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Cuomo says NYS will establish a $10 million photonics competition in Rochester

University of Rochester

Governor Andrew Cuomo has announced that New York State will establish a $10 million, multi-year Photonics Venture Challenge in Rochester.

He says the business competition will aim to support start-up companies that commercialize rapidly developing technologies through a business accelerator program and a top award of $1 million to the most promising start-up company.

Cuomo says there currently are no accelerator programs in the world that have a photonics focus.

The governor said that the Finger Lakes Region is now one of the world’s leading centers for the photonics industry and he says now is the time to build on that momentum.

The Photonics Challenge is modeled after Western New York’s 43North, a $5million start-up competition funded by the Buffalo Billion initiative.

Cuomo’s office released the information about the new challenge Monday evening, calling it the ‘19th proposal of the 2017 State of the State.’

The governor did not talk about it during his regional state of the state address in Buffalo earlier in the day.

Randy Gorbman is WXXI's director of news and public affairs. Randy manages the day-to-day operations of WXXI News on radio, television, and online.