Thursday evening two familiar faces in the Des Moines startup community were honored at the Technology Association of Iowa‘s annual Women of Innovation awards.
Jo Eckert—assistant executive director at the West Des Moines Business Incubator—and Tikly founder and CEO Emma Peterson both received awards in the areas of entrepreneurial innovation and leadership.
“The annual innovation awards program showcases game-changers in the world of technology,” TAI president Leann Jacobsen said in a press release. “These Women of Innovation—finalists and winners—are breaking new ground. They’re using their skills and savvy to transform the world.”
The fifth-annual awards, which are sponsored through TAI and the Principal Financial Group, honored more than 80 female leaders—with 11 receiving awards—from across the state at the Prairie Meadows Events and Conference Center in Altoona, Iowa.
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Learn more about the work Eckert and Peterson have done in the past year, and what TAI had to say about each local tech leader:
- Innovation and Leadership in a Not-for-Profit or Government Agency: Jo Eckert — “Eckert was executive assistant in West Des Moines’ economic development department in 2007. In the years since, she has become an economic development professional and is now the West Des Moines Business Incubator’s assistant executive director. She has recently been selected to represent the City of West Des Moines at the 2014 South-by-Southwest “Iowa Party” in Austin.”
- Entrepreneurial Innovation and Leadership: Emma Peterson — “While managing the Nadas, Peterson realized a need for an alternative in the ticketing industry. She founded the web-based Tikly to provide artists and event planners a lower-cost way to sell tickets to their events. Among Tikly’s clients are the Nadas, Bess Rogers, the Bay Area Metal Festival and the Des Moines Music Coalition.”
Credits: Emma Peterson photo from Faces of Innovation. Jo Eckert photo from LinkedIn.
