We’ve got a special event tonight in New York that has become an annual tradition. We’re hosting IDC Herzliya’s 2009 Zell Entrepreneurship Program grad students for an American Idol style competition to crown this year’s top startup. The student teams are coming from Israel to present their startups to 200 TechAviv NY members followed by group Q&A and live SMS voting. We’ll update the bottom of this post with the results. This event will be held at the beautiful Engelman Recital Hall thanks to our hosts Hillel at Baruch College.

Presenting Startups: (Web sites in stealth mode)

• Wisebo – Browser plugin that displays your Facebook and Twitter friends opinions on movies and other products you see while surfing the web.
• Funkkit – Web site that lets anyone design, buy and sell sneaker stickers for almost any shoe. Think Zazzle for sneaker stickers.
• LockTell – Patent-pending screw-bolt automatically signals when loose. Saves millions in plane, train, automobile and housing maintenance.
• GameSpeak – Enables PC gamers to text and voice chat using their existing IM accounts (e.g. Skype) while playing games in full-screen mode. 

UPDATE: VOTING NOW CLOSED (See photos)

Congrats LockTell, TechAviv NY’s top IDC Zell Startup of 2009!