Press release:
SAN DIEGO, Calif., December 10, 2013 – Hookit, announced today that its Hookit Index received the Most Innovative Product (MIP) Award in the Sport & Active Lifestyle Technologies category at the 2013 CONNECT MIP Awards ceremony on Dec. 6. In its 26th year, the annual MIP awards program is a tradition in honoring San Diego’s leaders of innovation and groundbreaking new products launched in the last year.
Hookit was selected based for its Hookit Index, a proprietary tracking and ranking engine that quantifies and measures professional athletes’ exposure and fan engagement in social media. Initially launched in action sports, Hookit is now ‘indexing’ over 2,000 athletes, 300 teams and 400 brands in over 15 sports categories. In less than a year, the Hookit Index has become an invaluable tool for major brand and media partners, including ESPN X Games and Street League Skateboarding to monitor in real-time, which athletes are driving trends and value for events, media properties and sponsors.
“It’s quite an honor to have been selected for this MIP award and being recognized for the efforts our entire team has put into creating and building the Hookit Index product,” said Scott Tilton, CEO, Hookit. “It’s exciting to be building such a powerful tool get that can leverage athletes’ untapped influence in the world of social media. We would especially like to thank everyone involved at CONNECT and SDSI for their ongoing efforts to support and grow the local startup and business community here in San Diego.”
Held this year at the Hilton La Jolla Torrey Pines Hotel, the annual MIP Awards is CONNECT’s largest and most prestigious event, attracting more than 700 of the region’s top business leaders, researchers and capital providers. 100 San Diego-based companies competed in the rigorous, four-month judging process, with a total of only nine winners awarded in categories including: Aerospace and Security Technologies, Communications and IT, Hardware and General Technology, Life Sciences-Diagnostics and Research Tools, Life Sciences-Medical Products, Mobile Apps, Software, Sport & Active Lifestyle Technologies and Sustainability.
The 2013 CONNECT MIP Awards are made possible through generous support from lead sponsors Life Technologies and Qualcomm, and supporting sponsors AmericanWest Bank, Barney & Barney, Cox Business, Cymer, D&K Engineering, Hughes Marino, Kaiser Permanente, Knobbe Martens, KPBS, Merck, PricewaterhouseCoopers, ROTH Capital Partners and Sanford Burnham Medical Research Institute.
For more information on the Hookit Index, view the current monthly rankings at www.hookit.com/ai or contact us at 888.874.3374. For a complete list of winners and additional information on the CONNECT MIP Awards please visit www.connect.org.
About Hookit
Hookit is a digitally connected platform of tools and services created to support athletes, brands and sports. Nearly 1M athlete’s worldwide use Hookit to track their progression, promote themselves, build their personal brand and earn deals from their favorite brands. Brand partners are provided with powerful tools to discover, manage and reward amateur and professional athletes who actively support their brand. For more information visit www.hookit.com.
About CONNECT
CONNECT is a regional program that catalyzes the creation of innovative technology and life sciences products in San Diego County by creating an environment in which inventors and entrepreneurs have access to the resources they need for success. Since 1985, CONNECT has assisted in the formation and development of more than 3,000 companies and is now widely regarded as one of the world’s most successful organizations linking inventors and entrepreneurs with the resources they need for commercialization of innovative products. As a result, the program has been modeled in more than 50 regions around the world – most recently in New York City, Bogotá, Colombia and Saudi Arabia. To learn more about CONNECT, please visit www.connect.org or call 858.964.1300.
