Congrats to all of the Tekne winners this year. It’s always great to learn about the innovative things businesses are doing in Minnesota. I was particularly interested in learning about CogCubed; they using gaming systems to identify and treat cognitive disorders like ADHD and Autism. Very cool.
Here are the winners:
- Advanced Manufacturing – 3M
- Agricultural Technology – The Toro Company
- Computer Hardware and Electronic Devices – Honeywell
- EdTech – myON – a business unit of Capstone
- Healthcare Delivery (Established Company) – HealthPartners
- Healthcare Delivery (Small and Growing Company) – Corventis, Inc.
- Impact on Industry (Established Company) – Ecolab
- Impact on Industry (Small and Growing Company) – BankCard Services Worldwide
- Innovative Collaboration of the Year – Boston Scientific
- Mobile Technologies – XRS Corporation
- Safety and Security – MPC
- Software (Established Company) – Navitaire
- Software (Small and Growing Company) – UpNet Technologies
- Start-Up – CogCubed
- STEM Education and Digital Learning – University of St. Thomas – School of Engineering
I was disappointed to see no rural businesses pick up an award this year. Only the following companies made the finalists list:
- Winehaven Winery and Vineyard (Chisago City) – Ag Tech Finalist
- ByteSpeed (Moorhead) – Computer Hardware and Electronic Device Finalist
- Mayo Clinic (Rochester) – Healthcare Delivery Finalist
- Mate Precision Tooling (Elk River) – Impact on Industry Finalist
- Custom Control Systems, Inc. (Winona) and STEM Fuse (Sartell) – Startup Finalists
The question is – did the rural companies not make the cut OR did the rural companies not apply? Next year I hope we can make a good push to get more rural companies to apply. It’s a great way to promote rural areas and the individual businesses!