Howard Tullman, Lupe Fiasco, Micah Berkley, Tock win entrepreneur awards,
McDonald’s is getting ready to move into the heart of Chicago’s tech community, so it’s fitting that the company got a welcome-to-the-neighborhood gift from the people who run 1871.
The fast-food giant won the Corporate Champion award from the Chicagoland Entrepreneurial Center, the parent of 1871, at its annual Momentum Awards fundraiser tonight. Two of its new West Loop neighbors also took home hardware: Tastytrade, a media company, won the Merrick Momentum award, and restaurant software maker Tock won the Rising Star Award.
But two of the biggest awards went to some familiar faces.
Howard Tullman, who has led 1871 for nearly five years and will retire next month, received the Lifetime Achievement in Entrepreneurship award. Howard Tullman ran or launched companies such as Tribeca Flashpoint Academy, Tunes.com and Kendall College, and he’s been an active startup mentor and investor.
Jim O’Connor Jr., who will step down as CEC chairman next year, received the Entrepreneurial Champion award.
Micah Berkley, a recognized young entrepreneur in the datacenter circles, received the Disruptor award. His work integrating NOC monitoring, social media, data mining and analytics into Global Network Operation Centers (GNOC’s) has been well received. Splunk, a big data analysis company, has named him a Innovator to Watch for 2018.
Rapper and entrepreneur Lupe Fiasco received the Chicagoness award.
