Nominations are now open! The deadline to submit your nomination is July 15th, 2012.

10 Winners Receive:

Recognition at the Harris Theater

The 10 Chicago Innovation Award winners, the Up-and-Comer Award Finalists, and the People’s Choice Award winner are honored on-stage at the Harris Theater. Winners also are able to present their winning innovations at the reception before the show. The 2012 Chicago Innovation Awards will be held on October 22nd.

Business and Innovation Training from Disney Institute

The 10 Chicago Innovation Award winners will be invited to a four day business and innovation training program in Orlando, Florida provided by Disney Institute, including hotel and park tickets for the whole family!

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Recognition on a Global Stage

Each winner will be invited by TechAmerica to ring the opening NASDAQ bell on November 13th in New York City, gaining global recognition for their achievements.

Featured in local and national media

Each winner will be profiled in various local and national media outlets.

Featured in a CTA Advertising Campaign

Each winner will be featured in a CTA advertising campaign in November and December.

Memberships

Each winner is awarded a one-year membership to the Illinois Technology Association and a one-year membership to TechAmerica.

Top 75 Finalists Receive:

The top 75 finalists will each be awarded a scholarship to “The Practical Innovator” at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management ($2,500 value). This day-long education course teaches the practical skills of innovation at its internationally-known executive education facility, the Allen Center. These top 75 finalists are also profiled on our website during the People’s Choice Award voting, in which thousands of Chicagoans will view their innovation and vote for their favorite innovation.

All Nominees Receive:

All of those who work toward building the innovation community in the Chicago-region should be recognized. For this reason, we invite all nominees of the Chicago Innovation Awards to the Nominee Reception, free of charge, at the House of Blues. This event will celebrate all nominees of the 2012 Chicago Innovation Awards and provides a great opportunity to connect and network with other innovators and resource providers. All nominees are also celebrated in a full-page ad in the Chicago Sun-Times to publicly recognize their achievements across the city.

What Past Winners Say:

“Everything good that has ever happened to us is because of winning a Chicago Innovation Award.”

-Andrew Mason, Founder & CEO, Groupon, 2009 Winner

“Investors like to see markets that have comeptitors, and if you’re the first to a market, you don’t have this. Winning the Chicago Innovation Award provided validation to our investors that, although we were brand new to a market, there was a need and opportunity here.”

-Paul Everton, CEO, Visible Vote, 2009 Winner

“Winning a Chicago Innovation Award really kick started us… We were small and this recognition is so important to the small guys. We used it in every proposal. When you write to the government, any publicity that you have helps, and that Innovation Award was the breakthrough that we needed to get Ferrium S53 out there.”

-Ray Genellie, VP Operations, QuesTek Innovations, 2002 Winner

“It had such a profound impact for a nonprofit organization to be recognized by the Chicago Innovation Awards. It’s been fabulously helpful in spreading awareness in the city of Chicago, amongst peers, and to the rest of the nation.”

-Kim Duchossois, President of The Duchossois Family Foundation; key contributor to the American Cancer Society, 2004 Winner

“When looking to expand the Wow! Oven into China, I went to the head of R+D for Yum Brands, who has about 70% of their worldwide profits in China. He instantly told me that he knew the product; he had seen it from the Chicago Innovation Awards, and we were in.”

-Mark Sieron, President, Middleby Marshall; 2004 Winner

“Winning a Chicago Innovation Award provided a tremendous morale boost internally and gave recognition to the folks who had worked so hard to build the auction… Up to that point, we had nice articles and accolades in IP industry rags, but nothing more main stream: it was great to receive the external recognition as well.”

-Jim Malakowski, Chairman & CEO, Ocean Tomo, 2006 Winner

“I accepted the Chicago Innovation Award on behalf of everyone who came before me, but I know the employees love it when stuff like that happens, and it gives investors more confidence, as they write those checks totaling over a half billion dollars over the years.

-Michael Small, President and CEO of Gogo, 2009 Winner

“The visibility from the Innovation Award has a big impact on general awareness of our organization, especially from organizations of theChicago area.”

-Alex Bratton, Founder and CEO of Lextech Labs, 2010 Winner

“Winning the Chicago Innovation Award has helped to provide different resources and different connections, networking opportunities that we wouldn’t have in the past.”

-Mark Bozik, Vice President of Rescue Vac Systems, Inc., 2009 Winner

“It was a big deal winning the award… I think it made people here think about what we were doing differently. We weren’t really thinking about the whole innovation aspect of it.”

-Janet Attarian, Project Director for the Streetscape and Sustainable Design Program and Sustainability Coordinator for the Chicago Department of Transportation, 2007 Winner

“It gave us validation in the marketplace, validation to clients, to the money community for VCs, for private equity, and angels; you get a stamp of approval, and it allows others to talk about us being something real going on here.”

-Bob Gillespie, Co-Founder and CEO of InContext Solutions, 2010 Winner

“The company at that point was really trying to focus on marketing communications, and it’s hard to measure, but certainly it was validation of our technology. We had our first deployment of the new nWeb technology, which was US Cellular in Chicago… It definitely parlayed that into not only the validation of our technology, but also for the region.”

-Randy Cavaiani, Vice President, Global Sales & Marketing for Novarra Inc., 2005 Winner

“A lot of people in the design community recognize the outside validation of winning a CIA, something we talk about with retail customers, perspective employees.”

-Tom Schlegel, Sr. VP of Product Development, Radio Flyer, 2007 Winner