CONNECT’s Most Innovative New Product Awards, the region’s premier product award competition, has just opened its annual call for nominations in nine categories: action and sport technologies, aerospace and security technologies, clean technology, communications and IT, hardware and general technology, life science-diagnostics and research tools, life science-medical products, software and mobile apps – a new category this year. CONNECT is a non-profit that catalyzes the creation of innovation companies in the San Diego region.
Nominations will be accepted until Friday, September 7, 2012. To be eligible for the 2012 Most Innovative New Product (MIP) Awards, the product must have been developed in the San Diego region, be first introduced during the period of March 2011 and September 2012, have generated revenue from sales, and be a first-time nominee. For more information and to submit your nomination online, please visit: www.cvent.com/d/4cqzlk.
“This year marks the 25th annual MIP Awards,” comments Duane Roth, CEO of CONNECT. “To celebrate this important milestone, we will pay special tribute to the innovation superstars who came to San Diego and transformed the world’s healthcare, communications, defense, transportation and design industries. We will also continue our tradition of honoring the wide-ranging field of game-changing innovations that are developed in the San Diego region each year.”
More than 100 innovation products are developed and launched by San Diego companies each year. The majority of these companies compete in MIP’s rigorous four-month judging process, but only nine will walk to the podium to receive the prestigious award. Companies of all sizes and sectors participate. Last year’s winners included Hydroflex, Langford & Carmichael, Inc., Genomatica, Ethertonics, Memjet, Life Technologies, Hypnoz Therapeutic Devices, and MOGL.
This year, CONNECT will also present the Distinguished Contribution Award in Technology and the Distinguished Contribution Award in Life Sciences. Honorees of this award are individuals who, through their business endeavors and community involvement, have encouraged innovation and diversity of thought.
The ceremony will culminate with the William W. Otterson Award, considered CONNECT’s highest honor, which recognizes technologies or products developed in San Diego that demonstrate a significant positive impact on our quality of life.
This red carpet event is CONNECT's largest and most prestigious, attracting more than 800 of the region's top business leaders, researchers and capital providers. The MIP Awards are to San Diego's technology industry what the Academy Awards are to the movie industry. Winners will be announced on Friday, December 7, 2012, during a luncheon program at the Hilton La Jolla Torrey Pines. Attendees will have the opportunity to visit hands-on product displays by the finalist companies at the event.
About CONNECT
Over its 26-year history, CONNECT has assisted in the formation and development of more than 3,000 companies in the San Diego region and is widely regarded as one of the world's most successful organizations linking inventors and entrepreneurs with the resources they need for commercialization of discoveries. The program has been modeled in more than 50 regions around the world. CONNECT has been recognized by TIME, INC. and Entrepreneur magazines and in 2011 won the national State Science and Technology Institute’s Excellence in Tech Based Economic Development Award for Building Entrepreneurial Capacity. In 2010 CONNECT was the recipient of the Innovation in Economic Development Award from the U.S. Department of Commerce for creation of Regional Innovation Clusters. CONNECT manages the San Diego, Imperial Valley, Inland SoCal Innovation Hub (iHub) designated by the state of California Governor’s Office of Business & Economic Development in 2010. Key to CONNECT’s success has been San Diego’s unique "culture of collaboration" between research organizations, capital sources, professional service providers and the established industries.