2009 TechFellow Awards

The TechFellow Awards is a new, annual program backed by Founders Fund to honor technology innovators for achievement and excellence in high-tech entrepreneurship. The awards are specifically geared to honor the people who make great innovation happen. TechCrunch is excited to support the program because its pro-entrepreneur, especially in a tough economy, and we hope it will help shape the next generation of start-up successes.

TechFellow Awards

What it means to be a TechFellow
The 2009 TechFellow Awards will recognize twelve leaders for outstanding innovation in one of four fields:

  1. Engineering Leadership candidates are people who have demonstrated technical excellence, built amazing technology infrastructure and products, or led teams that together built complex and elegant solutions that changed our lives. They are the uber geeks who calculate 10-digit squares in their heads, and write a thousand bug-free lines of code on the fly without skipping a beat.
  2. Product Design and Marketing candidates are people who have designed insanely great products, who have made technology beautiful, who have created the marketing campaign that blows you away and make you want to go out and buy ten of them for your whole family. These are the storytellers, the artists, the people who make our dreams come alive.
  3. General Management candidates are people who have built the teams and organizations that create and deliver great technology and products to the world. They are company builders who provide foundations and processes for all the rest of the geeks and dreamers to make their dreams reality. They are the folks who wake up at 6am and open the doors, make the donuts, play reveille, and lead the charge to take the hill. They make it *happen*.
  4. Disruptive Innovation candidates are the visionaries, the starry-eyed fools who believe when no one else will. They are undaunted when told NO by stern parents, when told it WON’T WORK by a thousand dismissive VCs, when failure after failure would dash the hopes of lesser mortals. These are the men and women whose incredible ideas burst forth like Athena from their foreheads, and they know what it means to make Fire, the Wheel, and the Printing Press.

Through the open nominations process, we’re seeking your help to identify technology pioneers who have made an important impact in the start-up arena and who want to get directly involved to shape the next generation of start-up successes. Please recommend your favorite candidates through midnight pst Friday, May 8.

Candidates will be reviewed a nominating committee comprised of top Internet founders and Silicon Valley luminaries. The 2009 TechFellow Awards Nominating Committee members are:

$50,000 “Genius Grants for Geeks”
Final fellowship selections will be made in June 2009 and announced at an awards dinner for the honorees. Each TechFellow will be awarded $25,000 to invest in a new startup of their choice. Founders Fund will match each investment, for a total of $50,000. Founders Fund may also provide additional future investments in these companies. (Please note: TechCrunch does not have a financial stake in the awards program or investments made.)

TechFellow Nominations are open through midnight, pst Friday May 8
Nominate candidates for a TechFellow Award today. Self nominations welcome.

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