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Nicholas Conn and the art of taking a seat
At eleven, Nicholas Conn wanted to be an engineer and an entrepreneur. A doctoral project, an unlikely household object, and a willingness to share the controls gave him a way to become both.
Rami Katz and the business of helping people begin
He came to Rochester for an MBA and stayed to help build young companies. Now Excell’s CEO, Rami Katz brings a lawyer’s discipline to early-stage investing - and keeps making time for the next generation.
Theresa Mazzullo and the business of seeing what comes next
A banker, seed investor and unlikely fashion muse, Theresa Mazzullo has spent decades helping other people put their ideas to work. Her next concern is getting Rochester’s young companies far enough to grow.
ITX and the art of getting software unstuck
A stalled product catalog, a nervous service team, a school lunch menu. ITX’s work offers a useful lesson in software: the hard part is often deciding what people need to happen next.
Mindex and the Discount That Became a Software Business
A Rochester software firm gave a school district a discount and kept the product rights. Two decades later, its own aging software became the proving ground for the modernization it sells to everyone else.
NextCorps knows why your prototype isn’t a business yet
In Rochester’s former Sibley’s department store, NextCorps connects startup ambition to factory-floor reality. Its bet: the right help before production can save a founder from some very expensive surprises.
The company that survived its own “Kodak moment”
Bankrupt in 2012, betting on chemicals and celluloid in 2026 - how a 140-year-old imaging giant rebuilt itself around print, film and the periodic table.
Casana
Casana is a Rochester, New York digital-health company that builds the Smart Seat (originally the Heart Seat), a toilet-seat replacement that passively measures vital signs - heart rate, heart rate variability, blood oxygen, respiration rate and blood pressure insights - while a person simply sits, with no wearables, charging or behavior change required. Spun out of research done by founder Nicholas Conn during his PhD at the Rochester Institute of Technology, the company earned FDA 510(k) clearance in 2023 and launched a consumer version of the seat in July 2026.
Uncommon Schools
Uncommon Schools is a nonprofit charter management organization that starts and runs outstanding urban public charter schools designed to close the achievement gap and prepare students from low-income communities to graduate from college. Founded around North Star Academy in Newark in 1997 and relaunched as a multi-state network in 2005, Uncommon operates roughly 53 K-12 schools serving about 20,000 students across New York City, Newark, Camden, Rochester, Troy, and Boston. Beyond running schools, it is a national force in teacher development - home to Doug Lemov's 'Teach Like a Champion' methodology - and pairs rigorous, data-driven instruction with long-term alumni college coaching.