Electronics expert, who has led various technology companies in areas such as cell phones, indicating readiness to learn to re-learn the Entrepreneurship Development Program at the renowned Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2011.
Mind completing a course in greenhouse America is a daunting prospect for Mr. Povey, even with a track record that includes a look at the value of the company who developed an increase of £ 1 to £ 1.7 million in four years.
But he came away pleased that Scotland is not doing badly in terms of entrepreneurship, a topic on which there is a lot of soul-searching in the country in recent years.
"I realized that not only do we not bad but we were very much above average. We actually fairly well equipped in comparison with people from all over the world," said Mr. Povey.
"One major thing that I returned from MIT is a lot of confidence that we are capable of doing the right thing."
51 years remember that he came close to the top in a competition that involved developing a plan for a new business, with a proposal for a micro-line trading facilities to assist fishermen in Africa to find buyers for their catch.
However, he stressed that he learned a lot at MIT, where the program displays a lot of sessions with successful entrepreneurs and useful case studies.
An important lesson is that "making mistakes and learning from them is how you become an entrepreneur .... accept that things will fail".
A consequence of the lessons that Mr. Povey found is that it is better fail fast.
Glasgow-born executive said companies in areas such as technology does not have to spend ages over-engineering things that may not be desired by others. People who bring new products to the market only had to build the minimum necessary to make the sale, to avoid wasting time and money churning out goods they may have to throw away.
He appreciated the advice given to students at MIT that they should always assign personas to people who they wish to sell to. It will help them remember that the customer must come first.
Lessons reinforced what the experience has taught him.
"People do not look for technology, they find solutions to problems," notes Mr. Povey.
He added :. "With the development of products you may think you know what to build but unless you go out and test it with your customers can get one if you read the text books that they say this but most people learn the hard way, I certainly do . "
These days the father of two apply the lessons he had learned to his work in Dukosi battery technology business in Edinburgh. He took the helm at the company in January after the tragic death of its founder Stephen Churcher in a bicycle accident last August.
The company began life as a home design chips but Mr. Povey decided the best prospects for the company lay in the technology has been developed to improve the efficiency of the car battery.
"I saw an opportunity and thought it was not so much in the design of the chip as in producing the system."
Dukosi said electrical Optimisation Vehicle Integrated Circuit, which monitors the performance of the cells in the battery, significantly extending the range of vehicles from a single charge. It takes into account the technology can also extend the useful life of the battery and make it easier to recycle or sell them.
Before making the sale EVOIC, Mr Povey is very excited about the potential of the company to make inroads into the market which could be great if the sales of electric cars increased as expected.
He was one of the speakers at a recent event organized by the Scottish Government to highlight the opportunities in the sector, which was attended by manufacturing giants such as Nissan.
He also spent time in Asia recently spoke with potential buyers of technology and investors. Dukosi has generated strong interest in the area, where the new vehicle and component manufacturers who appears ready to adapt new technologies.
Focus on Asia provide the latest example of the ability to read the pattern of change on the part of a man who has witnessed major advances in technology and the market for many years.
Children and grandchildren of Mr. Povey engineers spent seven years studying at the University of Edinburgh in the 1990s after completing a doctorate in cellular communication.
He specializes in electrical communication technologies that could make more effective use of the spectrum that carry signals from one world to the other side.
Maybe normal for the age, he spends most of his time in academia clump thinking about becoming an entrepreneur.
"I'm always looking for technology to spin out ... I'm really very keen to get out into the industry and to start my own company."
In 1999 Mr. Povey took that enterprising mindset for Elektrobit, the Finnish company where he worked on the early technology phones. The job involves knowing Nokia.
Mr Povey went on to establish a business in the UK for Elektrobit third generation communication and come with a technology that can find out where the phone using software instead of hardware. This is the type of work performed by the GPS system.
He eventually led a management buyout after deciding Elektrobit is not possible to provide support for the effort he wanted.
"I was a good choice to drop or try to do something myself if I can get external funding."
The company, which became Trisent, then show there is a market for this type of locator technology concerned.
Four years after buying the business for £ 1 Mr Povey sell it to ARTILIUM for £ 1.7m at the end of 2007.
While Mr. Povey made a large number of sales, including payment of shares in Aim listed ARTILIUM issued before the market crashed in 2008.
"You live and learn," mused Mr. Povey, who left to work on the early stages of other busineses. He led the effort to change a light communication technology developed at the University of Edinburgh into what became a company called Pure and raised £ 1.5m for the business.
Mr Povey experience that may inspire other academics to join the push to commercialize some of the technologies being developed at Scottish universities.
After spending a lot of time in both meeting rooms and laboratories Mr Povey believe people who work at the university has a lot to be thankful for.
"It's a great luxury to be an academic. Decent salary you get you get a large amount of freedom to pursue your own research, you can build a small empire, there are many places you can apply for funding, you can work with the industry, with those people around the world. "
But he believes the people who decided to take the plunge will find that Scotland compares well with the United States when it comes to supporting the network.
Noting that academic entrepreneurship in places like Pennsylavia complain candidate must move to Boston or Silicon Valley to win support, he said: "They are worse than we are in the Central Belt of Scotland."
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