Hajim Alumni and Faculty Member Among This Year's Luminate NY Winners

There was a strong Hajim presence amongst the winners of this year’s Luminate NY optics, photonics, and imaging startup accelerator competition.

Luminate NY, which is administered by NextCorps, is the world’s largest business accelerator for emerging companies that have technologies enabled by optics, photonics, and imaging. Alumni Brandon Zimmerman ’09, ’12 MS, ’15 PhD (optics) and Juniyali Nauriyal ’18 MS (optics), ’22 PhD (electrical and computer engineering) and Associate Professor Jaime Cardenas lead companies that were amongst the winners of the sixth year of the cohort-based program, which now has over 50 companies in its portfolio.

Brandon is chief executive officer of the Washington, DC-based company Digiteyez, which received the Outstanding Graduate Award and $400,000 in follow-on investment. The company is digitizing the vision industry by delivering eyecare on demand with Clear, a quick and easy online eye test that customers can take anywhere, from any device.

Juniyali and Jaime co-founded Photonect Interconnect Solutions, which received the Honorable Achievement award and $50,000. The Rochester-based startup is working to reshape the future of optical fiber to photonic chip connections by using laser technology instead of traditional glue.

Congratulations to Brandon and Jaime! Learn more about this year’s winners at the Luminate website.