WomenIN member Christine McDonnell of Codelicious won Tech Service of the Year and Kristen Cooper, founder and CEO of The Startup Ladies, won Community Champion of the Year at this weekend's TechPoint Mira Awards.

Codelicious is transforming the way elementary and middle schools teach students how to code.

Recently, Codelicious was a finalist for the WomenIN Tech Pitch Competition and won second place at the Edupitch Competition by SDI Innovations hosted at Purdue University.

Kristen Cooper is a community advocate for women-owned startups who is passionate about supporting these startups in many areas including educations and funding. Through this passion and commitment, she launched The Startup Ladies as a way of providing ongoing support. 

Congratulations to both Christine and Kristen!

Get a complete list of Mira Award Winners here.

​WomenIN members claim all top prizes, $10,000 in cash prizes and over $10,000 in entrepreneurial support, at the SDI Innovations Edupitch Competition on Saturday, April 14 hosted at the Burton D Morgan Center for Entrepreneurship. 

The competition began with 57 education-focused startups from across Indiana, and 10 teams were invited to the final presentation showcase. 

Winners of the competition include:

• First place, Explore Interactive, a startup that provides access to and improves educational outcomes in STEM through immersive, educational games anywhere, anytime.
• Second place, Codelicious,  a startup that aims to dramatically increase the funnel of youth coders for tomorrow’s tech workforce, by providing coding curriculum for youth.
• Third place, Deaf Kids Outreach, an organization that promotes technology, computer science, and design thinking skills as an innovative tool to empower deaf/ hard of hearing students socially and economically.
• Crowd favorite, HaptImage, a startup that assists individuals with visual impairments to process images through instantaneous haptic feedback or tactile responses.

Edupitch competition's partners include, Purdue Foundry, Burton D Morgan Center for Entrepreneurship, Heath CPA & Associates, Gutwein Law, LOOK, Del-Mar Software Development, Purdue Railyard and MatchBOX Coworking Studio.