Rowan University President Ali Houshmand will be one of five honorees at the 8th annual New Jersey Immigrant Entrepreneurs Awards, a virtual event that will take place Oct. 15 at 10 a.m.
Houshmand, who is of Iranian descent, will honored as the Immigrant Entrepreneur of the Year.
He will be joined by:
Caspar Wistar Award for Growth: Raj Sahu, CEO, Connexions Data in Paramus (India);
Albert Einstein Award for Innovation: Shuguang Sunny Wang, managing director, Broad USA, in Hackensack (China);
David Sarnoff Award for Advocacy and Community Engagement: Mahesh Yadav, CEO, Optima Global Solutions in Lawrenceville (India);
Rising Star Entrepreneurial Award: Hussain Bootwala, CEO, HAZ International in Edison (India).
The New Jersey Immigrant Entrepreneur Awards are intended to honor immigrant business leaders helping New Jersey communities thrive.
To register for the program, click here.
The awards were created to highlight the social and economic contributions of New Jersey’s immigrants to communities throughout the state and celebrate the important role of immigrants to today’s economy.
The awards program features keynote speaker Jeremy Robbins of the New American Economy and a panel discussion with Patrick McGowan of Genova Burns, Ali Bokari of Unilever and Rashaad Bajwa of Domain Computer. The online awards event is presented by the NJ Business Immigration Coalition in partnership with its members NJBIA and Einstein’s Alley.
The awards are sponsored by the NJ Business Immigration Coalition, a broad-based coalition of New Jersey chambers, associations and organizations, including the American Immigration Lawyers Association, Asian Indian Chamber of Commerce, Diversity Dynamics, Einstein’s Alley, Middlesex County Regional Chamber of Commerce, NJBIA, New Jersey Chinese-American Chamber of Commerce and the Princeton Mercer Regional Chamber of Commerce.
The judges for this year’s awards were Sandeep Agarwal, CEO of Pure Indian Foods, a previous award winner; Lina Llona, CEO of the Middlesex Regional Chamber of Commerce; and William Keep, the former TCNJ vice provost and Dean of the TCNJ Business School.
The Immigrant Entrepreneur Awards were named for historic New Jersey immigrant entrepreneurs. The many nominees represent small mom and pop businesses as well as large corporations — ranging from high-tech firms to professional service providers, from manufacturing operations to restaurants and financial institutions.
