At Startup Institute, Talent Expo is everybody's favorite day. It is a celebration, a show, a graduation, a demo day, and a job fair all rolled up with a dash of pizzazz. Seats are filled with eager and expectant HR professionals, recruiters, founders, and company leadership looking to find their next great hires. Our graduates take center-stage to share their talents, ambition, and hustle—in a 60-second elevator pitch.

The Talent Expos in Chicago, Boston, and New York this past week were our bests yet—"feeding frenzies" for hiring companies, as one staff member observed. Our students' pitches impressive and inspiring, and many of them walked away from the day with new connections, scheduled interviews, and even, for one student, a job offer.

Instructor awards:

Each Talent Expo, we like to show appreciation some of the community members who've made the biggest difference for students that session. Our Student Choice Awards recognize the instructors whose teaching and mentorship was voted most outstanding by the students in that track. Our Student Choice Award winners for the fall 2015 cohort were...

Award-winning instructors in Chicago:

Sales & Account Management:Jeffrey Spetter, Director of Business Development at Rippleshot
Web Development:Kel Kanhirun, Software QA Engineer at Avant
Technical Marketing:
- Kaleigh Simmons, Director of Marketing at Rippleshot
- Eric Pitt, Community Manager at Opternative
- Web Design:Rodney Dennis, Front-End Developer at Carbonmade

[bctt tweet="Congrats to award #winning instructors @rdydns @SuperBad_ @kaleighsimmons @kanhirun @jefferyspetter"]

Award-winning instructors in Boston:

Sales & Account Management:Mark Coffey, CRO at Gameface Media
Web Development:John Carmichael, Director of IT Operations at WeSpire
Technical Marketing:Vishal Sunak, Director of Sales Operations at InsightSquared
Web Design:Stephen Wong, Co-Founder and CPO at Random Wire Technologies

[bctt tweet="Congrats to Student Choice Award #winners @wingchi @TheSunak @JohnnyC115 @mcoffey"]

Award-winning instructors in New York:

Sales & Account Management:Jake Dunlap, CEO at Skaled
Web Development: Richard Lau, Ruby Developer at Constant Contact
Technical Marketing:Jennifer Spivak, Digital Marketing Entrepreneur and Speaker
Web Design:Chuck Nelson, Partner and Founder at ATTCK

[bctt tweet="Congrats to Student Choice instructors @jennifer_spivak @chuckWnelson @iRichLau @JakeTDunlap"]

Introducing the Owl Award:

We introduced a new award at this weeks Talent Expos. The Owl Award is presented to a Startup Institute alum who continuously gives back with true humility. It was with great pleasure that we awarded the first ever Owl Awards to the following four alumni for exemplifying the pay-it-forward mentality that is paramount to our community:

Alex Kahn, Software Engineer at Mac & Mia
Sam Backus, Software Developer at PatientsLikeMe
Suzi Dao, Front-End Developer at Cinch Financial
Wilton Arellano, Director of Growth at Ladder

[bctt tweet="Congrats to #SIOwlAward #winners @KahnTemplate @SamBackus @suzidao @WeenJeem"]

We're beyond grateful for the dedication and generosity of all of our Student Choice instructors and Owl Award winners. Thank you for all that you do!

Thank you to all who came to Talent Expo to support our students and the growing innovation community. Check out the tweet storm to relive some of the highlights: