Soloinsight Inc. of Chicago, IL has been named one of the winners of the 18th annual Chicago Innovation Awards out of 450 nominations.
The winners were announced at an event held at Chicago’s Harris Theater on Monday, October 28, with nearly 1,500 business and civic leaders, and supporters of innovation in attendance. The Chicago Innovation Awards, celebrating its 18th year, is the Chicago region’s foremost recognition of the most innovative new products or services brought to market each year.
CloudGate, the software platform by Soloinsight is disrupting the lobby and dock security space at Class A multi-tenant buildings and Fortune 500 enterprises across the North America.
CloudGate is a modular PIAM (Physical Identity and Access Management) platform designed to manage physical and logical identities and credentials of employees, visitors, vendors, contractors and drivers. CloudGate unites global identities from disparate physical and logical access control systems to provide compliance and continual risk assessment from a centralized platform. The modular workflow engine of CloudGate allows for simplistic automation of complex processes thus aligning identities with properly controlled access across global organizations. CloudGate enables barcoded badges, proximity cards, smartphones and biometric templates to be used to open/activate doors, turnstiles, elevators and computers.
“Chicago’s innovators continue to demonstrate the breadth of innovation found in the Chicago region, cutting across all industries, sectors and sizes,” said Tom Kuczmarski, co-founder with Chicago journalist Dan Miller of the awards. “2019 winners are pioneers in energy, healthcare, telecommunications, manufacturing, drug development, food, automotive, cyber security, architecture, community and workforce development, education, entertainment and more.”
“Chicago is the best place in the US for entrepreneurs to start a business” said Farhan Masood, President and CTO of Soloinsight. “The entrepreneurial spirit in Chicago has never been more alive. Over the last 3 to 5 years, there's been a growing buzz in Chicago's technology community. As a Chicago tech entrepreneur, I've had a strong sense that there is a feeling of excitement, optimism, and intensity.”
Farhan, one of the Top 10 Pakistani Technologists met Carter a Compliance Software Veteran on his way to Boston to attend MIT after winning the MIT Business Acceleration Program competition in 2012 and fell in love with the dynamic city. Farhan and Carter started Soloinsight in late 2013.
“Chicago's tech start up environment is the best in the country'' said Carter Kennedy, CEO of Soloinsight. “Chicago is surrounded by world class Universities, Colleges and educational institutions. There is an abundance of talent available to Soloinsight with job candidates offering a unique combination of grit, intelligence, creativity and midwestern work ethic. In addition, Chicago is situated in the heart of the midwest with 500 potential clients within a 5 mile radius of our office. Chicago is the best city to grow a business in the United States.”
The winning organizations receive a variety of honors including the opportunity to ring the Nasdaq Bell in New York City, and meetings with the Mayor of Chicago, Governor of Illinois, Cook County President, and leaders from the United Nations.
“450 organizations nominated for this year’s awards,” said Luke Tanen, Executive Director of the Chicago Innovation Awards. “As a group, these nominees generated over $13.9 billion in new revenues from their new products and services, along with the creation of 1001 patents. The 25 winners represent the best from this very impressive group.”
The complete list of this year’s Chicago Innovation Award winners can be found at www.chicagoinnovation.com.
The Chicago Innovation Awards are supported by Founding Diamond Sponsor Theron Technology Solutions; Diamond Sponsors Accenture and SMS Assist, Gold Sponsors Comcast Business and Wintrust Financial; Silver Sponsors Exelon, Vedder Price and others.
Contact: Soloinsight: Carter Kennedy, ck@soloinsight.com, 773-354-6776
Chicago Innovation: Luke Tanen, luke@chicagoinnovation.com, 312-988-1516
