CHICAGO INNOVATION AWARDS

Peoples Choice Award- Vote for us!

August 24th, 2009

As you know, the 2009 Chicago Innovation Awards is packed with new energy; and it can be seen first hand with the People’s Choice Award.

As such, we’d like to share some breathtaking stats with you. We opened the People’s Choice voting interface a little under a week ago. Since then, over 3,000 people have registered to vote, and over 7,000 votes have been placed! We’ve received thousands of comments and more are flooding in daily.

This is an incredible opportunity to build buzz around your nomination, and we’re coming up with some cool ways for you to promote your involvement, and get the votes you need to win!

The image below can be placed on your website or blog to promote your People’s Choice profile. Just copy the HTML below the image, add in the URL to your People’s Choice voting profile page, and put that HTML code on your blog or website.

<a href="URL for your People's Choice voting page">
<img src="http://chicagoinnovationawards.com/uploads/vote-badge.gif" 
alt="Vote for our company for the 2009 People's Choice Award!" /></a>

Chicago Innovation Awards: A Role Model

July 16th, 2009

Be sure to check out Tom Kuczmarski's new column on BusinessWeek's Innovation Home Page. This OpEd is all about how The Chicago Innovation Awards puts the region's innovative prowess on display and should be an example for other cities. Join the buzz by submitting a nomination today!

Life as the Chicago Innovation Awards INTERN

July 15th, 2009

Hello Chicago Innovation Award Supporters!

My name is Bretagne Lenox and I am the Research Director for the 2009 Chicago Innovation Awards. I am a Junior at the University of Illinois at Chicago with a major in Entrepreneurship and a minor in International Business. As an Intern, I treat the Awards like the child I never had--I give it love, support, great care, and of course attention. For the past few weeks, nominations have been flowing in and I have had the opportunity to come across many unique businesses and organizations that stand for a great cause. As an aspiring Entrepreneur, I especially relate to these owners and founders who have the desire to receive recognition for their product, service or process.

This Friday, July 17th, I will be representing the Chicago Innovation Awards at our Booth at the Small Business Expo that is held at the UIC Forum from 8am until 3:30pm. At the booth, I will share information about the Awards and attendees will be able to fill out a nomination application that can be completed and turned into myself. I encourage small business owners to attend the Expo because it will be a great opportunity to receive vital information that is essential for running a successful business. I would also be pleased to have Expo attendee's visit the Chicago Innovation Awards Booth, for your support is highly appreciated!

For more information about the Expo, visit http://www.chicagocitytreasurer.com/smallBusinessExpo/smallBusinessExpo.htm .

Also, nominations are still open until July 31st so nominate your product/service TODAY!

Where Are They Now-- Flashpoint Academy

July 6th, 2009

For the past eight years, the Chicago Innovation Awards have recognized and honored an incredibly diverse group of innovative products, services, and processes in the Chicago region. As executive director of the Awards, I can tell you first hand that our judging panel prides itself on selecting companies that are not only successful in the year they are honored, but those that will continue to be successful for years to come. The Chicago Innovation Awards thrives on these success stories. Honorees like TurboTap have used their unique technology to carve a significant niche for themselves in the marketplace. Honorees like Feedburner and Ovation Pharmaceuticals were acquired by market leaders for huge sums of money. Honorees like Threadless have been further recognized as "The Most Innovative Small Company in America."
 
Each of these stories are real wins for our entire community. Accordingly, this blog is a great opportunity to highlight not only the most up-to-date news about The Chicago Innovation Awards, LLC, but also to highlight our former honorees. Thus begins a new (and first) segment for us—“Where Are They Now?” Throughout the Chicago Innovation Awards season, our team will be reaching out to former honorees to see what they have been up to. Our inaugural update will be with one of my personal favorites, Flashpoint Academy, the brain child of two time Innovation Award winner: Howard Tullman.

Since last fall, Flashpoint Academy has welcomed a number of exciting guests, including Executive Producer of The Dark Knight, Michael Uslan; Composer/Singer/Songwriter, JD Souther; Director of Coraline, Henry Selick; Singer/Songwriter, Patti Smith and Director, Steven Sebring; Director of Photography for Wall-E, Danielle Feinberg; Director, Greg Kohs; and singer/songwriter, Joel Rafael. Their students really benefited from sharing in their expertise through engaging lectures and Q&A sessions, as well as live performances and interviews.

In addition to gaining valuable knowledge from the pros, students at Flashpoint have been keeping busy getting a first-hand taste of their future careers.  Last fall, Flashpoint Film and Broadcast Students covered the opening and closing of the Chicago International Film Festival, interviewing Hollywood celebrities including Viggo Mortensen and Rachel Weisz.  Film, Recording Arts, and Animation/VFX students collaborated with industry experts on a number of in-house projects as a part of their “Production-In-Action” curriculum, including the film, October Surprise, and the video game, Red Carpet Rescue. In April, Flashpoint students participated in the filming and recording a performance by the band The Most Dangerous Race at the new CBS stage. Student production teams have participated in Video Games Live, worked on a musical documentary of Footloose, and helped to create a music video for the band Sexy Heroes.

Many of Flashpoint’s student projects have received warm receptions in their respective industries. Game Development students Joshua Hernandez and Justin Moore recently celebrated the release of their game, PercussOne, on Xbox Live Community Games. A number of Flashpoint Academy Studios films have been selected for national and international festivals, including the South Beach International Animation Festival (el relojero and Marshy), The Connecticut Film Festival (el relojero), The Santa Fe Film Festival (The Collector), and the prestigious Palm Springs International Shortfest (The Intruder and el relojero).

Flashpoint Academy continues to look for opportunities to advance and recognize innovation within the digital media industry as well as within our student body.  In April, Flashpoint Academy was honored to present a Golden Hugo to Backyard Productions at this year’s Hugo Television Awards. 

Howard Tullman and the rest of the team at Flashpoint Academy are helping Chicago young people find their direction in life. What more could we ask of a great Chicago Innovation?