Digital Market Specialist. He leads Conversion Science – an agency that specialises in Google AdWords, Facebook PPC, You Tube PPC, Conversion Optimisation and Paid Media Strategy, and Google Analytics.
His name is synonymous with multiple SEM achievements:
Ariel was Google’s Regional Trainer for South Africa
He has been a guest speaker at SES and the Search Marketing Expo Conference Series (featured in the USA, UK, South East Asia and Major Asia
Ariel was a judge for “Bookmarks”
Previous Managing Director of the largest PPC Agency in South Africa.

Camilla Swart

My career has spanned across roles in government, civil society and corporate. I have had a keen interest in innovation and enjoy bringing together local and global stakeholders to deliver on strategic goals. I have a background in Social Innovation and I am a systems thinker, drawing on human-centred design thinking. I am passionate about innovation, entrepreneurship and technology and particularly the transformative role it can play in Africa. Growing a community for start-ups and helping them scale, in partnership with investors and the bank, is my current focus and I love it!