2011 Winners Announced

Congratulations, winners: $115,000 in Awards Announced

Over 250 people attended the Cincinnati Innovates Awards Celebration yesterday at NKU.  Check out some of the photos, courtesy of Scott Beseler, photographer extraordinaire for Soapbox, online here.

In the past three years over 1,000 entrepreneurs have participated in the Cincinnati Innovates competition.  We hear you: almost 100,000 votes have been cast over the past three years.  The local media is paying attention: over 20 media outlets have featured Cincinnati Innovates.  The world is paying attention: online, Cincinnati Innovates has received almost 1 million pageviews from over 50 countries.  A total of $250,000 in grants have been awarded to local entrepreneurs through the generous support of our sponsors.

Past winners have gone on to raise over $3.5 million in follow-on capital, have been featured in national media, and are changing the world with their ideas.  This year, they are joined by twelve new innovators who will collectively save stroke victims from brain damage and death, save travelers from missed flights, keep firefighters safe in the line of duty, help parents get kids to chores, and help fantasy sports fans draft better teams.

Here are our 2011 Winners:

CincyTech Commercialization Awards:
$25,000 ChoreMonster
$25,000 Acceptd
$10,000 DraftOpt

Taft Legal/Patent Awards:  
$10,000 Ischiban
$5,000 Plan B Flights

LPK Design & Branding Award: 
$10,000 SmartyTags

Round Pixel Web Development Award: 
$10,000 Simple Golf Outings

Northern Kentucky Vision 2015 Award: 
$5,000 Ischiban

7/79 Video Award: 
$5,000 FoxFire

Northern Kentucky ezone Award: 
$2,500 All Decked Out

Cooney, Faulkner & Stevens Get Started Award:  
$2,500 SavingsMatic

HYPE Community Choice Award:
$2,000 WantBug

GCVA Partner Participation Award:  
$1,000 UC DAAP Industrial Design Program

John McIlwraith

2011 GCVA Investor of the Year

Congratulations to John McIlwraith of Allos Ventures, who was honored as the 2011 Greater Cincinnati Venture Association’s Investor of the Year.  John was recognized for his leadership and service to the Greater Cincinnati and Midwest Venture community.  Find out more about why John rocks.

Thank you, sponsors!

Cincinnati Innovates would not be possible without the generous support of the Haile Foundation, The Health Foundation, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, Fort Washington Capital Partners, CincyTech, Taft, Soapbox Media, LPK, 7/79 Video Production, Northern Kentucky Tri-Ed, Round Pixel Studio, Bare Knuckle Marketing, Vision 2015, the Greater Cincinnati Venture Association, HYPE, the Northern Kentucky eZone, Cooney, Faulkner & Stevens, and the Cincinnati Inventor’s Council.

Join the GCVA

If you loved the Cincinnati Innovates awards, the kickoff to the Greater Cincinnati Venture Association 2011-2012 season, then sign up to be a member before August 31.  For a limited time (until Weds), get a $20 discount on your GCVA membership ($59), which includes ten more great events featuring venture capital investors, high tech companies, and awesome entrepreneurs.  The GCVA is THE organization for entrepreneurs in Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky.  Join here: http://tinyurl.com/gcva-inno

Let’s turn it up to 11…

Cincinnati Innovates is just part of a larger regional entrepreneurial ecosytem.  Check out this 5 minute video by 7/79 that profiles all the amazing resources and organizations for entrepreneurs right here in Cincinnati:  http://vimeo.com/15166150

2011 Awards Details

Cincinnati Innovates is a regional innovation competition open to anyone with an idea or an invention who has a connection to Greater Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky/Southeast Indiana. 

This year, almost $90,000 in awards will be presented to the best ideas, products, technologies, and businesses in the region.

To enter visit www.cincinnatiinnovates.com
    1.  Enter a short description of your innovation – product, business, idea – and upload pictures, video, sketches or other media to help explain it.
    2.  Tell your friends about it. The HYPE Community Choice Award is driven by online votes.

The competition is open online at www.cincinnatiinnovates.com from April 15-July 15, 2011.

The deadline for entries is July 15, 2011.

Anyone can enter ­– any age, background, level of expertise.
Any type of idea or innovation is welcome ­– product, service, device, web or mobile app, business process, etc.

Awards:  This year, Cincinnati Innovates will award twelve grant awards totaling almost than $90,000:

CincyTech Commercialization Awards:   $25,000 and $10,000
(cash award, sponsored by CincyTech)
Taft Patent Awards:   $10,000 and $5,000
(in kind - applied toward patent applications and prosecution, sponsored by Taft Stettinius & Hollister Law Firm)
Web Development Award:  $10,000
(in kind - applied toward web development and marketing, sponsored by Round Pixel Studio & Bare Knuckle Marketing)
LPK Design and Branding Award: $10,000
(in kind - applied toward design and branding, sponsored by LPK)
Northern Kentucky Vision 2015 Award:  $5,000
(cash award, sponsored by Vision 2015)
7/79 Video Production Award:  $5,000
(in kind - applied toward production and editing, sponsored by 7/79)
Northern Kentucky eZone Award:  $2,500
(cash award, sponsored by NKY eZone)
Cooney, Faulkner & Stevens Get Started Award:   $2,500
(in kind - applied toward business accounting and advisory, sponsored by Cooney, Faulkner & Stevens)
HYPE Community Choice Award:  $2,000
(cash award, sponsored by the Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber’s HYPE program)
GCVA Participation Award:  $1,000
(cash award, sponsored by the Greater Cincinnati Venture Association and given to the Student or Professional Organization with the most participation)

Cincinnati Innovates Names Winners →

By Laura Baverman • Cincinnati.com and Enquirer • September 22, 2010

VenueAgent soon may be a web tool for wedding and event planners nationwide, thanks to a $25,000 first place commercialization award from this year’s Cincinnati Innovates competition.

VenueAgent founder Jocelyn Cates learned of her award Wednesday night at an event to recognize 10 local award winners of the annual innovation competition. About 300 people attended.

Cates and her husband, Joe, soon will launch a web site that aggregates venue information and provides deals for planners. They’ll now have funds and a year of assistance from CincyTech’s staff of former entrepreneurs, business executives and venture capitalists to help market and manage her business.

Cates was among a pool of 301 applicants to the online competition. More than 16,000 online votes were cast for the winners.

Said Innovates founder Elizabeth Edwards: “We had more winners than awards to give out. This is about a whole year’s worth of deal flow for our region’s seed stage investors.”

Other winners include:

• Suprasanna Mishra for ConcertEverytime

Second Prize Commercialization award sponsored by CincyTech: $10,000

The 18-year-old Mason High School grad created a web application, called ConcertEverytime, to match a person’s music library with concert dates and locations of his or her favorite artists

• Alex Frommeyer, Alex Curry, Daniel Dykes and Joseph Schab for their dental device

Northern Kentucky Commercialization Award sponsored by Northern Kentucky eZone, Vision 2015, Northern Kentucky Tri-Ed and biologic: $10,000

They’ve created an intellidontic endodontic file to protect patients from nerve damage during root canals.

• Amit Bhattacharya and David Ralph for OsteoDynamics

First Prize Legal & Patent Award, sponsored by Taft Stettinius and Hollister: $10,000

OsteoDynamics is a device that enables painless and non-invasive diagnosis of osteoporosis.

• Georg Weber of MetaMol Marker for Breast Cancer Aggressiveness

Second Prize Legal & Patent Award, sponsored by Taft Stettinius and Hollister: $5,000

Weber’s MetaMol Marker provides diagnostic tools to predict the likelihood of a breast tumor to grow and spread.

• Sally Pipkin of Patients at Play

LPK Design and Branding Award: $10,000 applied toward services by LPK

Patients at Play is a company that designs kid-friendly clothing and IV covers to protect needle sites during treatment.

• Darcy Crociata for FunBooks

CoStrategix Web Development Award: $5,000 applied toward web application development by CoStrategix

FunBooks is a web application that grabs status updates, comments and photos from Facebook and assembles them in a hardcover album.

• Keara Schwartz of ShareSomeSugar

Cooney, Faulkner & Stevens Get Started Award: $2,500 applied toward business accounting and advisory

ShareSomeSugar is a web community that lets users lend items they own or borrow from others within a neighborhood or social network

• Dan Calhoun for RooRoo

HYPE! Community Choice Award: $2,000

RooRoo is an in-flight game for airline passengers.

• Carly Hagins of the University of Cincinnati for her compostable porta-potty

Student Innovator Award: $1,000

The complete portable restroom is designed with a waste tank primed for composting and minimizing odor within the restroom.

Judith Estrin on her book, Closing the Innovation Gap

Cincinnati Innovates in CincyChic! →

How to Pitch to Investors - WSJ Video

Cincinnati Innovates entries featured in Soapbox! →