FOR 29 YEARS, the Edison Awards have honored the most innovative new products (and their inventors) across a wide range of industries and specialties — including, for the last two years, dentistry. Four such products — all of which we’ve written about extensively in previous issues of Incisal Edge; go to the all-new IncisalEdgeMagazine.com to read our coverage — were medal winners at this year’s Edisons gala, held the evening of April 21 at Manhattan’s elegant Capitale.

Here’s a look inside the venue at the all-star event. Congratulations to all four dental winners, estimable tribunes of Thomas Alva Edison’s singular legacy.

Among the highlights of this year’s Edison Awards gala, held at Capitale in Manhattan on April 21, was the presentation of the special Edison Achieve- ment Award to John Chambers, executive chairman of Cisco Systems (opposite page, lower left). The event also featured a full-day “Meet the Innova- tors” forum and an “Innovators’ Showcase” in which attendees were able to see many of the winning products in action.

Dental-industry medal winners at the 2016 Edison Awards:

Dental Care
GOLD: Solea, by Convergent Dental

SILVER: Multi-Axis Spiral Suction, by Ghost Manufacturing

BRONZE: Oral-B Pro 5000 with Bluetooth, by Procter & Gamble

Surgical Tools and Devices
BRONZE: Dr. Kim’s Shadowless Headlamp, by DrKimUSA.com

“Being recognized with an Edison Award,” the organization notes, “has become one of the highest accolades a company can receive in the name of innovation and business.” (Being proposed to at the Edisons isn’t bad, either.) The awards’ namesake, Thomas Edison, has become a byword for invention and innova- tive product development; over the course of his unparalleled career, Edison was granted nearly 1,100 U.S. patents. Nominees for this year’s awards were judged by an expert pan- el of more than 3,000 business executives, a roster that included previous award winners, academics and leaders in the elds of product development, design, engineering, science and medicine. For more information, please visit EdisonAwards.com.