For ticket information Please Contact: info@exploriem.org

Ticket Prices for 2012 Bootstrap Awards

$75.00+HST

$25.00+HST for Students

Adawe Tradeshow is Free Admission

As a self-capitalized entrepreneur or intrapreneur how do you gain recognition for all your hard work in starting up and building a successful enterprise?

The Bootstrap Awards and Adawe Trade Show honors entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs who are starting up and are using self-capitalization techniques to fund their enterprises.

Dr. Bruce M. Firestone, a local entrepreneur and founder of the Ottawa Senators, launched the Bootstrap Awards event in 2004 with Exploriem.org, a registered not-for-profit organization, as he believed bootstrapping entrepreneurs deserved more recognition.

Exploriem.org hosts the Bootstrap Awards and offers 12 award categories to recognize the hard work and sacrifice of self-capitalized entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs.

Judges

Award Categories

1. Green Award – Nominees should demonstrate how their organization is striving to improve the environment. Nominees should also address the fact that nothing is sustainable unless it is also economically sustainable.
2. Innovation in Engineering & Technology Award – Nominees should demonstrate how their start-up business applies scientific and engineering expertise to solve an everyday problem. They must also demonstrate how they invented or produced this solution.
   

   Examples: A useful gadget or tool to help disabled or elderly people; a clever way to re-use or filter water; an innovative way of using solar power to help save the planet, etc.

3. Best Mobile App / Website Award – Nominees should demonstrate how their website/mobile apps design supports and integrates into their business model or stakeholders’ biz eco system. Success indicators include design, engagement, usability, traffic, metrics and online sales, as well as how backend systems power the business model.
4. People’s Choice Award – The Ottawa community will vote for the start-up that they believe is the best. The community will choose the Top 10 People’s Choice. The judges will then narrow that down to the Top 5 and choose the winners.
5. Best Guerilla / Social Marketing Award – Nominees should demonstrate how smart marketing enabled them to get earned media and stakeholder involvement for their enterprise while cost effectively acquiring customers and clients.
6. Bootstrap Capital Award – Nominees should show how they self-capitalized and bootstrapped their new enterprise without help from Venture Capital or Angel investors.
7. Best Sales / Value Proposition Award – Nominees should demonstrate how they found pre-launch and launch customers and clients or describe a technique they use to accelerate sales. They should demonstrate how they differentiated themselves from the competition and how they delivered value to their clients.
8. Community Impact Award – Nominees should demonstrate how their event, campaign or fundraiser for their not-for-profit organization, charity or NGO, used innovative and entrepreneurial techniques to successfully fund their activities or furthered the overall purpose of their organization.
9. Best Business Model Award – Nominees should demonstrate how they created a business model for the twenty-first century that produces such great results that the harder they worked the more money they made. They also have to show how their business model gives them a lasting, sustainable, competitive advantage and “concession” or “franchise.”
10. Customer Service Award – Nominees should demonstrate how they provide superlative customer service for their clients and customers.
11. Fastest Growing Start-up Award – Organizations whose top-line growth is significant will want to apply for this award. The organization must be 7 years old or less and must not have received outside funding of more than $600,000. Results for the current year and two previous years are required; these are kept confidential. The winner will be announced at OCRI Awards Gala.
12. Lead To Win For Women Award – The objective for Lead to Win for Women Award is to support women-founded enterprises, helping them to develop viable, sustainable, growth-oriented enterprises. This award recognizes Eastern Ontario’s and Western Quebec’s top female entrepreneurs whose enterprises have the highest growth potential.

If you would like more information on the Bootstrap Awards and Adawe Trade Show, please contact us.