Shanduka Black Umbrellas Takes Home Top NBIA Incubator Award

ORLANDO, Fla. - May 6, 2015 - PRLog -- The National Business Incubation Association (NBIA), a global leader in business incubation, acceleration and entrepreneurial economic development, recently announced its 2015 award winners. Each year, the NBIA Incubation Awards honor the business incubators, entrepreneurial support centers, client companies and graduates that exemplify the best in the industry. The awards ceremony was held last week during the organization’s 29^th International Conference on Business Incubation in Denver, Colo.

The NBIA Incubation Awards are made possible through the support of corporate sponsors and donors to the Dinah Adkins Incubation Awards Fund. There are several categories of awards given each year. The Outstanding Incubator Client award provides incubator managers the opportunity to nominate their best client companies. There are two sub-categories under this award: Technology Focus and the General and Special Focus. The Outstanding Incubator Graduate award highlights a young company that has gone on to grow and thrive independently upon successful completion of the incubation program. Incubators who have implemented an innovative program to better serve their clients compete for the Incubator Innovation award.

Finally, the Dinah Adkins Incubator of the Year award, named in honor of the NBIA’s retired long-time president, has two winners, one for Technology and one for General and Special Focus. These award winners are selected for their overall excellence in business incubation. The Dinah Adkins Incubator of the Year award winners go on to compete for the organization’s highest honor, the Randall Whaley Incubator of the Year award, to earn the title of the year’s most outstanding incubation program.

The 2015 Randall M. Whaley Incubator of the Year award went to Shanduka Black Umbrellas of Cape Town, South Africa. The award is dedicated to the memory of NBIA’s first chairman of the board. Shanduka Black Umbrellas addresses the low level of entrepreneurship and high failure rate of start-up businesses amongst South Africa’s black population. The program operates in eight cities, serving 164 black-owned client companies and creating or preserving 946 jobs in fiscal year 2014.

The complete list of 2015 NBIA Incubation Award Winners:

Outstanding Incubator Client, Technology Category - LevelOps Energy, a client of Launch Pad FT at Francis Tuttle Technology Center, Edmond, Okla.

Outstanding Incubator Client, General and Special Focus Category - The Green Truck Moving Company, a client of the Nashville Business Incubation Center, Nashville, Tenn.

Outstanding Incubator Graduate - SubC Imaging, a graduate of the Genesis Centre at Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada.

Incubator Innovation Award - "Eureka Effect," an innovation of the Santa Fe Business Incubator, Santa Fe, N.M.

Dinah Adkins Incubator of the Year, Technology Focus - Portland State University Business Accelerator, Portland, Ore.

Dinah Adkins Incubator of the Year, General and Special Focus - Shanduka Black Umbrellas, Cape Town, South Africa.

To learn more about the organizations above, read each winner’s success story profile.  For more information about the NBIA Incubation Award program, please click here.

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About NBIA:

The National Business Incubation Association (NBIA) is an international non-profit organization and global advocate for incubators, accelerators, educational institutions and regional economic development stakeholders.With more than 2,200 members in over 60 nations, the NBIA provides its members with essential information, education, advocacy and networking resources to bring excellence to the process of assisting early-stage companies succeed. Visit www.nbia.org to learn more.