{"id":162868,"date":"2020-07-27T07:10:20","date_gmt":"2020-07-27T11:10:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=162868"},"modified":"2020-07-24T15:16:30","modified_gmt":"2020-07-24T19:16:30","slug":"uconns-ccei-alumni-affiliates-honored-2020-ct-entrepreneur-awards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2020\/07\/uconns-ccei-alumni-affiliates-honored-2020-ct-entrepreneur-awards\/","title":{"rendered":"UConn\u2019s CCEI, Alumni, and Affiliates Honored with 2020 CT Entrepreneur Awards"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>UConn\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/ccei.uconn.edu\/\">Connecticut Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, or CCEI,<\/a> was a big winner in this year\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/ctentrepreneurawards.com\/\">Connecticut Entrepreneur Awards<\/a>, taking home top honors with recognition as the 2020 Community Promoter of the Year.<\/p>\n<p>Held annually since 2017, the Connecticut Entrepreneur Awards are a product of the Connecticut Entrepreneur Event Organizers consortium, an all-volunteer cooperative effort of people and organizations that host and facilitate entrepreneur-facing events in Connecticut.<\/p>\n<p>This year\u2019s awards, held virtually for the first time, honored 24 winners and 68 runners-up \u2013 15 categories featured winners selected through community voting, while nine winners \u2013 including CCEI \u2013 were selected by panels of more than two dozen expert judges from outside of Connecticut who evaluated the finalists.<\/p>\n<p>The Community Promoter of the Year Award recognizes the Connecticut entrepreneurial ecosystem organization that aims to empower and build its community by assuring that its constituents get nominated and recognized first.<\/p>\n<p>Founded in 2007, CCEI offers programs that support new venture development, provides courses that engage students in innovation and new technologies, and connects the University with the greater entrepreneurial ecosystem within the state of Connecticut.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are so honored to have been recognized as Community Promoter of the year at the Connecticut Entrepreneur Awards,\u201d CCEI Director Jennifer Murphy says. \u201cThe entrepreneurial ecosystem both at UConn and across the state has been vital to the success of our student and faculty led startups. This network of entrepreneurs, industry experts, and corporate partners \u2013 many of which are proud UConn alumni \u2013 help us to provide mentorship, next step resources, and experiential learning opportunities. We are grateful to be a part of a larger community in Connecticut that collaborates and celebrates our successes together.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are immensely proud of CCEI and of all of our student, faculty, staff and alumni entrepreneurs who have been recognized this year,\u201d says UConn President Thomas Katsouleas. &#8220;The programs and resources that CCEI offers drive creativity and innovation and open doors to future success, and we\u2019ve seen their work has the power to transform students\u2019 lives. Universities are research drivers, discovery institutes, and innovation engines, and UConn and the state of Connecticut are well-served in these critical functions by the dedicated team at CCEI.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In addition to CCEI, UConn-affiliated judged winners and runners-up included:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Winner, Entrepreneur of the Year: Scalable Venture<\/strong> \u2013 Armin Rad \u201919 PhD and Leila Daneshmandi \u201920 PhD, Encapsulate<\/li>\n<li><strong>Winner, Entrepreneur of the Year: Main Street<\/strong> \u2013 Daniel Flynn \u201914 (CLAS), DRF Consulting, Hamden<\/li>\n<li><strong>Honorable Mention, Entrepreneur of the Year: Main Street<\/strong> \u2013 Carol Dannhauser \u201982 (CLAS), Fairfield County Writers\u2019 Studio<\/li>\n<li><strong>Honorable Mention, Entrepreneur of the Year: Student<\/strong> \u2013 Brittany Molkenthin \u201917 (NURS), Lactation Innovations<\/li>\n<li><strong>Honorable Mention, Venture of the Year: Pre-Revenue<\/strong> \u2013 Encapsulate (Armin Rad \u201919 PhD and Leila Daneshmandi \u201920 PhD)<\/li>\n<li><strong>Honorable Mention, Venture of the Year: Pre-Revenue<\/strong> \u2013 Therapeutic Bandage Products (Professor Lawrence Silbart, UConn Department of Allied Health Sciences)<\/li>\n<li><strong>Honorable Mention, Venture of the Year: Pre-Revenue<\/strong> \u2013 Nami Therapeutics (Professor Xiuling Lu, UConn School of Pharmacy)<\/li>\n<li><strong>Honorable Mention, Community Builder of the Year<\/strong> \u2013 Brenda Lewis \u201981 MBA, Transactions Marketing Inc.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Honorable Mention, Community Promoter of the Year<\/strong> \u2013 Transactions Marketing Inc., Stamford (Brenda Lewis \u201981 MBA)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In the community selected categories, UConn-affiliated winners and runners-up included:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Honorable Mention, Entrepreneur: Student<\/strong> \u2013 Brittany Molkenthin \u201917 (NURS), Lactation Innovations<\/li>\n<li><strong>Honorable Mention, Venture: Pre-Revenue<\/strong> \u2013 Savkar Inc., Farminton (Professor Amit Savkar, UConn Department of Mathematics)<\/li>\n<li><strong>Honorable Mention, Program<\/strong> \u2013 Digital HealthCT (MedTech accelerator is a partnership with Hartford Healthcare, UConn School of Business, and Trinity College)<\/li>\n<li><strong>Honorable Mention, Education<\/strong> \u2013 Julia Yakovich, UConn Director of Service Learning<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The 2020 Connecticut Entrepreneur Awards were presented on Monday, July 20, in a virtual event described as \u201cbig, bold, and audacious\u201d as it celebrated businesses, organizations, and individuals from communities throughout the state, pursuing a range of activities and business opportunities.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe quality and quantity of the finalists this year reflects the incredible growth of the entrepreneurial community in Connecticut,\u201d says Connecticut Entrepreneur Awards founder Bill Kenney. \u201cCollectively, those selected as winners in their categories, those earning Honorable Mention, and all the finalists, have a strong impact on our state and its communities, and that\u2019s good news for Connecticut. We look forward to hearing more about their progress in the coming years, and to the continued growth of entrepreneurship and economic independence in our state.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>For more information about the Connecticut Entrepreneur Awards, visit <a href=\"http:\/\/ctentrepreneurawards.com\/\">ctentrepreneurawards.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>UConn&#8217;s Connecticut Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation was honored as a top promoter in a statewide awards ceremony.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":134,"featured_media":162891,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1862,92,2225],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2168],"class_list":["post-162868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-busn","category-uconn-hartford","category-uconn-storrs"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-24 03:35:04","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/134"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=162868"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162868\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":162892,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162868\/revisions\/162892"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/162891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162868"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=162868"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=162868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}