buffalo-startup
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Jack Sardinia
Jack Sardinia is the co-founder and CEO of FavorDrop, a Buffalo-based platform for sending time-bound digital gifts and promotions. He launched it in 2021 with his father, longtime Buffalo restaurateur Tim Sardinia, around a simple idea: buy a friend a drink at their favorite bar even when you cannot be there. What began as a consumer app for sending restaurant gift cards grew into a B2B customer-engagement tool used by car dealerships, marketing agencies, and home-services companies, with more than a million FavorDrops sent and a patent on the 'bounce back' that returns unredeemed gifts to the sender.
Francisco Aguilar
Francisco Aguilar is the founder and CEO of Bounce Imaging, the company behind a softball-sized, throwable 360-degree camera that lets police, firefighters and soldiers see inside dangerous spaces before stepping into them. He conceived the idea as a graduate student at MIT and Harvard after watching rescuers struggle to find survivors in the rubble of the 2010 Haiti earthquake. The original Explorer earned a spot on TIME's Best Inventions of 2012; the thermal-equipped Pit Viper 360 repeated the honor in 2024. Today his cameras are used by 300-plus police and fire departments and by defense customers including U.S. Special Operations Command.