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Richard Sim

Co-founder, Proxxi

Industrial safety hardwareVancouver

Richard Sim is an engineer who co-founded Proxxi, the Vancouver company that makes a wristband warning workers when they get close to energized electrical equipment, with Campbell Macdonald. Macdonald told Smithsonian in 2016 that the pair met at the Vancouver Hack Space and, on a small BC Hydro grant, built a working prototype in 2015.

Richard hasn’t spoken on a TechTO, TechVancouver or TechWaterloo stage. This profile is here because Richard co-founded Proxxi, which appears in 1 talk in the archive.

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Quick answers

Did Richard Sim co-found Proxxi?

Yes. TechCrunch reported on October 18, 2018 that Proxxi was "Founded by Richard Sim and Campbell Macdonald". A Proxxi blog post dated October 16, 2020, titled "Meet Our Founders!", says "Richard and Campbell are our co-founders here at Proxxi" and names Sim as chief technology officer.

How did Proxxi start?

With a BC Hydro brief for a wearable. In a Smithsonian interview published June 10, 2016, Macdonald said: "My business partner Richard Sim is an engineer; we met at the Vancouver Hack Space." He said BC Hydro gave the pair a small grant and that "within a few months in the spring and summer of 2015, we'd developed a working prototype." TechCrunch's October 18, 2018 article says the company began when BC Hydro "tasked Sim to research a product that would protect workers from electricity."

What is his engineering background?

Hardware, software and games graphics. His personal site, richard-sim.com/about, checked September 23, 2026 (the page itself is undated), describes him as "a full stack product engineer (software, hardware, mechanical, production)" and says he was formerly "a Lead Graphics Software Engineer for some of the largest video game development companies in the world" and ran the consultancy Mesophase Development.

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Maintained by TechTO · facts sourced and dated · last reviewed Sep 23, 2026