The Consumer Technology Association (CTA), announced its 2019 Consumer Technology (CT) Hall of Fame inductees and two Innovation Entrepreneur Award winners at its annual awards dinner held in New York on November 6.
Hosted at SIR Stage 37, the event marked 20 years of the CT Hall of Fame program. The program celebrates technology leaders who advance innovation and develop, create, market and promote the technologies, products and services that improve consumers’ lives.
“We are thrilled to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the CT Hall of Fame program,” says Gary Shapiro, president and CEO, CTA.
“As we honor the past, we also keep an eye to the future to imagine what could be,” he said. “I am proud to honor the accomplishments of these leaders that inspire each of us with their passion for innovation.”
CTA 2019 Hall of Fame Ceremony Includes New Award Winners
For the first time, CTA also honored its Innovation Entrepreneur Award (IEA) winners at the dinner. The IEA program, created in 2012, is a collaboration between CTA’s Small Business Council and It Is Innovation (i3) magazine that recognizes a leading business and an exceptional startup in the consumer technology industry. The first to be recognized was the “Startup of the Year,” Aurora. The Aurora Driver is a self-driving platform that brings together its software, hardware and data services to power all types of vehicle makes and models.
The “Company of the Year” was a leader in the digital health space. Heal developed the first app to pair doctor house calls with remote patient monitoring using its Heal Hub, a simple plug-in device.
Inductees for this year’s CTA Hall of Fame include:
Jim Barry spent 18 years as an influential consumer technology reporter and editor, then 22 years as CTA’s Digital Answer Man. He was represented by his wife Kate and his daughters Moira and Fiona.
Elizabeth Feinler organized the online information system for ARPANET, the early version of the internet, but was unable to attend due to a medical issue. Pam Golden, a longtime CT Hall of Fame judge, accepted the award on her behalf.
Dr. Shuji Nakamura invented the blue LED, which makes power-efficient “white” LED light bulbs possible, and the blue laser that the Blu-ray Disc format is based on. He said, “In my case, at a small local company in Japan, without any corporation, without any companies, we were able to create that LED blue laser. I’m proud my invention has been part of so many other consumer inventions.”
Owen Young in 1919 founded the first U.S. radio company, RCA, which enabled the commercialization of radio and the creation of the consumer technology business.
Henry Chiarelli, over the course of his 40-year career, has been a ubiquitous executive for many leading consumer technology, e-commerce and retail businesses, including RadioShack.
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