PEACHTREE CITY, GA – March 4, 2026 – The Printed Circuit Engineering Association (PCEA) today announced that Francisco Aguilar, CEO of Bounce Imaging, will keynote PCB East 2026.

His keynote, “No Business Doing This: How a Wild Idea Became a Mission-Critical System Through Relentless Iteration and a Loyal Manufacturing Partner,” takes place April 29 from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. at the DCU Convention Center in Worcester, MA.

Aguilar is founder of Bounce Imaging and inventor of a 360-degree tactical camera that has become a go-to tool for first responders as well as soldiers who need to see into rooms or confined spaces. This camera, the size of a grapefruit, can be thrown into rooms, tunnels, or the rubble of collapsed buildings – anywhere that’s too risky to send in humans. The real-time images can be viewed on any iPhone or Android.

Aguilar’s invention was inspired by news accounts of the 2010 Haiti earthquake rescue operation; he was surprised that rescuers didn’t have better tools for searching through rubble for survivors. What if rescuers could just toss a video camera into the wreckage?

He took his idea for a 360-degree camera “ball” to Lightspeed Manufacturing in Haverhill, MA. As he will explain in his keynote, the path to the final product required multiple iterations, and an EMS partner that shared his vision. Now Aguilar’s “wild idea” has been adopted by hundreds of police and fire departments, not to mention warfighters and special operations teams.

His technologies have twice been named Best Inventions by TIME Magazine and earned the $1 million Verizon Powerful Answers Award.

Aguilar has bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Harvard and an M.B.A. from MIT’s Sloan School of Management.

"Francisco Aguilar and Bounce Imaging are the perfect example of how an inventor with a life-changing idea can bring it to market with the help of the right design-to-manufacturing partners," said Mike Buetow, president, PCEA. "His talk will be revealing and inspiring to designers and manufacturers alike."

PCB East will be held April 28 – May 1 at the DCU Convention Center in Worcester, MA. The event includes a one-day exhibition on April 29.

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