A serial entrepreneur whose journey from technical specialist to serial entrepreneur has brought many advanced technologies to the market for the benefit of society. He has founded and/or served as Chief Executive Officer of six high-tech start-ups, raising more than $100 million in investments from venture capital, angel networks and corporate strategic investors. These investments have returned in excess of $350 million through strategic acquisitions. He is co-founder and Chairman of Desktone, a leading provider of cloud-based virtual desktops sold to small and medium sized corporations. Prior to Desktone, Mr. Ruda co-founded Softricity, an application virtualization provider later acquired by Microsoft in one of the largest software transactions in New England, valued at greater than 17 times previous year's revenue. Mr. Ruda is presently President and CEO of Wing Power Energy, an early stage developer of wind power energy solutions sold to major consumer brands that have distributed retail sites. The Entrepreneur of the Year award recognizes Ruda’s work over the last 35 years of his career.