Built in Chicago held their second annual Moxie Awards on Thursday night at the swank Park West. Over 800 entrepreneurs, techies, and local dignitaries packed the ballroom for the awards, which highlight the city’s rapidly growing tech scene.

Chicago’s Mayor, Rahm Emanuel, who has been in the spotlight lately for his city’s climbing crime rate, took a break from the negative to highlight the positive. The event comes just a week before the national tech spotlight shines on Chicago Tech Week.

“The Chicago technology economy is vibrant and thriving,” said Mayor Emanuel, according to Built In Chicago. “The entrepreneurial spirit and innovation we see is creating jobs and opportunity now and will have an impact on the city for years to come. I look forward to working with all of these companies as they grow and evolve.”

Next week’s Tech Week event is expected to draw a crowd of a few thousand to Chicago’s Merchandise Mart, home to 1871. TechWeek will feature an exhibition area, several panels, and speakers including the creator of CRM, Mike Muhney, and the boisterous founder of MegaUpload, Kim Dotcom via video feed (Dotcom can not currently travel into the United States).

Here are the 2013 Moxie recipients, reported by Built In Chicago..

Best Consumer Web Startup: SpotHero

Best B2B Startup: Belly

Best Healthcare Startup: GiveForward

Best Education or Recruitment Startup: eSpark Learning

Mobile App of the Year: iAnnotate – Branchfire

Best Civic App: Chicago Bike Map App

Best Bootstrapped Startup: Branchfire

Best Startup Founders/Co-Founders: Marc Kiven, Mike Sands and Eric Lunt (BrightTag)

Best Service Provider: SurePayroll

Digital Agency of the Year: Rise Interactive

Mentor of the Year: Chuck Templeton (Impact Engine)

Investor of the Year: J.B. Pritzker (The Pritzker Group & New World Ventures)

Tech Woman of the Year: Shradha Agarwal (ContextMedia)

CTO of the Year: Harper Reed (Obama for America – 2012)

Best Beard: Jim Shea

Best Company Culture: Centro

Best Software Company: Sprout Social

Best Corporate Digital Innovation: Guaranteed Rate

Startup of the Year: Belly

Breakthrough Digital Company of the Year: Braintree

CEO of the Year: Mike Sands (BrightTag)

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Chicago’s Wunderland Group Wins Best Service Provider To Tech Community

The Wunderland Group, a staffing firm headquartered in Chicago has a national presence with offices in San Francisco, Austin, New York and New Jersey took home the Moxie Award for Greatest Service For the Tech Community. The Moxie Awards recognize leaders in the Chicago Technology space.

Wunderland was selected out of 70,000 votes and were recognized in front of 800 people from all walks of life within the thriving Chicago tech scene.

Although, technically separate entities entirely, the Moxie Awards for all intents and purposes kicked off Chicago’s four day TechWeek 2012 Conference

Although most people may not think a staffing company makes sense to win an award to the startup and tech community, The Wunderland Group goes above and beyond in the cities they serve, especially at home in Chicago.

The Wunderland Group holds technology focused meetups, provides mentors to various Startups and organizations, invests back in the community and of course serves as a staffing resource to any sized company.

The three original founders were on hand at the Moxie Awards ceremony held at the Park West Theater in Chicago last Thursday. What made the event even more memorable was that they we presented the award by the evening’s emcee, Saurin Choksi. Choksi is a Ruby on Rails developer who also happens to be the first placement ever for The Wunderland Group, three years ago.

Linkage:

For more on The Wunderland Group, Click Here

See our Chicago TechWeek Coverage Here

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