Lifetime Achievement Honorees Named by CT Entrepreneur Awards

The Connecticut Entrepreneur Awards will conduct a virtual expo, demo, and awards ceremony on Monday, July 20, featuring the first-ever Lifetime Achievement Awards, the announcement of the 2020 award winners based on public voting and judges choices, and a series of concurrent sessions, panel discussions and interactive product sessions highlighting the state’s innovation ecosystem.

The event has already been described as “big, bold, and audacious,” as it celebrates Connecticut’s leading entrepreneurs, ventures, and ecosystem elements that support them. The virtual format selected to host the event will encourage participant engagement, informal networking, and provide opportunities to hear directly from award winners in numerous entrepreneurial categories.

This year, there were a total of 255 individuals, businesses, and organizations selected as finalists – following a record-setting 404 nominations - for the 2020 Connecticut Entrepreneur Awards. Public voting was conducted online earlier this year. The ten categories of community online voting were: Entrepreneur, Venture, Community Builder, Space, Corporate/Institutional, Education, Funding, Economic Development, Event, and Program. There will be winners and honorable mention recipients in each category, based on the community voting totals.

The event begins at 2:00 PM and includes hour-long sessions on leadership, funding, and community building, as well as digital marketing, marketing plans, and sales. Product/services demo categories include MedTech, InsurTech, and Potpourri. There will be rapid-fire, facilitated q&a sessions on various topics and demos. The awards ceremony will begin at 6:30 PM, preceded by a networking session and a break between the afternoon content sessions and awards ceremony.

Named as the first recipients of Lifetime Achievement Awards are April Lukasik, the founder and president of Bright & Early Children’s Learning Centers; Bob Dorf, a leading international Lean Startup and Customer Development expert; and Steve Shwartz, a serial entrepreneur who leads one of Connecticut’s fastest-growing companies. They will be honored during the event and featured in a special panel discussion.

“This is our first year of recognizing long-term, high impact entrepreneurs,” explained Bill Kenney, founder of the CT Entrepreneur Awards. “These individuals represent some of the best in Connecticut entrepreneurship. They have created and exited companies, made a significant economic impact, and elevated Connecticut's visibility as a home for innovation and entrepreneurship on the national and world stage.”

April Marie Lukasik is the Founder and President of Bright & Early Children's Learning Centers, and owns and operates five Bright & Early Children’s Learning Centers - in Middletown, North Branford, Old Saybrook, West Hartford, and Niantic. Bright & Early is proud to have cared for and educated thousands of children and to have sent them on a path for success. The company philosophy has consistently captured the spirit of exceptional child care: “Awakening young minds when it matters most.”

Bob Dorf, a longtime Stamford resident, is one of the world’s leading Lean Startup and Customer Development experts. He teaches lean startup methods and digital business leadership as an Adjunct Professor at Columbia Business School and on its Executive Education team. He’s run startup training programs and in-depth incubators in more than 50 countries worldwide, and 20 U.S. states, and has developed and run full-scale startup incubators for the governments of Colombia, Mexico, and Russia.

Steve Shwartz is a serial entrepreneur who has participated in two IPO's and multiple M&A exits as a founder, co-founder, and investor. He started his career as a postdoc in the Yale Artificial Intelligence program and was a founder or co-founder of three companies in the AI area. He is currently a co-founder and board member of West Haven-based Device42, one of the fastest-growing companies in Connecticut. He has also spoken at dozens of industry and academic conferences, has published numerous trade and academic articles, and has received two patents.

Looking ahead to the 2020 CT Entrepreneur Award winners, in addition to the 10 community categories, there are category winners who have been determined by panels of more than two dozen expert judges from outside Connecticut, who evaluated the finalists. The specific categories that will be awarded based on the decision of the judges are in addition to the community voting award categories. The judges’ categories are:

• Entrepreneur
  • Scaling (>$1MM revenue)
  • Scalable
  • Main Street
  • Social good
  • Student (<25 years old)
• Venture
  • Revenue
  • Pre-revenue
• Community Builder

“The quality and quantity of the finalists this year reflects the incredible growth of the entrepreneurial community across Connecticut,” said founder Bill Kenney. “Together, they all have a strong impact on our state and its communities, and that’s good news for Connecticut. We look forward to recognize all the nominees and finalists, and announcing the winners for 2020.”

2020 CT Entrepreneur Awards sponsors include The Entrepreneurship Foundation, Entrepreneurs’ Organization Connecticut, Keating Agency Insurance, ImageWorks, Litchfield Distillery, Murtha Cullina, Pratt & Whitney, Sound Web, UHY Advisors, Universal Connectivity, and Webster Bank.

The CT Entrepreneur Awards are a product of the CT Entrepreneur Event Organizers consortium, an all-volunteer cooperative effort of people and organizations that host and facilitate entrepreneur-facing events in Connecticut. (See a list of affiliated organizations at ctentrepreneurawards.com.) The CT Entrepreneur Awards have been held annually since 2017, coordinated by the growing group of volunteers and led by founder Bill Kenney. The 2020 event was originally scheduled for April but was postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic and state safety guidelines. Ticket information for the event is now available on the event landing page. For more information about the event, contact Bill Kenney at scallywag@ctevents.co.