Monday Morning Muses - June 2, 2008 - TopCAT Innovation Awards mid year reunion

Last Wed evening I had the opportunity to attend a reception for all the nominees and winners of he 2007 TopCAT awards hosted by Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease LLP (thanks Craig Auge and Anker Bell)

For those of you unfamiliar with the TopCAT Innovation Awards it is the tech community's equivalent of the Emmy's. It's a truly an honor to be a nominee and and even greater honor to win.

The energy in the room palpable. I've been fortunate to been part of the organizing committee for a few years and have seen the awards grow in stature, scope, and meaning. It's a reflection of the growth of our tech community. Let's keep the momentum going.

Here's a list of the 2007 winners. Take a look at their websites and get a feel for what's happening right in Columbus.

Student Innovation Award: Laura Phillips of Bishop Hartley High School and Aaditya Shidham of Upper Arlington High School.

Outstanding Woman of the Year: Jeanne Gokcen of FutureCom Technologies Inc.

Outstanding Product (less than 50 employees): Pam Springer, EC Next for their product Manta.com

Outstanding Product (50 or more employees): Joseph Sanda, Astute Solutions RealDialog

Innovation in Non-Profit Service Delivery: John Hrusovsky and the GroundWork Group

Executive of the Year (less than 50 employees): William Dawson of NexTech Materials

Executive of the Year (50 or more employees): Bob Irwin of Sterling Commerce

Outstanding Start-up Business: Doug Stewart, AirCraft Logs

Minority Owned Enterprise: Ravi Kunduru and Ventech Solutions

Green Innovation: Dr. Bruce Monzyk and Battelle

Inventor of the Year: Dr. Wayne Poll of Minimally Invasive Devices

Outstanding Service of the Year (less than 50 employees): Adel Mikhail and Phylogeny

Outstanding Service (50 or more employees): Ben Blanquera representing the Progressive Medical team

Outstanding Technology Team: Michael von Fahnestock and the AMD VEP Team from Battelle.

Here is quick video of the event taken with a flipvideo device -
http://youtube.com/watch?v=9A5BVKrVhms



Peace Out,
Ben

P.S. On the lighter side - congrats to Kenny Perry for winning the Memorial. I got the opportunity to attend and enjoy a "truly world class event" with my wife Sandy. A special thanks to Accenture, Advizex, and the City of Dublin for their hospitality.