1st London Hardware Meetup @ Blue Garage | Wearables and Smart Textiles
The Hardware Meetup community is excited to kickoff London's first event featuring our flagship format: talks from local founders. We’ll be meeting at BLUE GARAGE and hear from founders and hardware professionals working in wearables and smart textiles.
Hardware Meetups happen in over 30 cities around the world, helping bring together founders, engineers, and other hardware professionals to networks, share insights, and collaborate with one another.
Agenda
6:30-7:00 - Arrival, mingle, grab refreshments
7:00-7:10 - Welcome and introduction
7:10-7:30 - Guest speaker #1 with audience Q+A
7:30-7:50 - Guest speaker #2 with audience Q+A
7:50-8:10 - Guest speaker #3 with audience Q+A
8:10-8:30p - Community open mic
Anyone will have the chance for a 2min pitch to demo a prototype or talk about what they are working on.
8:30-9:30p - Mix + mingle
Speakers
Michael Korn is the co‑founder of BLUE GARAGE, an innovation centre and makerspace in Southeast London designed to support hardware startups, designers, and makers with fully‑equipped workshops and private offices . He previously founded KwickScreen, a healthcare hardware venture that began as a university project and now serves NHS trusts and U.S. hospitals. With a background in industrial design and engineering, he combines hands‑on manufacturing insight with a vision to provide the tools and space early‑stage hardware founders need to thrive.
Thunder Zhang, CEO and Co-Founder of NexPCB, is a serial entrepreneur spanning the US and China. He co-founded startup community cafés and maker spaces as well while pursuing a Master’s in Embedded Systems from Sweden and an EMBA from CEBIS. With a deep commitment to technological progress, he has personally invested in 15 startups, including MedTech ventures in wearable technology and brain-computer interfaces (BCI). Through the Next Stage Foundation (NSF), Thunder focuses on accelerating IoT innovation, believing in technology’s power to create a better world.
George Campbell is the Chief Executive Officer at Teslasuit, a leading manufacturer of full-body immersive technology for training and personal health. With over 20 years of experience in consumer electronics, George is passionate about the integration of immersive technologies and human flourishing. An expert in user-centered hardware and software development, George has consulted tech startups in Silicon Valley and held senior roles at HP in Palo Alto and Meta in London. Some of his projects include HP’s Reverb Gen 2 with Omnicept VR headset, and Meta’s Quest for Business enterprise XR solutions. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Industrial Design from the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Thank you to our sponsor
NexPCB is dedicated to accelerating IoT innovations into scalable global businesses. As a long-term product realization partner, they collaborate with ambitious teams across Europe—particularly in MedTech & Wearables, Green Energy, Robotics & AI Hardware, and Mobility. With over 20 years of experience, they offer end-to-end manufacturing solutions, including DFX, tooling, technology supply chain management, and global logistics, to deliver consistent, high-quality hardware products at competitive prices.
And our partners
BLUE GARAGE is a new innovation hub and makerspace in Lewisham, created to remove the barriers that stop hardware businesses in London from scaling. They're developing a Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Textiles - bringing together everything innovators in fashion, materials, and wearable tech need under one roof. From production tools and prototyping facilities to digital and screen printing, photography studios, and emerging capabilities in e-textiles and smart wearables. At the heart of this is their new open-access Textiles Innovation Lab, supporting the design, testing, and development of next-generation products and materials. Blue Garage works closely with industry, academia, and SMEs across fashion, technology, and manufacturing. Because the best ideas always come out of the BLUE! To collaborate, partner, or use the space, email michael@bluegarage.org.
informal is a freelance collective for the most talented independent professionals in the hardware ecosystem. With expertise in a diverse range of industries - from consumer electronics to automotive, climate tech to medical devices - informal members work with clients at every stage to design, manufacture, and scale top-quality physical products. Whether you're looking for a single contractor, a full-time employee, or an entire team to work on everything from product development to go-to-market strategy, the informal collective has the perfect people for the job.
Interested in hosting, sponsoring, or speaking at a future Hardware Meetup? Shoot an email to london@hardwaremeetup.com.