ProfVal Founder Recognized Among New Jersey’s 2026 INNOVATE100 Leaders
- ProfVal
- May 29
- 5 min read
ProfVal and ImmiBlocks founder Zach Johnson, PhD, was named one of New Jersey’s 2026 INNOVATE100 Leaders.
The recognition highlights the growing role of immigration technology in helping law firms serve professional immigrants more efficiently.
ProfVal supports attorneys and petitioners through research-backed Expert Opinion Letters, Professional Plans, and Immigration Business Plans.
ImmiBlocks is building a secure, cloud-based ecosystem for immigration attorneys, combining case management, AI-powered drafting, attorney-client collaboration, and a trusted vendor network.
ProfVal and ImmiBlocks founder Zach Johnson, PhD, has been named one of New Jersey’s 2026 INNOVATE100 Leaders, a distinction recognizing 100 innovators across the state’s business, technology, academic, nonprofit, and civic sectors.
The INNOVATE100 initiative, led by Jersey Tech + Innovation and James Barrood, celebrated this year’s honorees at the State Theatre New Jersey on May 13, 2026. For ProfVal and ImmiBlocks, the recognition reflects a broader commitment to expanding opportunity for talented professionals from around the world—and to building better technology for the immigration attorneys who serve them.
“Both ProfVal and ImmiBlocks were built on a single guiding purpose: promoting equality of opportunity for talented professionals from around the world. This recognition reflects not only our founder’s work, but the mission that every member of our team carries forward every day.”
A Recognition Rooted in Purpose
The third annual INNOVATE100 celebration brought together nearly 700 attendees from across New Jersey’s innovation economy in New Brunswick. Spearheaded by James Barrood and Jersey Tech + Innovation, the initiative honors leaders driving meaningful progress across startups, corporations, universities, nonprofits, and government entities.
This year’s class included executives, entrepreneurs, researchers, and community leaders working across technology, life sciences, healthcare, education, and entrepreneurship. As the founder of ProfVal and ImmiBlocks, Dr. Johnson’s inclusion highlights the increasingly important role immigration technology can play in helping attorneys, employers, and professional immigrants move through complex processes with greater clarity and efficiency.
The Story Behind the Innovation
ProfVal: Rigorous Documentation for Global Talent
Founded in 2019 by Dr. Johnson, a former tenured professor and associate dean, ProfVal was built around a clear mission: to provide research-backed immigration documentation that gives talented global professionals a fair opportunity to contribute to the United States.
Every Expert Opinion Letter, Professional Plan, and Immigration Business Plan we prepare is designed to help skilled professionals present their qualifications clearly, accurately, and persuasively. When talented professionals are able to enter the U.S. workforce and contribute across industries, the entire country benefits.
ImmiBlocks: Building the Infrastructure for Modern Immigration Practice
ImmiBlocks was created to bring that same mission into the daily workflows of immigration law firms. While ProfVal focuses on high-quality immigration documentation, ImmiBlocks is building the technology infrastructure that helps attorneys manage cases, coordinate with clients and vendors, and prepare stronger filings more efficiently.
As an immigration case management and drafting platform, ImmiBlocks connects attorneys, clients, and trusted vendors in a more unified ecosystem. The platform is designed for the realities of immigration practice, where law firms must balance high caseloads, strict deadlines, complex evidence, and the need for careful legal judgment.
By providing AI-drafted, human-reviewed cover letters backed by a zero-fabrication, money-back guarantee, ImmiBlocks helps reduce friction in an already demanding legal process. The goal is not to replace attorney judgment. It is to give immigration law firms better tools to work more efficiently, consistently, and confidently.
For firms serving professional immigrants, ImmiBlocks offers a practical path toward scale: fewer disconnected systems, less repetitive drafting, stronger vendor coordination, and more time for attorneys to focus on strategy and client service.
Why ImmiBlocks Matters
Immigration attorneys are doing work that directly shapes families, companies, communities, and the U.S. economy. Yet many firms still rely on fragmented workflows, manual drafting, scattered communication, and time-consuming evidence review.
ImmiBlocks was built to address that gap.
By combining case management, drafting support, attorney-client collaboration, and access to trusted immigration service providers, ImmiBlocks helps law firms operate with more structure and less administrative burden. For attorneys, that can mean faster workflows and more consistent case preparation. For clients, it can mean a clearer, more organized experience during one of the most important processes of their lives.
This is why the INNOVATE100 recognition matters beyond a single founder or company. It reflects a larger shift: immigration technology is becoming an essential part of the innovation economy. When immigration law firms have better tools, they are better positioned to help talented professionals contribute to the United States.
Ecosystem Partners and Champions
INNOVATE100 is an independent distinction supported by leading academic, research, and business institutions throughout the region.
The breadth of organizations involved reflects the strength and diversity of New Jersey’s innovation economy, including:
Academic and Institutional Partners: Rutgers University, Nokia Bell Labs, Valley Bank, Citrin Cooperman, and Bell Works.
Event Sponsors: Fairleigh Dickinson University, New Jersey Institute of Technology, PwC, Siemens, RWJBarnabas Health, OceanFirst Bank, and Rowan University.
Being recognized alongside leaders connected to these institutions reinforces what immigration technology and documentation services can accomplish when they are built with rigor, data, and purpose.
What This Means for Immigration Attorneys and Their Clients
ProfVal and ImmiBlocks proudly serve immigration attorneys and the professional immigrants they represent. Our clients include many of the professionals shaping communities and industries across the United States, including:
Doctors, nurses, and healthcare researchers
Engineers and technology professionals
Social workers, therapists, and educators
Entrepreneurs and business leaders
The INNOVATE100 recognition affirms what we have seen in our work since 2019: supporting professional immigrants is not peripheral to innovation. It is central to it.
ProfVal helps attorneys and petitioners present qualifications through carefully prepared documentation. ImmiBlocks builds on that foundation by helping immigration law firms organize work, streamline drafting, coordinate services, and reduce unnecessary friction across the case lifecycle.
Whether we are preparing an Expert Opinion Letter for an EB-1 petition, a Professional Plan for an EB-2 NIW petition, an Immigration Business Plan, or helping a law firm use ImmiBlocks to generate a time-saving cover letter draft, our role is to help the right people get to the right places with documentation and tools that are clear, credible, and carefully prepared.
A Shared Achievement
Awards may recognize individuals, but strong organizations are built by teams. This milestone belongs to the people who make our work possible every day:
Our Experts: Every scholar and industry authority who has authored and signed an opinion letter.
Our Core Team: The writers, editors, account managers, product team members, and operations team members who work hard to meet strict filing deadlines and improve the systems that support immigration attorneys.
Our Legal Partners: The immigration attorneys who trust ProfVal and ImmiBlocks with their clients’ most important matters, with 95% of ProfVal’s work coming from returning law firms.
Our Petitioners: The professionals who share their stories with us and trust us to present their backgrounds clearly and compellingly.
This recognition is also an important milestone for ImmiBlocks as it continues to grow. The platform was built with and for immigration attorneys, and its future depends on the same principle that has guided our work from the beginning: listen closely to practitioners, build practical tools, and support the people helping global talent contribute to the United States.
We congratulate Zach on this recognition, and we extend our gratitude to Jersey Tech + Innovation, James Barrood, and the network of sponsors and partners helping drive New Jersey’s future forward.
About ProfVal
ProfVal provides research-backed Expert Opinion Letters, Professional Plans, and Immigration Business Plans for visa categories including EB-1, EB-2 NIW, H-1B, L-1, O-1, E-2, and EB-5. Founded in 2019 by a former tenured professor and associate dean, ProfVal is trusted by more than 1,000 immigration attorneys and is a proud, repeat AILA sponsor.
About ImmiBlocks
ImmiBlocks is a secure, cloud-based ecosystem built in collaboration with and for immigration attorneys. The platform brings together immigration case management, AI-powered case assembly and drafting, attorney-client collaboration, and a trusted vendor network to help law firms work more efficiently and deliver exceptional client support.
Disclaimer: ProfVal is not a law firm and does not provide legal advice. All content is provided for informational purposes only. Petitioners should work with a qualified immigration attorney to evaluate their specific circumstances.
