CORE Start X Global Drone Solutions Journey to Entrepreneur of the Year

Winner of Hot 30 Awards, Global Drone Solutions founder and CEO Mahmood Huseein recently presented to our latest group of CORE Start participants demonstrating his journey from start up to scale up.

Mahmood moved to Australia in 1999 and over the course of years, held a number of several senior executive positions in the mining, automotive and manufacturing industries.

In 2015, Mahmood started researching opportunities in drones. The use of drone technology had been pioneered in the military. However, Mahmood foresaw a much wider use of drone technology for monitoring, mapping, safety and logistics in industries such as mining, agriculture, security, transport, entertainment and more.

He realised then that the sector would not develop without skilled operators and fully qualified, well-trained drone pilots.

In 2016, Mahmood established Global Drone Solutions (GDS) as a drone pilot training academy. Despite the risks associated with starting a company in a developing industry, Mahmood was able to scale his business over the years to become a key organisation facilitating drone technology, training over 2500 pilots across many industries. Today Global Drone Solutions list of customers include BHP, Rio Tinto, Newmont, Newcrest, Woodside, Ausdrill, WA Water, and the Department of Education. In addition to this, in 2021 Global Drone Solutions won a large WA Government tender to develop training material for liquified natural gas (LNG) process operators.

Mahmood was also recently awarded the 2022 Western Australian Pearcey Entrepreneur of the Year Award, presented as part of the 31st annual Waitta Incite Awards, Western Australia’s longest running Tech Awards programme.

Mahmood spoke to our CORE Start companies on his journey, what it took and how he was able to convert his risk into reward.

Check out his presentation above.