Interactive Intelligence, Ticketracker and DoubleMap, Among Top Honorees
TechPoint, Indiana’s technology growth initiative, honored Indiana’s best companies, entrepreneurs and educators for their technology excellence and innovation at the 15th annual Mira Awards gala presented by BKD CPAs & Advisors at the JW Marriott in downtown Indianapolis. Among those taking home top honors were Interactive Intelligence (Tech Company of the Year), LumenCache (Tech Innovation of the Year), Ticketracker (Emerging Tech Company of the Year), DoubleMap (Tech Startup of the Year) and Bobby Schnabel, Dean of Indiana University School of Informatics and Computing (Trailblazer in Technology).
"The Mira Awards continues to be the premiere event for the tech sector in Indiana with a record 170 applications for awards this year, a 40 percent increase over last year’s prior record,” said TechPoint CEO Mike Langellier. “The caliber of companies continues to be impressive and the growth of these companies in revenue and jobs year over year not only shows the strength in the sector but also the ability to develop these types of tech companies in Indiana."
Forty-eight independent, volunteer judges spent more than 700 collective hours reviewing the applications, interviewing the nominees and choosing the 15 winners. Judges were primarily subject matter experts and experienced company executives.
Typical growth rates for established computer software companies are between eight and 11 percent, according to analysis by the Stern School of Business at New York University (using data up to January 2014). The median growth rate for Mira Award nominees is significantly higher: 25 percent for Tech Company of the Year, 60 percent for Emerging Tech Company of the Year (100 employees or less), and 100 percent median growth for Tech Startup of the Year nominees.
“Half of the applicants this year didn’t even exist five years ago and few have been around more than a decade,” added Langellier. “The Mira Awards bring important visibility to these companies and the tech sector, which helps them win customers, investment capital and workforce talent; the critical inputs required to accelerate revenue and job growth.”
Full List of the 2014 TechPoint Mira Award winners:
(Detailed descriptions on why the companies or individuals were chosen are below)
Tech Company of the Year: Interactive Intelligence
Tech Innovation of the Year: LumenCache
Emerging Tech Company of the Year: Ticketracker
Tech Startup of the Year: DoubleMap
Honorable Mentions: BlueBridge Digital and SteadyServ Technologies
Trailblazer in Technology Award: Bobby Schnabel, Dean of Indiana University School of Informatics and Computing
Mobile Tech Award: DoubleMap
Marketing Tech Award: PERQ
Tech Sales and Marketing Award: Teradata Corporation
Health Tech Award: PolicyStat
Tech Services Award (IT in Support of the Business): One.IU Development Team
Tech Services Award (IT in Support of Go-to-Market): The Schneider Corporation
Education Tech Award: Social Net Watcher
​Honorable Mention: Standard for Success
Tech Educator of the Year Award: Jonathan Blake Huer, director of emerging technologies, Ball State University
TechPoint Rising Star Award: Chris Palmer, founder and CEO, BoxFox
TechPoint Foundation for Youth Bridge Builder Award: Robert L. Kizer, president and CEO, Starfish Initiative
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Tech Company of the Year (Interactive Intelligence): This is the second straight year that Interactive Intelligence Group Inc. (Nasdaq: ININ) has won this award. The company is a global provider of contact center, unified communications and business process automation software and services designed to improve the customer experience. The Indianapolis-based company added 183 jobs in 2013, grew its revenue by 34 percent and its stock price by 100 percent. The company has achieved double-digit annual growth for seven of the last eight years. Additionally, the value of the company’s average deal has tripled during that same time period, all while shifting its business to the cloud, going from only 5 percent in 2009 to 50 percent cloud-based today. FULL STORY
Tech Innovation of the Year (LumenCache): McCordsville-based LumenCache offers a safer, more reliable and efficient energy grid and intelligent automation for the last 1,000 feet of power distribution. The LumenCache platform is more appropriate to the low power needs and digital capabilities of electronic devices including LED lights, and thereby replaces the old 110 Volt AC power system. LumenCache is fundamentally improving power delivery for an infrastructure that hasn’t changed much since the days of Thomas Edison, and improving the lives of people by bringing affordable, sustainable power distribution where there was none. LumenCache has received one U.S. patent with another pending, and the company reported mid-six figures in sales in 2013 with a 200 percent increase projected for 2014. FULL STORY
Emerging Tech Company of the Year (Ticketracker): Anderson-based Ticketracker is a software solution which offers schools around the country the opportunity to increase revenue, improve efficiency and increase accountability for all payment transactions. Schools can replace high-risk cash and paper-ticket transactions that often rely on the "honor system," with secure, online credit card payments for any fees, registrations and events. Ticketracker, which represents schools in all 50 states, Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico, not only found a problem and solved it, but they are dominating in an underserved niche market. FULL STORY
Tech Startup of the Year (DoubleMap): Indianapolis-based DoubleMap provides an online bus-tracking application that delivers real-time information for both riders and transit authorities, allowing communities to get the most out of their public transit system. Riders are able to track the exact location of a bus in real-time, eliminating time wasted waiting at a bus stop. Through an ingenious student government sales channel and quickly developing a second generation product that supports riders with disabilities, DoubleMap has already achieved significant nationwide market penetration with 1.2 million daily users in 10 U.S. cities and 40 college campuses. FULL STORY
Honorable Mentions:
BlueBridge Digital: The Indianapolis-based company was created to provide an easier, smarter way for businesses to harness the power of the mobile revolution. Founded by Santiago Jaramillo in his dorm room, BlueBridge Digital is a pioneer in the field of Mobile Apps as a Service. They create customized, affordable, full-featured mobile apps that help organizations like universities, convention and visitors bureaus, churches and more connect with their customers on a daily basis.
SteadyServ Technologies: Carmel-based SteadyServ Technologies’ iKeg system is a distributive solution for the beer industry. The system is a mobile, SaaS-based inventory and order management system that gives retailers the power to know which beers are selling best and what is popular nearby, giving them a competitive advantage.
Trailblazer in Technology Award (Bobby Schnabel, Dean, Indiana University School of Informatics and Computing): Since Bobby Schnabel became dean in 2007, the IU School of Informatics and Computing has tripled undergraduate enrollment to 2,000 undergraduate majors and doubled graduate enrollment to 1,200 students. Research funding has tripled to $17 million, and nearly 60 percent of the Informatics School’s students remain in Indiana for tech careers after graduation. Dean Schnabel teaches computer science and informatics in Bloomington, Ind. and leads 150 faculty at both the Bloomington and Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) campuses. FULL STORY
Mobile Tech Award (DoubleMap): Winning their second 2014 Mira Award, Indianapolis-based DoubleMap provides an online bus-tracking application that delivers real-time information for both riders and transit authorities, allowing communities to get the most out of their public transit system. Riders are able to track the exact location of a bus in real-time eliminating time wasted waiting at a bus stop. DoubleMap has addressed both its B2B and B2C constituents with mobile technology that is easy to setup and install for transit authorities and easy to understand and use for riders. DoubleMap is also delivering its customers valuable analytics that help them secure transit grants, which helps to fortify the business model and extend the investment. FULL STORY
Marketing Tech Award (PERQ): Indianapolis-based PERQ is a marketing technology and promotions company that helps businesses attract consumers through incentives, promotions and games. The company’s newest technology, FATWIN, manages business-branded contests and games, letting businesses capture information about leads in real-time. The company says that the days of the “fishbowl drawings” are over. The company’s remarkable growth and the return on investment the FATWIN product offers its customers (a proven 25% increase in sales) astounded the Mira judges. FULL STORY
Tech Sales and Marketing Award (Teradata Corporation): Teradata Corporation is a global leader in analytic data platforms, marketing and analytic applications, and consulting services. They help organizations unify and analyze massive amounts of data so that they can know more, do more and focus on what's really important for their businesses. A small Indianapolis-based team within Teradata’s Integrated Marketing Management unit (including the acquired Indianapolis-based company Aprimo) executed an integrated content marketing campaign that yielded a return on investment for the company 36 times the outlay, and established Teradata as a data-driven marketing thought leader. The campaign earned more than three million impressions with a 25 percent conversion rate, prompted 30 executive-level global brand prospect meetings, and ultimately earned Teradata additional revenue in the eight-digit figure range. FULL STORY
Health Tech Award (PolicyStat): Carmel-based PolicyStat’s software helps organizations of all sizes streamline the management of their playbook of policies and procedures, saving staff time, energy and money while improving quality, compliance and risk. The Mira judges believe PolicyStat truly emerged as the force in policy and procedure management software for health information technology with nearly 500 customer deployments in 2013. PolicyStat actually changes the way organizations capture and disseminate knowledge, which has led to more transparency, greater accountability and better outcomes. FULL STORY
Tech Service Award - IT to Support the Business (One.IU Development Team): One.IU is Indiana University’s “app store” for enterprise IT services and has dramatically streamlined the process of discovering and accessing key resources for 130,000 students, faculty and staff across eight campuses in Indiana. In four months, the One.IU team brought consumerism to IU’s web services, developing one interface for accessing everything from class registration to cloud storage, and turned their intended moniker, “Search, Click, Done” into a reality. One.IU was developed from the ground up to be multi-tenant, and so far, two other schools are using the platform, which has proven to be a successful revenue stream for the university. FULL STORY
Tech Service Award - IT to Support Go-to-Market (The Schneider Corporation): Indianapolis-based The Schneider Corporation creates innovative e-government solutions that change and improve how people interact with local governments. In 2013, The Schneider Corporation saved taxpayers more than 11 million trips to local government offices. Tasks that would have previously taken four days to complete now take just a few hours with fewer resources. Schneider’s core disciplines of surveying, GIS and engineering are augmented by their specialty services like underground utility location, 3D laser scanning and mobile mapping. FULL STORY
Education Tech Award (Social Net Watcher): Plainfield-based Social Net Watcher provides cloud-based software that scans school students’ social media posts for specific data pertaining to cyberbullying, suicide and violence. Once phrases are identified, alert information is forwarded to school administrators for intervention and even saving students’ lives. By offering parents and administrators real opportunities to prevent bullying, suicide and violence, Social Net Watcher has flipped the student safety model to preventative rather than reactive and developed easy-to-use, instantaneous software and reporting channels that save lives. FULL STORY
Honorable Mention:
Standard for Success: Cloverdale-based Standard for Success was created by educators for educators. The company is a fully customizable online staff evaluation and management program for teachers, administrators and district-level leadership. Educators nationwide rely on its robust web-based portal via their smartphones, tablets or laptops 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Tech Educator of the Year Award (Jonathan Blake Huer, director of emerging technologies, Ball State University): Jonathan Blake Huer serves as the director of emerging technologies at Ball State University and is an award winning app developer and filmmaker. He recently released his first book, Be Employed When You Graduate. Jonathan came to Ball State in the fall of 2006 to create the Digital Corps, which provides a unique on campus job for undergraduate students with aspirations to work in innovative and creative fields. To date, 100 percent of Digital Corps student employees are employed or are in graduate school. In addition, Jonathan helped to transition the Indiana General Assembly to an electronic process capable of saving 15 tons of paper a year. FULL STORY
TechPoint Rising Star of the Year Award (Chris Palmer, founder and CEO, BoxFox): Chris Palmer is the founder and CEO of BoxFox, a B2B marketplace for overstock retail inventory. BoxFox gained international recognition when he was selected as a participant and awarded a grant from Start-Up Chile, a world-renowned business accelerator based in South America. His cumulative endeavors have provided jobs for 20 people in Indiana and generated more than seven-figures in revenue so far. He mentors student entrepreneurs and has a co-investment strategy with Indiana prison inmates starting their own businesses after release. Chris is a Purdue University graduate, an Orr Fellow alumnus and also founded SupplyKick, an e-commerce company. FULL STORY
TechPoint Foundation for Youth Bridge Builder Award (Robert L. Kizer, president and CEO, Starfish Initiative): Robert Kizer leads one of the most successful college access mentoring programs in the country at Starfish, which matches students with college-educated, volunteer adult mentors who help “walk” their students into college. Thanks to the guidance of their mentors, 100 percent of the Starfish Scholars who completed the program have graduated from high school and 97% have been accepted by colleges or universities. Kizer previously served in senior client service and practice development roles in public accounting (Price Waterhouse, now PwC), commercial real estate management (F.C. Tucker Commercial, now Cassidy Turley) and market research/customer strategy consulting (Walker Information). FULL STORY
About TechPoint
TechPoint is Indiana’s technology initiative focused on being a powerful voice for Indiana’s tech sector through marketing and thought leadership, and being a catalyst for strategic growth initiatives ─ specifically talent recruitment, entrepreneurship, and marketing tech and health information technology (HIT) cluster development. For more information, please visit www.techpoint.org.
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