Rohan Silva is Chair of Founders Factory in Western Australia. Silva is leading both accelerator programmes launching in Western Australia. With $22 million secured to bring Europe’s leading tech accelerator to Australia for the first time, the programmes are focused on biodiversity and nature with Government of Western Australia and decarbonisation and mining-tech with Rio Tinto.

Silva was previously Senior Policy Adviser to British Prime Minister David Cameron and Economic Adviser to British Chancellor George Osborne, working across all areas of UK government policy. In this role, Silva was responsible for developing key policies to boost technology and innovation in the UK – such as Entrepreneur Visas, generous incentives for angel investment (SEIS & EIS), and the British Government’s world leading Open Data agenda.

In addition, Silva created the Tech City initiative, which helped build London into a global tech hub, attracting major investment from Google, Microsoft and Amazon. He also instigated the Government’s Life Science Strategy in 2011, as well as the follow-up 2012 strategy on genomics, which committed the UK to sequencing 100,000 entire genomes – creating pathways for new medical breakthroughs.

After leaving 10 Downing Street, Silva was appointed a Research Affiliate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston before founding Second Home, a socially responsible innovation incubator that attracted over $150 million AUD of investment and opened locations in London, Lisbon and Los Angeles. Since launching in November 2014, Second Home has created cultural venues and workspaces in London and Lisbon, as well as funding the construction of a new school in Nairobi.

Silva has a monthly column on innovation in the AFR, and also writes regularly for The Times (of London), the Evening Standard and The Guardian. He was the first guest Business Editor of BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme, and co-presented the BBC’s main program on entrepreneurship.

Silva is also visiting professor at the Royal College of Art in London, a senior visiting fellow at the London School of Economics, and a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader.