Our network of industry experts lies at the heart of Idea Lab. With industry specialists in energy, health, clean tech, WASH, and agriculture from over 40 countries. In addition to drawing from ASMEs pool of engineers, Idea lab mentors have experience in Human Centered Design, Industrial Design, Business Development, and Marketing.

Each term, the class of innovators will be introduced to two new mentors that will work with them over the six month term. Mentors oversee innovator progress and guide them along their path of development. After an initial assessment that establishes their strengths and weaknesses, both as a team and a concept/solution, innovators are assigned tasks (research activities, training/instruction, information to review, iterations to develop) that will move them in the right direction.

Mentors conduct one assessment (benchmarking) and three milestone reviews (progress checks) during their tenure. In between these scheduled events, they will be passed along questions from time to time to provide feedback on. This may be pointing the team to a specific resource or identifying from our catalogue of advisors, who the innovator should approach for more information on a topic.

Mentors make critical contributions to the catalogue of Idea Lab resources. Mentors are asked to host one presentation/workshop regarding a subject matter of their choosing. Our expert produced content is intended to fill instructional gaps that we've/they've identified in the curriculum and should sit at the intersection of Product Design & Global Development.

Mentors

Ryan Vinyard
Ryan Vinyard
Hardware Startup Consultant
- Vinyard Product Development

Ryan designs stable and scalable frameworks for growing hardware startups, aligning both the product and business strategies. Integrating with your team, he can effectively communicate across roles and disciplines, from the concrete engineering details to pitch decks. His expertise is in hardware product development, manufacturing, project management, process creation and flow, and strategic development.

Charlie Sellers
Charlie Sellers
Materials Science and Tech Development Specialist
- Catapult Design

Charlie has a background in advanced materials development, spending 10 years at a US Department of Energy laboratory and 10+ years in industry working at international manufacturing operations, including two years in China operating rare earth magnet factories.  He is adept at troubleshooting problems and bringing new products to market in both high tech and developing world arenas.  

Anurupa Rao
Anurupa Rao
Product Design Technical Lead Manager
- Google

An ISHOW Bootcamp expert since 2018, Anu is a mechanical engineering leader with over 15 years of experience in designing and manufacturing products from robots and echos to low cost water storage solutions.  She is passionate about social innovation and promoting diversity in engineering and has been an industry coach and mentor in organizations such as the Stanford d.school, Engineers without Borders, Greene Scholars Program, etc.