BrightLane Announces Second Annual BrightLane Entrepreneur Awards

    TORONTO, ON, November 04, 2015 /24-7PressRelease/ -- BrightLane is proud to announce the second annual BrightLane Entrepreneur Awards. Due to the overwhelming success of the first competition in November of last year, BrightLane has decided to make the awards an annual competition. This year's competition will take place Saturday, November 28th, 2015 at BrightLane, 545 King Street West, Toronto.

The stakes are greater this year with a shortened application period, tougher judging criteria and a larger grand prize of $25,000. The first stage of the competition challenges entrepreneurs, whose online applications were accepted, to give their '60-second elevator pitch' to the panel of judges, in an actual elevator! If the judges think the competitor's initiatives have merit, they will be asked to give a full 5-minute pitch in-person. Of those pitches, up to 10 competitors will be chosen to receive a 6-month Membership at BrightLane, with runner-ups receiving a week of hoteling and BrightLane swag bag.

George Horhota, President of BrightLane explains what is in store in stage two of the competition, "BrightLane will monitor the competitor's entrepreneurial initiatives over 6-months, at the end of which the judging panel will select the 5 most promising entrepreneurs to receive an extended 6-month Membership at BrightLane and compete for $25,000 and BrightLane's 'Key to Success'. As well as prizes, competitors will be exposed to valuable networking opportunities and mentoring sessions during their time at BrightLane".

This year's judging panel features successful entrepreneurs from a wide range of industries and backgrounds, ensuring fair and professional arbitration. The panel for this year will see the return of Jesse Moeinifar, Co-Founder and CEO of Viafoura, Heather Kelly, Founder and CEO of HKC Marketing, Fawn Annan, President and Group Publisher of IT World Canada and Bohdan Zabawskyj, CTO of Mercatus Technologies Inc. BrightLane welcomes new panelists Julian Bolster, CEO of Bolster Life Group Inc. and John Wilk, Managing Director of Climax Media who will be joined by 2014/2015 BrightLane Entrepreneur Award final round competitors Pierre Senguin, Founder and CEO of Brili, Jasmine Pickel, CEO of Atlas Communications and Ron Spreeuwenberg, Co-Founder and CEO of HiMama. Panelists will lend valuable experience via mentoring talks throughout the competition; helping competitors overcome obstacles and drive their business to its full potential.

When asked about his experience as a competitor in the 2014/2015 BrightLane Entrepreneur Awards, Pierre Senguin explained, "I decided to compete in the BrightLane Entrepreneur Awards to practice my pitch skills, get some feedback and hopefully get some cool space to work in. It's been great to have access to the BrightLane network of talented people and to benefit from the positive culture in the space."

Like last year's completion, the competition day itself will be filmed and made into an entertaining and informative series of webisodes, providing competitors with a chance to promote themselves and their businesses to an audience of investors and like-minded individuals and groups.

The 2014/2015 competitors, businesses and webisodes were of such high integrity, BrightLane encourages the public to visit brightlane.ca/bea/first-year to watch the webisodes and view the competitor profiles to gain an understanding of what to expect from this year's competition. There is still plenty of opportunity to invest in these, now successful, entrepreneurs. The winner of the 2015 BrightLane Entrepreneur Awards will be announced in December.

For more information and to apply to compete in the 2016 BrightLane Entrepreneur Awards, please visit http://www.brightlane.ca/bea.

About BrightLane
BrightLane is a community of entrepreneurs working together on King Street West. A cool location and a historic brick and beam building may describe where our Members work, but the value is in the community. We want to help entrepreneurs -- lawyers, consultants, freelancers, small businesses and start-ups - connect, collaborate, innovate and ultimately, improve their business and entrepreneurial initiatives.

# # #