Giving machines a trustworthy sense of the physical world.
Science Counter builds a new LiDAR architecture — and the on-device Physical AI that turns its signal into understanding — for safety-critical autonomy.
What we are building
We design sensing and intelligence as one system — a LiDAR architecture and the on-device AI that reads it — so machines can perceive the physical world reliably enough to make safety-critical decisions in real time.
Where this goes
A world where autonomy is trusted because the sensing beneath it can be trusted — where a machine can understand a scene, explain it, and act on it, on-device and in the moment.
Founder-led, and hiring the core team
Hamid Hatami-Hanza
Canadian-based scientist, entrepreneur, and CEO known for work in photonics, optical communications, and artificial intelligence.
- Chairman, President, and CEO of Science Counter Inc., a research firm focused on advanced AI and “knowledgeable machines”.
- Since 2003, led an AI laboratory in the Greater Toronto Area developing autonomous intelligent beings and AI‑assisted knowledgeable systems and services.
- Founded and led telecom/photonics companies including Peleton Photonic Systems (formerly Tellamon Photonic Networks) and Zenastra Photonics Inc. (formerly Nu‑Wave Photonics) in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
- Former research associate at NRC Canada; held research positions at the University of Ottawa.
- Patents and highly‑cited research in linear and nonliner optical devices and systems, optical fibers/solitons, including all‑optical logic gates, soliton pulse compression, optical acces networks, multilevel soliton communication systems , and multi‑wavelength lasers.
- More recent work patented through Science Counter includes ontological subject mapping, unified semantic ranking, automatic content generation, interactive/social knowledge discovery systems, association strength theory, value significance measure, AI as state navigation, and Physical‑AI / intelligent LiDAR systems.
- Ph.D. (Electrical Engineering) and M.E. (Electrical Engineering), UNSW, Australia; B.Sc. (Electrical Engineering), University of Tehran.
Hamid Hatami-Hanza’s work expands from hardware-based photonics into the mathematical foundations of cognition and artificial intelligence, bridging how machines process data with how human-like understanding can be modeled.
- State Navigation Theory of Intelligence: frames intelligence as goal‑oriented navigation through a “state space” of information (beyond pattern recognition).
- Association Strength Theory: a mathematical measure of “closeness” between concepts for semantic networks and contextual reasoning.
- Universal Content Representation (UCR): a unified ontological representation across text, images, and data to enable cross‑media retrieval and reasoning.
- Agentic AI: state/target‑state framing supports multi‑step planning workflows and “concept‑to‑goal” mapping.
- Semantic search & RAG: association‑based closeness aligns with modern embeddings/knowledge‑graph retrieval patterns.
- Physical AI: “intelligent LiDAR” framing emphasizes sensor‑level interpretation (not just measurement) for autonomy constraints.
- Multimodal AI: UCR supports a unified substrate across media types.
References: Science Counter foundations, Knowledge mapping.
Roles we are hiring for
We are assembling a small, senior team across optics, RF, and AI. If this is your field, we would like to hear from you.
Chief Scientist: Optical, RF signals, and data processing
Photonics systems and devices, electromagnetic radiations, and analytical AI.
VP: Optical System Design
Photonics, electromagnetic radiations, and optical communications.
Research Director: Data and Information Processing
Data/information processing, physical systems, and control theory.