CHICAGO INNOVATION AWARDS

Chicago Innovation Awards Honor Ten Area Organizations for Diverse New Products, Services

Press Release

Fourth Annual Ceremony Cites USRobotics Founder Cowell with "Visionary Pioneer Award" Chicago, October 11. For innovations ranging from breast cancer detection to community rejuvenation, ten Chicago area organizations are winners in the Fourth Annual Chicago Innovation Awards competition. Building on Chicago's long heritage of innovation, this year's award winners offered successful new products and approaches across a wide spectrum of commerce and community service. Their innovations include technology solutions such as next-generation cell phones and Web browsers, materials advances such as moisture barriers for flooring installations and cleaning systems for mechanical parts, and an organizational alliance aimed at helping Chicago's most challenged neighborhoods. Winners in the program - selected from more than 130 nominees -  are the City of Chicago for the new Millennium Park; healthcare systems leader Abbott Laboratories; fluid-engineering innovator Laminar Technologies; building products manufacturer USG Corporation; industrial cleaning technology leader Solvent Systems; public-private alliance known as the New Communities Program; and technology-related companies Motorola, Intellext, Novarra and Vibes Media.

An awards ceremony October 18 at the Goodman Theater, Chicago, will honor this year's winning organizations, as well as the program's 2005 Visionary Pioneer Award winner, Casey Cowell, a co-founder and longtime CEO of USRobotics, one of Chicago's best high-tech success stories.

Starting from the proverbial one-room office over a Lincoln Avenue storefront, USRobotics grew under Cowell's visionary leadership into the world's leading producer of dial-up modems, enabling personal computers to communicate over standard phone lines and establishing a widespread infrastructure of data communications technology that helped speed adoption of the Internet among PC users in the 1990s. USRobotics became publicly traded in the early 1990s and subsequently was acquired by networking products leader 3Com Corp.

In addition to accepting the Visionary Pioneer Award, Cowell will deliver the Innovation Awards keynote address at the awards ceremony next Tuesday.

Chicago-based consulting firm Kuczmarski Associates and the Chicago Sun-Times newspaper created the Chicago Innovation Awards program and oversaw the nomination and judging processes. As in previous years, the title sponsor of this year's awards program is the William Wrigley Jr. Company. Other sponsors are Microsoft Corporation, the Goodman Theatre, Slack Barshinger & Partners and Maggiano's Little Italy.

Chicago area companies and organizations have produced countless innovations during the past 150 years. The Chicago Innovation Awards help create awareness of today's local innovations that are changing the world, said Thomas Kuczmarski, president of Kuczmarski Associates. "Not only do Chicago Innovation Award winners create innovation and bring it to life on a daily basis, they inspire and educate others to do so as well."

Chicago Innovation Award nominees were judged based on the success of products and services introduced between January 2003 and June 2005 that uniquely satisfied unmet needs in the marketplace. The contest was open to any type of organization with national or divisional headquarters in northern Illinois, northwestern Indiana, southeastern Wisconsin or southwestern Michigan.

Following is a recap of the 2005 Chicago Innovation Award winners (in alphabetical order) and their innovative new products and services:

* Abbott Laboratories PathVysion is a new test for breast cancer that allows physicians to use genetic information to predict the effectiveness of various treatment regimes. PathVysion is the only FDA-approved genetic test of its kind in this category. Abbott is based in north suburban Abbott Park. * The City of Chicago, with the support of the Chicago business and philanthropic communities, created Millennium Park as Chicago's newest addition to its extensive lakefront park system. Formally opened with a grand celebration on July 16, 2004, this 24.5-acre park at the northwest corner of Grant Park has transformed a former railyard, a parking lot and underused parkland into an outdoor cultural venue. It is a place for Chicagoans and tourists to enjoy gardens, ice skating, outdoor and indoor concerts, restaurants, festivals and fairs, fountains and water features, as well as interactive public art. * Intellext, Inc., of Chicago, created Watson as a search-companion to desktop PC applications. This new approach to search software is based on tracking a PC user's work and delivering information as needed to complement and augment the work-in-progress. * Laminar Technologies, of Chicago, proves with its TurboTap that even beer-pouring can be the object of innovation. TurboTap employs advanced fluid technology to quadruple the speed of drawing beer from a tap, while efficiently emptying up to 97 percent of a beer keg, compared with only 85 percent by traditional tap systems. The combination of speed and efficiency is serving up bigger profits for taverns and restaurants using the system. * Motorola's RAZR V3 cell phone represents a major design and engineering advance, combining new benchmarks for thinness and comprehensive user features. The RAZR re-established Motorola, of Schaumburg, on the cutting edge of mobile phone innovation, a position that its subsequent new product introductions continue to fulfill. * New Communities Program is an alliance of government, private sector and non-profit organizations that have joined forces to rejuvenate Chicago's most challenged communities, provide needed services to residents, and preserve those communities diverse heritages and architectures in the face of gentrification. The program has provided job training and placement, created community centers, and fostered commercial projects that have invested more than 30 times the costs of the programs back into the communities. * Novarra, of Itasca, created its nWeb browser for US Cellular mobile phones, delivering full Internet functionality and Web site formatting and interactivity to cell phone users. It's the first technology to render all Web pages viewable on a mobile phone interface. * Solvent Systems International, of Elk Grove Village, redefined parts-cleaning systems with its Grease Gator Aqueous Parts Washer. In contrast to older systems that required professional operators, extensive cleaning and the disposal of hazardous wastes, the Grease Gator is simple to operate and produces no hazardous materials. It's the first system in which the oil used for cleaning parts is still usable afterwards, even as fuel. * USG Corporation, of Chicago, developed its DUROCK Tile Membrane for the flooring industry to protect moisture-sensitive materials such as plywood, tile and stone from water damage. DUROCK forms a vapor-permeable bond between the subfloor and the flooring material, allowing dampness to dry out and protecting against the formation of mold and mildew. DUROCK is projected to capture 10 percent of its competitive market within two to four years. * Vibes Media, of Chicago, connects radio listeners with radio stations through its iRadio Text Messaging Platform. iRadio enables listeners to respond directly to broadcast promotions, contests, talk topics or events inexpensively and without the limitations of voice telephone response systems. A recent on-air promotion by a Chicago FM radio station resulted in the exchange of more than 40,000 text messages between the station and 6,000 of its listeners.

"Innovation is the strategic foundation for many successful enterprises," said Sun-Times Business Editor Dan Miller. Instead of simply cutting costs to meet their profit goals, these companies are growing and ensuring their future success by driving innovation to fulfill their customers needs or create profitable new markets.