Nearly 400 tech leaders gathered Tuesday evening at Huntington Bank Field in Cleveland to celebrate the people, companies and organizations growing Northeast Ohio's tech economy.
The 18th annual Best of Tech Awards event began with a conversation between Steve Potash, president and CEO of OverDrive Inc., one of Greater Cleveland's "unicorns" — privately held startups valued at more than $1 billion — and Baiju Shah, president and CEO of the Greater Cleveland Partnership, Greater Cleveland's economic development organization.
Garfield Heights-based OverDrive is a leading digital reading platform for ebooks, audiobooks and other digital media for more than 92,000 libraries, schools, government agencies, corporate learning centers, colleges and universities worldwide, GCP said in a listing for the tech event.
In 2020, OverDrive was acquired by global investment firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, better known as KKR, from Rakuten, the Japanese tech conglomerate, the ebooks platform states at its website.
The so-called "tech unicorn conversation" was followed by the announcement of this year's Best of Tech Award winners:
CIOs of the Year
- Ivy Chin, Sherwin-Williams Co.
- Curtis Timmons, Cleveland Metropolitan School District.
Tech CEO of the Year
- Nonprofit: Joshua Edmonds, DigitalC.
- Corporate: Steve Potash, OverDrive.
Best IT Services Companies
- Large: EOX Vantage.
- Medium: FIT Technologies.
- Small: Lazorpoint.
Rising Star
- Martina Dimoska, International Space Alliance/NASA Space Apps Challenge.
Enterprise Tech Team of the Year
- ControlSoft, Inc.
Startup of the Year
HealthTech of the Year
- MorelandConnect.
Smart Excellence in Manufacturing
- Ohio Gratings Inc.
AI Innovation
Cybersecurity Partner Excellence
ProCorps Company of the Year
Community Impact
- Individual: Jeffrey Stern, Lay of the Land.
- Corporate: Kevin Goodman, BlueBridge Networks.
- Nonprofit: Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority Digital Inclusion Program.
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