Woody DeKafou is the co-founder of Propel, a deep tech AI and robotics accelerator. Alongside that, he's an active advisor to incubators and innovation centers, and serves on the IEEE Working Group for AI Standards and Robotics — reflecting a genuine commitment to growing the broader tech ecosystem, not just building within it. One of his most significant areas of work has been in mining technology, where he's been instrumental in developing AI-powered solutions for surgical mining. Applying machine learning and computer vision to precision extraction, his contributions have helped push a field that's long overdue for serious technological innovation. Woody has over 15 years of experience taking startups from early seed stage through to Series B. He co-founded Synaptecha, where he created Breather — Canada's first smart inhaler — and later served as CEO at Upshelf, a Barcelona-based AI startup. In under eight months there, he cut burn rate by 45%, reduced technical debt by 30%, and expanded the company's reach across Europe, North America, and South America. At Uni3T, he brought GenAiz from concept to a fully working innovation management platform, winning GSK's global innovation challenge and helping build the first AI-driven platform for accelerating vaccine development. His work at Fruitful Source earned him the 2021 Gartner Disruptive Innovation Award, after predictive modeling he developed there reduced physical therapy costs by 28%.