Nominations due November 10 for globally renowned annual competition honoring diverse leaders in innovation
CHICAGO, IL. –October 19, 2023– Nominations are officially open for The Edison Awards™, an annual competition honoring excellence in new product and service development, marketing, human-centered design, and innovation. Founded in 1987, The Edison Awards™ are named after renowned inventor Thomas Edison and are presented to companies who display unparalleled acumen in their respective fields, as well as a steadfast dedication to innovation, excellence, and pioneering their industry forward. In doing so, The Edison Awards™ celebrates its honorees and their ability to foster, improve, and positively influence their peers and the world around them.
“Nominees honored by The Edison Awards™ are recognized every year for their ingenuity, craftsmanship, potential, and ability to affect positive change,” said Frank Bonafilia, Executive Director at The Edison Awards™. “We are proud to once again invite candidates from around the world to nominate either their own or a colleague’s new product or service whose achievements they believe deserve to be commemorated by other industry
professionals on a global scale.”
Organized into Gold, Silver, and Bronze winners across multiple categories, The Edison Award is the most prestigious accolade honoring excellence in innovation. The participating categories include Commercial Technology, Consumer Solutions, Engineering & Robotics, and several other categories that allow companies from a vast array of scientific backgrounds to put themselves forward.
“Our goal each year is to make nominations as accessible as possible, with categories spanning longstanding and emerging fields alike, across all spaces of technological innovation and intelligence,” said Bonafilia. “This strategy allows us to provide candidacy opportunities for innovators around the world, regardless of their areas of focus.”
Those companies who receive an Edison Award are formally honored at the organization’s annual event in Fort Myers, Florida on April 17 and 18, 2024. The event is attended by a community of more than 500 industry leaders, representing more than 150 global companies. Nominations are due November 10, 2023, and may be submitted through The Edison Awards’ website. Further details including evaluation criteria, pricing, and timeline can also be found through the website at www.edisonawards.com.
Most recently, The Edison Awards™ stewarded a significant moment in the history of innovation in partnership with The Lewis Latimer Fellowship Program, an extension of The Edison Awards™ that is exclusively dedicated to providing special access and mentorship to a select group of exceptional Black innovators. The esteemed organization posthumously commemorated the life and contributions of Lewis Latimer, an iconic inventor and patent draftsman, by holding a commemorative ceremony to unveil Latimer’s long-awaited headstone at his resting place in Fall River, Massachusetts last month.
A pioneering black inventor and engineer, Lewis Latimer first worked as an assistant to Alexander Graham Bell and later became the only Black member of Thomas Edison’s private Pioneer’s Club innovators. Throughout his career Latimer’s innovative contributions were vast and history-making, including his work on the carbon filament for incandescent light bulbs—a momentous achievement not recognized as ubiquitously as Edison’s own contributions. Latimer’s other patented inventions include such diverse items as the first water closet (i.e., toilet) for railroad cars (1874) and a forerunner of the air conditioner (1886).
With a commitment to celebrate and champion innovators who represent the powerfully diverse minds of the world, The Edison Awards™ founded the Lewis Latimer Fellowship Program in April 2021. The program centers around the tenets of technological, behavioral, futuristic, systematic, and design-oriented thinking to transform innovation and combine ideas across cultures, ensuring equity and inclusivity for all futurists alike.