YPO Announces the 2017 Global Innovation Award Winners


Honoring Global Innovators Initiating Breakthroughs  
that Inspire Positive Transformation

DALLAS - 17 May 2017 - YPO, the premier chief executive leadership organization in the world, concluded its second-annual YPO Innovation Week by announcing the winners of the Global Innovation Awards, which honors those YPO members who have created transformative innovations and nurture continued growth and opportunity for leaders around the world.

In addition to recognizing the top ten innovators from among more than 24,000 YPO members across 130 countries, the Global Innovation Awards also honors Asia's top innovator and the top young adult innovator, who is a child of YPO member (ages 17-29).

"The Global Innovation Awards highlight those distinguished innovators who are leading the way in creating forward-thinking companies and significant opportunities for this and the next generation. These leaders are making an indelible mark in the world," said Keith Alper, Chair of YPO Innovation Week.

During May, 2017 YPO Innovation Week connected influential entrepreneurs, innovators and thought leaders to exchange ideas about inspiration, breakthroughs and transformation through more than 50 signature events, live two-way interactive video casts and livestream events around the world. At the conclusion of the week, YPO announced the top Asian innovator in Hong Kong and the Global Innovation Award winner in New York City.

2017 Global Innovation Award Winners

Global Innovation Award - Michael Golway, President and CEO of Advanced Solutions, Inc

Michael Golway is the inventor of the BioAssemblyBot®, the world's first 3D human tissue printer that uses a six-axis robot. BioAssemblyBot® is a disruptive technology that allows researchers to complete their experiments faster, pharmaceutical companies to take cost and time out of the drug development process and a new approach to solve for diseased or failing organs.

In addition to selling the innovation to customers around the world, Advanced Solutions Life Sciences is using the BioAssemblyBot® technology platform in its own labs to help advance the science including developments to support the goal of 3D printing human organs.


Global Innovation Award - Asia Top Innovator - Tadahiro Kawada, President of Kawada Industries

Tadahiro Kawada is the President of Kawada Technologies, Inc, overseeing multiple businesses including construction, ICT, aviation, environmental, and robotics. With a background in mechanical and aerospace engineering, he led the research and development of humanoid robots at Kawada, collaborating with the University of Tokyo and Japanese government agencies. Since 2000, the Kawada Group has developed more than 10 variations of biped humanoid robots. Kawada's newest robotics product, NEXTAGE, is an industrial-use collaborative robot (cobot) that empowers manufacturing companies, facilitating factory innovation and labor efficiencies.

Global Innovation Award - YPO Next Generation - Nicholas Ackerman

Nicholas Ackerman is the developer of bCODE technology, providing companies with a method of delivering tickets to all mobile users by utilizing SMS. bCODE technology has since evolved, now offering services for retailers and credit card companies, allowing for consistent consumer engagement and dynamic delivery of incentives to reward or encourage loyalty behavior.


 

"Congratulations to the 2017 Global Innovation Award honorees as they highlight the innovation and breadth of talent of the global YPO network," said Scott Mordell, CEO of YPO. "Acknowledging their originality and inventiveness is a perfect way to cap off the second-annual YPO Innovation Week."

 Finalists

The top finalists for the YPO Global Innovation Awards include:

Rex Briggs, CEO of Marketing Evolution
Marketing Evolution is an independent SaaS platform for measuring and optimizing the entire marketing mix and creator of ROI BrainTM, which uses person-level analysis to deliver detailed message rotation, targeting and media mix optimization for every media.

Mark Hadland, CEO of Level11
Level 11, a user experience software development firm, has recently partnered with Carnival Cruise Corp. to develop the largest guest-facing, Iot platform designed to deliver personalized guest experiences at scale.

Gregg Hill of Frustum
Frustum is a pioneer in functional generative design and topology optimization software for industrial designers and engineers, recently introducing its proprietary geometry kernel designed to move the 3D Computer-Aided Design market to true generative design and optimization.

Samir Kulkarni, CEO of Showcase
Showcase is a 105-store national chain based in Canada and one of the most innovative retailers in North America, fueled by groundbreaking trend technology and a nimble supply chain.

George Kurtz, President, CEO and Co-Founder of CrowdStrike
CrowdStrike is a leading cybersecurity company focusing on next-generation endpoint protection, threat intelligence and incident response through cloud-based endpoint protection.

Stuart Lacey, Founder and CEO of Trunomi
Trunomi is reinventing the way in which financial institutions interact with customer data, securely connecting financial institutions to their customers with a consent-based data sharing platform. Its consent-based platform revolutionizes the way financial institutions interact with customer data, in full compliance with data privacy regulations.

Rao Mulpuri, CEO of View, Inc
View, Inc is the first company to successfully advance the large-scale commercialization of dynamic glass, a new generation of architectural glass that transitions through multiple tint states to control the sun's energy.

Josh Siegel, Chairman and CEO of StoneCastle Financial Corp.
Siegel has created Cambr, a financial toolkit that enables brands and developers to easily build financial apps and features on StoneCastle's network of more than 700 insured community banks, essentially the first Banking in the Cloud (BAAS) platform.

Tej Tadi, Founder and CEO of MindMaze
Tadi founded MindMaze in 2011 to develop technologies that help patients recover from brain injuries. The company recently has launched devices, which use virtual reality, brain imaging and gaming technologies to retrain the brain in stroke victims. MindMaze is now developing solutions for spinal cord injury and amputee patients.

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About YPO Innovation Week

YPO Innovation Week offers global chief executives with learning events and networking opportunities designed to infuse innovation into their companies, form strategic partnerships, and positively affect their businesses and the communities in which they work. YPO leaders were able to leverage new partnerships in innovation, integrate innovation into their company culture, and convert ideas into actionable plans, through YPO Innovation Week.

YPO Innovation Week 2017 held events in more than 30 countries around the world, including Tel Aviv, Israel; New York, New York; Melbourne, Australia, Silicon Valley, California; Hong Kong, China and more, all dedicated to driving innovation across a diverse range of industries. The week featured idea jams, workshops, live-streamed panels, insider company tours, global conference calls, TED-style presentations and debates.

About YPO

The premier leadership organization of chief executives in the world.

YPO is the global platform for chief executives to engage, learn and grow. YPO members harness the knowledge, influence and trust of the world's most influential and innovative business leaders to inspire business, personal, family and community impact.

Today, YPO empowers more than 24,000 members in more than 130 countries, diversified among industries and types of businesses. Altogether, YPO member-run companies employ more than 15 million people and generate USD6 trillion in annual revenues.

Leadership. Learning. Lifelong. For more information, visit YPO.org.

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