EY announces Heather Ames of Neurala as Entrepreneur Of The Year® 2019 Award winner in New England

Heather joins ranks of unstoppable entrepreneurs in New England

BOSTON June 27, 2019 – EY today announced that COO and Co-Founder Heather Ames Versace of Neurala, the AI company behind Brain Builder, received the Entrepreneur Of The Year® 2019 Award in the New England region. The award recognizes entrepreneurs who are excelling in areas such as innovation, financial performance and personal commitment to their businesses and communities, while also transforming our world. 

Heather is no stranger to receiving recognition for her entrepreneurial prowess. Previously she has been honored at Google's headquarters as one of the Top 10 Women in Cloud emerging technology. When asked about what drives her entrepreneurial spirit, here is what Heather had to say:

“Taking a seemingly crazy idea and making it work to solve people's problems—all while working alongside an amazing team—is what drives me to entrepreneurship. As a child, my grandfather, who built a business selling nuts and bolts to local shops in Illinois, taught me the value of owning my own business. I am proud to carry that spirit into my own work and to be recognized for it by EY.”

Since 1986, EY has honored entrepreneurs whose ingenuity, spirit of innovation and discipline have driven their companies’ success, transformed their industries and made a positive impact on their communities. Now in its 33rd year, the program has honored the inspirational leadership of such entrepreneurs as:

· Howard Schultz of Starbucks Corporation
· Pierre Omidyar of eBay, Inc.
· Reid Hoffman and Jeff Weiner of LinkedIn
· Hamdi Ulukaya of Chobani
· James Park of Fitbit
· J.W. “Bill” Marriott, Jr. of Marriott International, Inc.

As a New England award winner, Heather is now eligible for consideration for the Entrepreneur Of The Year 2019 National Awards. Award winners in several national categories, as well as the Entrepreneur Of The Year National Overall Award winner, will be announced at the Entrepreneur Of The Year National Awards gala in Palm Springs, California, on November 16, 2019. The awards are the culminating event of the Strategic Growth Forum®, the nation’s most prestigious gathering of high-growth, market-leading companies.

About Neurala

Neurala is a pioneer in custom vision artificial intelligence. On a mission to make vision AI more accessible, Neurala is the company behind Brain Builder: a SaaS platform that dramatically reduces the time, cost and skills required to build and maintain production-quality custom vision AI solutions. Founded in 2006, Neurala’s research team invented Lifelong-DNN (L-DNN) technology, which reduces the data requirements for AI model development and enables continuous learning in the cloud or at the edge. Now, with customers in the drone, robotics, smart device, industrial inspection and AI professional services verticals, Neurala’s technology has been deployed on 30 million devices globally.

Follow Neurala on Twitter @Neurala and on Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn.

About Entrepreneur Of The Year®

Entrepreneur Of The Year®, founded by EY, is the world’s most prestigious business awards program for entrepreneurs. The program makes a difference through the way it encourages entrepreneurial activity among those with potential and recognizes the contribution of people who inspire others with their vision, leadership and achievement. As the first and only truly global awards program of its kind, Entrepreneur Of The Year celebrates those who are building and leading successful, growing and dynamic businesses, recognizing them through regional, national and global awards programs in more than 145 cities in more than 60 countries. ey.com/eoy