2011 TechFellow Awards To Honor Visionary Technology Leaders and Stoke Investment In Emerging Startups

Founders Fund, TechCrunch and NEA-Hosted Event to Award Technology Innovators for Achievement and Excellence in High-Tech Entrepreneurship with $100,000 Grants to Invest in Promising Early Stage Companies

News provided by

TechFellow Awards

Feb 08, 2012, 12:00 ET

SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 8, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- The TechFellow Awards (www.techfellows.com), a startup investment program that honors technology innovators for achievement and excellence in high-tech entrepreneurship, today announced details of the third annual award program and ceremony.

Led by hosts Founders Fund, TechCrunch and New Enterprise Associates (NEA), a selection committee comprised of highly distinguished technology industry luminaries will recognize twenty individuals for their leadership and critical role in developing breakthrough products and services in four categories: General Management, Disruptive Innovation, Product Design & Marketing and Engineering Leadership.

In honor of their selection, each TechFellow Award recipient will receive $100,000 to invest in a technology company of their choice.

This year's TechFellow Award winners will be announced at an invitation-only event hosted by Emmy and Golden Globe winning actor Jim Parsons, best known from the hit television show The Big Bang Theory, and featuring a special appearance by San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee on February 22 at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA).

"The TechFellow Awards recognize the technology community's brightest stars and welcome them into a peer group that will expand their potential and reach," said Sean Parker, Executive General Partner at Founders Fund. "We're shining a spotlight on individuals who are on the cusp of bringing us something revolutionary, while giving them the opportunity to identify and invest in the most exciting startups in the industry."

The 2011 TechFellows will join an elite group of best-of-breed honorees, and along with the first two years' recipients, will become a technology community think tank offering expertise and high level vision through upcoming quarterly dinners and special livestream web events and unique Q&A sessions. Chosen by the most prestigious selection committees to evangelize the growing role of technology in shaping the world at large, each TechFellow brings invaluable knowledge and insight to the table.

"The goal of the TechFellow Awards is to identify and recognize the people in our field who are likely to have huge impact in the near future," said Michael Polansky, Managing Director, TechFellow Awards. "Being a TechFellow is more than just being honored for past success. It's about joining a group of incredibly talented people who are well positioned to shape what is to come. This year's honorees have captured the essence of true ingenuity and innovation—and we are proud to recognize them for their groundbreaking work."

Past TechFellow winners have gone on to found Quora and Flipboard, while Trigger.io, Mixel, Captricity, HipChat and Woven Systems have all been beneficiaries of TechFellow Award investments. 2010 TechFellow winners included Jack Dorsey, Co-Founder, Twitter; Maria Thomas, former CEO of Etsy and Paul Graham, Co-Founder and Partner at Y Combinator, while the 2009 class featured Michael Birch, Co-Founder, Bebo and Adam D'Angelo, Co-Founder of Quora and former CTO of Facebook.

"It's an honor to join this esteemed selection committee and help pick this year's winners," said Ron Conway, Managing Partner of SV Angel and a TechFellow Award Selection Committee Member. "The caliber of TechFellows this year—visionaries with an extraordinary collective intelligence and energy—will be sure to attract investors looking to contribute to the launch of the most promising new companies."

The 2011 TechFellow Awards selection committee includes:

Marc Andreessen (Co-Founder, Andreeseen Horowitz, Netscape)
Michael Arrington (Founder, TechCrunch)
John Battelle (Founder/Chairman/CEO, Federated Media)
Ron Conway (Managing Partner, SV Angel)
Chris DeWolfe (Co-Founder, Myspace)
Esther Dyson (Chairman, EDventure)
Caterina Fake (Co-Founder, Flickr, Hunch)
Shawn Fanning (Founder, Napster, SNOCAP, Rupture, Airtime)
Reid Hoffman (Co-Founder, LinkedIn)
Joi Ito (Director, MIT Media Lab; Chairman of the board, Creative Commons)
Max Levchin (Founder/CEO, Slide; Co-Founder, PayPal)
Marisa Mayer (VP Location & Local Services, Google)
Dave McClure (Founder, 500 Startups & Partner, Founders Fund)
John McKinley (Founder/CEO, OurParents)
Jonathan Miller (CEO Digital Media, News Corp)
Tim O'Reilly (Founder, O'Reilly Media)
Sean Parker (Co-Founder, Napster, Plaxo, Causes, Airtime; Founding President, Facebook; Managing Partner, Founders Fund)
Geoff Ralston (Former Chief Product Officer, Yahoo!; Former CEO, Lala)
Terry Semel (Chairman/CEO, Windsor Media; Former Chairman/CEO, Yahoo!)
Danny Sullivan (Founder, Search Engine Land)
Peter Thiel (Managing Partner, Founders Fund; Chairman & Co-Founder, Palantir Technologies; Former Chairman, CEO and Co-Founder, PayPal)
Jeff Weiner (CEO, LinkedIn)
Michael Yanover (Business Development, Creative Artists Agency)
Mark Zuckerberg (Founder/CEO, Facebook)

Public nominations are currently being accepted and reviewed via the TechFellow Awards website through February 17. Visit www.techfellows.com for more information and to submit a nomination.

About TechFellow Awards

The TechFellow Awards is a premier startup investment program and annual event that honors the people who make great innovation happen through excellence in high-tech entrepreneurship. Hosted by Founders Fund, TechCrunch and NEA, the TechFellow Awards provides up-and-coming technology innovators with $100,000 to build and invest in the next generation of startups. For more information, visit: http://www.techfellows.com/.

About TechCrunch

TechCrunch (www.techcrunch.com) is a leading technology media network dedicated to obsessively profiling and reviewing new Internet products and companies. Founded by Michael Arrington in 2005, TechCrunch and its network of websites reach millions of unique visitors each month. TechCrunch was acquired by AOL in 2011 and operates a global network of websites including dedicated properties in Europe and Japan. TechCrunch's CrunchBase is an open database about startup companies, people, and investors. In addition to TechCrunch Disrupt, TechCrunch hosts a number of other recognized conferences and events, and various meet-ups worldwide, serving as community platforms for industry conversation and collaboration.

About Founders Fund

Founders Fund provides capital to transformational businesses run by world-class entrepreneurs. The San Francisco based venture capital firm invests at every stage in companies with revolutionary technologies. Companies the firm has backed include Facebook (partner Peter Thiel was Facebook's first outside backer), SpaceX, Palantir Technologies, Spotify, Knewton, and ZocDoc.

About NEA

New Enterprise Associates, Inc. (NEA) is a leading venture capital firm focused on helping entrepreneurs build transformational businesses across multiple stages, sectors and geographies. With approximately $11 billion in committed capital, NEA invests in information technology, healthcare and energy technology companies at all stages in a company's lifecycle, from seed stage through IPO. The firm's long track record of successful investing includes more than 170 portfolio company IPOs and more than 290 acquisitions, including investments in technology leaders like Data Domain, CareerBuilder, Diapers.com, Fusion-io, Groupon, Juniper, Macromedia, Playdom, Salesforce.com, and TiVo. In the U.S., NEA has offices in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area; Menlo Park, California; and New York City. In addition, New Enterprise Associates (India) Pvt. Ltd. has offices in Bangalore and Mumbai, India and New Enterprise Associates (Beijing), Ltd. has offices in Beijing and Shanghai, China. For additional information, visit www.nea.com.