Harlem, NY – April 24th
Last month, CS3 hosted its VALIDATE Accelerator Demo Day at the Columbia Engineering Innovation Hub. We celebrated the conclusion of this year’s accelerator with pitches from teams representing Columbia, UCF, Rutgers, and FAU by spending the afternoon at the intersection of research and entrepreneurship.
Kicking off the program was a keynote address from Chris White, President of NEC Labs America, who discussed his vision for how industry labs and university researchers can collaborate. Chris also provided the accelerator teams with valuable guidance, such as not confusing technical difficulty with commercial value.
Chris White of NEC Labs America delivers the keynote address.
Following the keynote, there was a panel of speakers from the Venture Capital world who provided their advice for academic founders to navigate today’s complex funding landscape. They also commented on some common pitfalls for academic founders.
Left to right: Tara Lanigan, CS3 (Moderator); Devika Kumar, Keyframe Capital; Naoto Mizuguchi, NEC -X; Omar Smith, Blackhorn Ventures
After a short break, we heard from our accelerator teams, made up of postdocs, doctoral students, masters students, and undergraduates across our partner universities:
- InfraInsight | Sammy Agrawal and Ines Khouider, Columbia University: InfraInsight is a building data intelligence platform oriented towards spinning up personalized energy simulation immediately. By bridging the gap between algorithms and real-life, InfraInsight saves real estate owners time, money, and energy.
- UrbanSentinel | Muhammad Shahbaz and Md Mahmudul Islam, University of Central Florida: Urban Sentinel uses AI-driven sensor fusion and advanced models to enhance traffic management, safety, and support for autonomous vehicles with accurate, real-time road-user insights.
- Viarithm | Mehmet Turkcan, Columbia University: Viarithm is an AI platform that accelerates computer vision development, making custom high-performance vision models accessible to businesses without technical complexity.
- Seamless Intelligent Navigation Anywhere (SINA) | Bowen Fang, Columbia University: SINA delivers personalized, real-time route recommendations, integrating AI, user inputs, and third-party tools for smarter, adaptive indoor navigation.
- SatSight | Jackson Ye, Rutgers University: SatSight’s AI platform analyzes satellite imagery in real time, providing urban planners with actionable insights on traffic, infrastructure, and environment for sustainable, cost-effective decisions.
- Arachna Networks | Jacob Kahn and Gabriel Garcia, Florida Atlantic University: Arachna Networks is revolutionizing decentralized networking with Universal Mesh Networking solutions. They provide scalable, high-tech solutions for the US military and commercial sectors worldwide.
After being evaluated on program participation, Demo Day audience feedback, and potential impact, Arachna Networks and SINA were awarded continued funding. The teams will be funded to continue customer discovery and commercialization work.
Jacob Kahn of Arachna Networks delivers his team’s pitch on decentralized networking with Universal Mesh Networking solutions.
Bowen Fang of SINA delivers his team’s pitch on precise 3D navigation and AI-powered safety insights.
We ended the afternoon with a networking session with attendees, with Columbia Engineering student posters on display. We were thrilled to host attendees across industry, government, and academia, and look forward to next year’s Accelerator. Stay tuned for updates via CS3’s LinkedIn and newsletter.
Read on for video recordings of the event, the agenda, speaker bios, and the list of student posters.
Watch Christopher White’s keynote address and the VC panel:
| 1:40 PM | Opening Remarks | Andrew Smyth, CS3 Director |
| 1:45 PM | Keynote: the Role of Research in Going to Market | Chris White, President of NEC Labs America |
| 2:15 PM | Investor Panel: Perspectives on Early Stage Urban Tech & Startups Rooted in Research | Devika Kumar, Keyframe CapitalNaoto Mizuguchi, NEC X Omar Smith, Blackhorn VenturesModerated by Tara Lanigan, CS3 |
| 3:10 PM | Accelerator Overview | Maria Rahmany & Michelle Lee, CTV |
| 3:20 PM | Accelerator Team Pitches | 6 teams across 4 universities |
| 4:25 PM | Closing Remarks | Andrew Smyth, CS3 Director |
| 4:30 PM | Networking Reception | Refreshments and student posters |
Andrew Smyth, PI and Director of NSF Center for Smart Streetscapes, Professor of Civil Engineering at Columbia University
Andrew Smyth is the Robert A.W. and Christine S. Carleton Professor of Civil Engineering and Engineering Mechanics at Columbia University. He is the PI and Director NSF Engineering Research Center for Smart Streetscapes and is the Co-Chair of the Smart Cities Center at the Columbia Data Science Institute. He specializes in structural health monitoring, using sensor information to determine the condition of critical infrastructure.He is the founding co-Editor in Chief of the Journal of Intelligent Infrastructure and Resilience, as well as the President of the International Association of Structural Control and Monitoring. Prof. Smyth received his Sc.B. and A.B. degrees at Brown University in Civil Engineering and Architectural Studies respectively, his M.S. in Civil Engineering at Rice and an M.S. in Electrical Engineering and a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering at the University of Southern California.
Christopher White, President of NEC Labs America
Christopher White has served as the President at NEC Laboratories America, Inc. since March 2020, where he leads a team of world-class researchers focusing on diverse topics from sensing to networking to machine learning-based understanding. Prior to his role at NEC Laboratories America, Inc., he spent 22 years working at Nokia Bell Labs where he led the Algorithms, Analytics, Augmented Intelligence and Devices (AAAID) research lab. Chris has a Ph.D. in Theoretical Quantum Chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley, and a B.S. and M.S. in Chemistry from Carnegie Mellon University, with a concentration in Computer Science.
Devika Kumar, Business Development at Keyframe Capital
Devika Kumar leads Business Development at Keyframe, focusing on market, portfolio, and platform development. She manages top-of-funnel research and screening. Devika also provides BD and Corp Dev support to Keyframe portfolio companies. Prior to joining Keyframe, Devika began her career as a go-to-market startup operator before moving to tech sales at Salesforce. Most recently, she led current customer upsell, cross-sell, and renewals as Director of Client Partnerships at a fintech startup. Devika holds a degree in network analysis, entrepreneurship, and cognitive science from Georgetown University.
Naoto Mizuguchi, Chief Financial Officer of NEC X
Naoto is the CFO of NEC X, a Silicon Valley-based venture studio backed by NEC Corporation. He manages NEC X Venture Studio team and its startup project portfolio, and handles the overall operation. Prior to his current position, he played a key role in the M&A of Arcon in the Brazil and served as the COO, leading transformative post-merger integration efforts at NEC Soluções de Segurança Cibernética S.A. Previously, he honed his expertise in managing the global product business, with a focus on Latin American customers, during his tenure at NEC Brasil, after he accumulated years of valuable experience at NEC Corporation, In addition to his role at NEC X, Naoto serves as a liaison for NEC Orchestrating Future Fund.
Omar Smith, Senior Associate at Blackhorn Ventures
Omar Smith is a Senior Associate at Blackhorn Ventures responsible for sourcing and conducting diligence on new investments and providing advisory support to portfolio companies. Omar joined the team after concluding his MBA at Columbia University where he led the Columbia Venture Fellows program and worked with Precursor Ventures and Comcast Ventures. Omar graduated from Stanford with an M.S. in Earth Systems and a B.A. in Economics.
Tara Lanigan, Senior Director for Strategic Partnerships at NSF Center for Smart Streetscapes, Columbia University
Tara Lanigan manages strategic partnerships for the Center for Smart Streetscapes. She previously served as a Presidential Management Fellow (PMF) and Policy Advisor in the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology (OST-R). While a PMF, she also completed a rotation at the White House Council on Environmental Quality as Deputy Director for Sustainability. Prior to joining federal service, Tara led policy and business development at May Mobility, an autonomous vehicle company. She began her career at VC-backed startups focused on e-commerce and real estate technology. She holds an MPA and a BA from the University of Michigan.
Maria Rahmany, Director, Business Development, Portfolio Management & L2M Network, Columbia Technology Ventures
Maria Rahmany is currently the Director for Business Development and Portfolio Management at Columbia University’s Technology Transfer office – Columbia Technology Ventures (CTV). In her current role, Maria works with the technology licensing team to strategize, market and commercialize innovations from Columbia Investigators across research sectors, manages Columbia’s strategic partnerships with Industry as well as guides development of new accelerator programs under Columbia’s Lab to Market umbrella. Maria is also Adjunct Faculty with the Department of Biomedical Engineering. Maria received her PhD in Molecular Medicine & Translational Science and MBA from Wake Forest University followed by post doctorate training in Biomedical Engineering at Virginia Tech.
Michelle Lee, Lab-to-Market Alliance Associate, Columbia Technology Ventures
Michelle Lee is the alliance associate at Columbia Tech Ventures, the university’s tech transfer office. In the Lab-to-Market team, she manages a variety of accelerators, working to accelerate commercialization from academic research. Prior to her current role, she was the program manager for gener8tor, an investment accelerator focused on cybersecurity. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Organizational Studies and Environmental Studies from the University of Michigan.
- DriveGenVLM: Real-World Video Generation for Vision Language Model Based Autonomous Driving | Yongjie Fu, PhD student
- Full-Duplex Self-Interference Cancellation control Algorithm | Kevin Hermstein, PhD student
- Evaluating Zero-Shot Image Tagging for Urban Traffic Intersection Scenes | William Ho, Masters student
- Distributed VLMs: Efficient Vision-Language Processing through Cloud-Edge Collaboration | Ian Li, Masters student
- NLP-enabled Trajectory Map-matching in Urban Road Networks using a Transformer-based Encoder-decoder | Sevin Mohammadi, PhD student
- A Vision-Based Analysis of Congestion Pricing in New York City | Mehmet Turkcan, Postdoc
- Data-Driven Traffic Simulation for an Intersection in a Metropolis | Chengbo Zang, PhD student