Diversity & Inclusion
Awards / Events

Here’s who won the Technical.ly Brooklyn Awards last night

And the winner is...

Congratulations to all the winners and nominees! (Photo by Catherine Sontag)

The best and the brightest in the Brooklyn tech world came together Tuesday night for the Technical.ly Brooklyn Awards, held at WeWork Dumbo Heights.

The night is always a good one to see what’s going on at the most creative and adventurous edge of the startup world, and attendees are frequently looking at the next stars of the tech world before they’re stars. (Previous years’ winners include Croissant, Voodoo Manufacturing, Agrilyst and Propel.)

We received more than a thousand votes for the awards from the tech community here and we’re excited to celebrate the winners. Here’s a rundown of who won.

Technologist of the Year: Kelsey Hunter of Paloma

Hunter turned political organizing into a promising startup this year with Paloma, a web app that allows companies to interact with their clients in a more natural way, through Facebook Messenger. The idea started out as a political protest application that non-profit and for-profit companies kept asking if they could use. So Hunter is raising money and making a go of it. (Since we last checked in with Paloma, Hunter says James Ayres left the company and is no longer a cofounder.)

Tech Startup of the Year: Farmshelf

New Lab–based Farmshelf had a big 2017. The company’s eye-catching hydroponic shelves promise a new, innovative future in urban agriculture. In a time when the world’s climate is changing, climate-controlled indoor farming is poised to offer a serious remedy to the vagaries of nature.

Web/Mobile Product of the Year: Benefit Kitchen

Wife and husband duo Melanie Lavelle and Dan Beeby have built an app that helps low-income workers and families navigate the paperwork labyrinth of public assistance. This year, Benefit Kitchen partnered with community groups in Brooklyn to scale up by scaling down to personalize the offerings by location.

Tech Mission Org of the Year: NYC Planning Labs

NYC Planning Labs is a new division of the NYC Planning Department created this year to build for the the city the mapping and data analysis tools used by cutting-edge startups. Led by mapping legend Chris Whong, the team has already built a map of every single city facility. According to sources on the team, there’s some interesting stuff on the way.

Artist of the Year: Emilie Baltz

This year Emilie Baltz was named as one of our favorite designer’s favorite designers. New Lab showcased her recent work Dream Machine this fall.

Makerspace of the Year: New Lab

Stuffed to the gills with interesting companies, this was New Lab’s first full year of existence. Based in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, New Lab is a shared office space for startups, particularly in the modern manufacturing and design sectors, some of which you can check out in our report from the space’s first birthday here.

Incubator of the Year: Urban-X

Urban-X teamed up with venture capital fund Urban Us to send its third cohort of city-friendly startups through its accelerator program. In a brand-new renovated space in industrial Greenpoint, the accelerator is producing some compelling urban-tech firms.

Design Firm of the Year: Small Planet

The Dumbo-based design and dev shop cleaned up this year, being listed as one of the top Brooklyn designers you should know during the summer, and offering advice to young designers.

Other Winners

Entrepreneur of the Year: Ali Kriegsman, Bulletin

Growth Tech Company of the Year: Gimlet Media

Indie Video Game of the Year: Paperclips

Series: Brooklyn
Engagement

Join the conversation!

Find news, events, jobs and people who share your interests on Technical.ly's open community Slack

Trending
Technically Media