John Kawola is a 3D printing industry veteran who has spent nearly three decades turning niche additive-manufacturing technologies into real businesses. He led Z Corporation through the dawn of full-color 3D printing, ran a farm-and-warehouse robotics company, built Ultimaker's North American footprint, and then took the helm of Boston Micro Fabrication (BMF), the company making 3D printers that resolve features down to two microns - smaller than a human hair. In 2025 he handed off the CEO role at BMF to become a strategic advisor.
Rui Jing Jiang is the Founder and CEO of Avisi Technologies, a Redwood City-based clinical-stage medical device company developing VisiPlate, the world's thinnest freestanding ophthalmic implant for treating glaucoma. Built on University of Pennsylvania nanotechnology, VisiPlate is a multichannel aqueous shunt composed of alumina and Parylene-C that is 20 times thinner than a human hair. Rui Jing co-founded the company in 2017 as a junior at Penn's Wharton School, won the $100,000 President's Innovation Prize in 2018, secured FDA Investigational Device Exemption approval in October 2025 for the US SAPPHIRE trial, and closed a $10.7M Series A in February 2026 to advance pivotal clinical development.