CBIC Awards Gala 2017
Congrats to The 2017 CBIC Award Recipients! 

Last night, upwards of 400 people attended the annual CBIC Awards Gala to honor Charlottesville's leading innovators. Who won?


MEET THE HONOREES

  • Stephanie Passman, a gifted resource teacher for Stony Point Elementary, an Albemarle County public school, was awarded the 2017 CBIC Educator of the Year and a $2,500 CBIC Tech In Education grant in support of educational activities encouraging innovation and entrepreneurship. 
     
  • The 2017 CBIC Business of the Year is Silverchair which partners with publishers to integrate and deliver scholarly and professional content from a single platform, helping transform digital content into industry-leading applications.
  • Baron Schwartz was honored as 2017 CBIC Entrepreneur of the Year. Schwartz is the founder of VividCortex, which provides database monitoring tools and services, and is the lead author of High Performance MySQL. "VividCortex's success reflects the support of the community around it," said Schwartz upon hearing of his nomination.
  • Inspirational innovator Brian Calhoun had the honor of sharing the CBIC Gala spotlight with his brother, Dr. Benton Calhoun, named 2017 CBIC Innovator of the Year. Dr. Calhoun teaches in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at UVA. He co-founded PsiKick, Inc., with Brendan Richardson and David Wentzloff to commercialize self-powered wireless sensors.
  • Center for Open Science is the 2017 CBIC Start-Up of the Year. As the world of scholarly research and publishing is being transformed by advances in information technology, the Center for Open Science works to increase openness, integrity, and reproducibility of research.
  • A major booster for student entrepreneurship in the region, CBIC recognizes a student entrepreneur or start-up that is inspiring young people with successful innovation. The 2017 CBIC Student Entrepreneur Team of the Year is AgroSpheres, which is commercializing inert bioparticles that, among other things, can prevent crop loss from frost or pests without risking contamination of the environment.
  • WillowTree has been on a hiring tear! The mobile product agency works with consumer brand powerhouses such as Johnson & Johnson and PepsiCo to power their mobile marketing initiatives. The company credits a collaborative environment that focuses on continuous learning and unlimited opportunities for their rapid growth - fast enough to earn WillowTree the 2017 CBIC Job Creator of the Year.  
  • CBIC wishes to thank Katie Murphy, our 2017 CBIC Volunteer of the Year. Katie is a CBIC Board Member and has chaired CBIC's Marketing Communications Committee for several years. In addition to her work as Marketing Manager for the UVA Foundation and managing the UVA Research Park, Katie chairs the volunteer planning committee for the 4 the Wounded 5k, an annual 5k benefiting Wounded Warrior Project.  Katie is one of hundreds of volunteers that make CBIC's educational mission possible. 
  • After tallying all of the votes cast, MadiDrop, PBC was chosen as the recipient of the 2017 CBIC Social Good Award.  Through the production of their simple and affordable water purification tablet, MadiDrop, PBC has altered the lives of thousands of families worldwide. 



What's the Media Saying Today?
The 19th Annual CBIC Awards Gala is the Talk of the Town

You can check out the television coverage from WVIR here and follow some developing stories from Charlottesville Tomorrow here. And, here are the photos from the MoxBox photo booth!