Kelley awards innovative Indiana businesses

A new awards program from the Kelley School of Business honored 62 Indiana companies last week, and more than half of the finalists in the program were life science firms. \nThursday marked the first annual Indiana Entrepreneurial Awards of Distinction. The awards program was hosted by Kelley's Johnson Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. \nDonald F. Kuratko, executive director of the Johnson Center, started to plan the program last March. Kuratko worked with Growth 100 -- a program replaced by the IEAD -- but didn't want to focus on just companies' growth.\n"We wanted to honor entrepreneurial companies for new products, ideas and innovations," he said.\nSeven months ago, Kuratko sat down with a team from the Johnson Center to plan the event. The group chose the categories in which to honor the applicants. The categories for the companies included spirit, innovation, growth and a social enterprise award for a non-profit firm.\nThe program required all applicants to have been founded before 2002, be a public or private firm, a proprietorship or partnership located in Indiana and have revenues of more than $1 million. \nMore than 175 companies applied for the awards program, and 62 of those were named finalists. The Johnson Center honored the winners at a banquet Thursday in Indianapolis. \nThe program recognized most of the life science finalists with the entrepreneurial spirit or innovation awards. Life science firms are growing stronger in Indiana and these companies have overcome many obstacles to be where they are today, Kuratko said. \nKuratko went on to say that some of the applicants were looking for credibility, especially the firms that are just starting up, and winning the awards presented in this program would provide them with it.\nKuratko's team also chose the blue ribbon panel of judges, which included Tim Boeglin of the Entrepreneurship Law Clinic at IU. Boeglin said there are many success stories in Indiana, which, made the judging experience enjoyable and enlightening.