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Mass High Tech last night recognized 15 All-Stars — individuals who have made a significant impact in the New England Innovation economy; and in keeping with the reality of Twitter in today’s business life, the honorees were asked to keep their speeches to 140 characters.
For those All-Stars unable to contain themselves, Mass High Tech allowed them to go over the 140-character limit, at a cost of $1 per character, with all proceeds going to the Boston chapter of nonprofit Girls in Tech, which promotes the mentoring of girls interested in a career in tech by successful women in the field.
Prior to the awards event, the more than 300 attendees engaged in networking, and the most daring of them crowded around the corner by the bar where Sean Baptiste and Eric Pope from Harmonix Music Systems Inc. were helping people take a shot at being Paul McCartney or John Lennon in the game The Beatles: Rock Band. Harmonix donated a copy of the game, and of the game Rock Band II, which were given away at the end of the evening.
The All-Stars had various ways of dealing with the 140-character limit on their speeches. Peter Antoinette of Nanocomp Technologies Inc. in New Hampshire, slammed a bill down on the podium and proceeded to deliver a free verse-like acceptance speech. Gail Goodman of Constant Contact mirrored many of the speakers when she thanked both her team and the company’s more than 300,000 customers.
Perhaps the biggest cheer went up after Dharmesh Shah from Hubspot Inc., after his 140 characters had been used up, said, “The reason I am going on and on is we need to invest in things like Girls in Tech and produce more Gail Goodmans.”
But the biggest laugh was reserved for Scott Kirsner, columnist and program chair at Future Forward Events, who said, “As a professional writer I deal with word limits every day and as a writer I can’t afford any overage fines, so I’d like to begin by thanking...” and then stopped.
Girls in Tech raised more than $2,300 from the All-Stars’ speeches, and the longest speaker of the evening by far was Omid Farokhzad of BIND Bioscience and Harvard Medical School, whose 713 characters accounted for $573 of the total raised.
The only All-Star not capped by the 140-character limit was Rodney Brooks, CTO and co-founder of Heartland Robotics Inc., co-founder of iRobot Inc. and MIT professor. Brooks lauded the Boston area for its atmosphere of innovation, educational institutions and support infrastructure for entrepreneurs. He also said that one of the most important things an entrepreneur can do is develop their own vision, and then not let reality get in the way.
Read the profiles of the 15 All-Stars. The full list of the 2009 Mass High Tech All-Stars follows:
Peter Antoinette, Nanocomp Technologies Inc.
Maura Banta, IBM Corp.
David Beisel, Venrock and Web Innovators Group
Rodney Brooks, Heartland Robotics Inc.
Omid Farokhzad, Harvard Medical School
Eric Giler, Witricity Corp.
Gail Goodman, Constant Contact Inc.
Scott Griffith, Zipcar Inc.
Scott Kirsner, Future Forward Events LLC
Joseph Kvedar, Partners Healthcare Center for Connected Health
Patrick Larkin, John Adams Innovation Institute
Stephen Orenberg, Kaspersky Lab Americas
Dharmesh Shah, Hubspot Inc.
Roger Tung, Concert Pharmaceuticals Inc.
Russell Wilcox, E Ink Corp.
Avid Technology founder and former Mass High Tech All-Star Bill Warner included photos and wrote about the event on his blog.
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