The commercial capital city of America periodically reinvents itself in new waves of entrepreneurial innovation. And the surf is up again on the country’s freshwater third coast.

In 1872, the year after the Great Chicago Fire razed the city, Aaron Montgomery Ward offered isolated farm families the full spectrum of industrial production via mail order — inventing the business model that has evolved into the web-based marketplace.

Today the vast riverfront warehouse where the old Montgomery Ward Co. processed orders is filled with the next wave of web-enabled innovative entrepreneurs.

While Chicago was the nation’s “silicon valley” following World War II – designing and manufacturing the hottest new consumer products – its core strength has always been taking technologies invented elsewhere and innovatively applying them to make big money.

The railroad and the airplane are great examples, which the mid-continental city continues to leverage in its ever-expanding market reach, from heavy freight to global business services. Access to global markets and North American operations – as well as a multi-industry, multinational talent pool – drew the Boeing Company’s corporate offices here in 2001.

That year, the “irrational exuberance” of the dot-com bubble burst here as elsewhere, starting a long and steady buildup of local venture capital and diversified technological entrepreneurism, shepherded by Dan Lyne, technology business development director of the nonprofit World Business Chicago. A year later, the annual Chicago Innovation Awards began celebrating breakthroughs from companies, both established and new.

Chicago Innovation Awards Scholarship Ceremony: Making a Career in Innovation

Inaugural scholarship awards ceremony featuring a special panel of innovators representing large corporations to startup entrepreneurs.

When: 4-7 p.m.

Place: Illinois Institute of Technology, 565 W. Adams St. Map

Cost: Free

“It is an honor to be here among so many outstanding leaders and innovators.

Congratulations to all of the winners – I am certainly inspired by the creativity and energy that you bring to your work!”

* Appolicious, whose websites catalog apps for mobile devices

* Callibra, which provides translation software for hospital discharge instructions

* Narrative Science, whose software can write articles and reports from data

* Red Frog Events, creator of a brand new industry: offbeat races

* Trustwave, which makes antihacker software for credit card processors

* World Bicycle Relief, which provides bikes to the impoverished in Africa

In addition, Fresh Moves, which turned a retired CTA bus into a mobile green market on the West Side, received the “Peoples Choice” award, based on votes on the Chicago Innovation Awards’ website.