Technology
2016 Tech Impact Awards: Tech Impact Champion
Congratulations, Ed Lazowska!
WINNER:Ed Lazowska, Ph.D.Bill & Melinda Gates Chair in Computer Science & Engineering, University of Washington When Ed Lazowska arrived in Seattle 39 years ago as an assistant professor, both the University of Washington and the region were very different places. In computer science, he was the newest of only 13 faculty members. The regions tech…
2016 Tech Impact Awards: Marketing/Analytics
Winner: QuoteWizard
WINNER:QuoteWizardLocation: Seattle | Employees: 195 CEO and cofounder Scott Peyree describes his fast-growing marketplace as the Expedia of insurance, helping to move a huge, longstanding auto, home and life insurance industry online, where consumers increasingly expect them to be. QuoteWizards role as connector, he explains, is to make the process easier because we understand how…
2016 Tech Impact Awards: Virtual/Augmented Reality
Winner: Microsoft HoloLens; Silver Awards: Envelop VR and Valve Corporation
WINNER:Microsoft HololensLocation: Redmond | Employees: N/AThe slim mixed-reality headset and the software infrastructure built around it is far more than a fully untethered holographic computer, according to Microsoft Technical Fellow Alex Kipman. At a recent TED talk unveiling, striding on three-dimensional projections of Martian terrain, he claimed it as a step toward tools that enhance…
2016 Tech Impact Awards: User Interface
Winner: Amazon.com; Silver Award: Skype Translator
WINNER:Amazon.comSeattle | Employees: 245,200 (worldwide)It might be called Echo, but its voice is named Alexa. The smooth-talking avatar not only makes Amazons innovative web-connected, cylinder-shaped speaker easy to control, she even tells jokes. And whats especially impressive about Alexa is her ability to understand voice commands from speakers with varying accents. The original inspiration for…
2016 Tech Impact Awards: Consumer/Retail
Winner: Avvo; Silver Award: OfferUp
WINNER: AvvoLocation: Seattle | Employees: 385If you need medical help, you probably know to go to the hospital. But where do you go if you need legal help? Thats the idea behind Avvo, now the largest legal services marketplace, with more than 270,000 lawyers offering their expertise. Avvo CEO Mark Britton says most legal issues…
2016 Tech Impact Awards: Software as a Service
Winner: Apptio Inc.; Silver Awards: Acumatica and Vertafore
WINNER: Apptio Inc. Location: Bellevue | Employees: 671When caught in the throes of rapid change, information technology managers need more than ever to understand which investments are good ones. Ted Kummert, Apptios EVP of engineering and cloud operations, notes that IT departments are trying to make good decisions to change themselves. That means having a…
2016 Tech Impact Awards: Intelligent Applications
Winner: Turi; Silver Awards: Inrix Inc. and Indix Corporation
WINNER:TuriLocation: Seattle | Employees: Under 50Predicting the most likely future is the aim of Turis customers, who use Turis machine-learning system to code their own analytics applications more quickly and efficiently than even a team of programmers could. Turis GraphLab development platform helps data scientists, like those at Zillow, Cisco and Zynga, create Netflix-style recommendation…
2016 Tech Impact Awards: Cloud
Winner: BitTitan; Silver Award: SkyKick
WINNER: BitTitanLocation: Kirkland | Employees: 176The way BitTitan founder and CEO Geeman Yip sees it, operating in the cloud provides a path to freedom. As companies rely more on technology, their decision to migrate services to the cloud offers an unmatched means of keeping overhead costs in check. Yip observes, No one ever says, I…
2016 Tech Impact Awards: The List
All the winners and Silver Award honorees.
Faster. Leaner. Smarter. These are the watchwords of the regions tech sector as more companies move to the cloud and more services spring up to help them do so. The speed of development, the economies of central management and the constant raising of the bar are fueling a tech impact of impressive proportions. Seattles growing…
Cyberwarriors: Military Unit Joins Business Community in Fighting Hack Attacks
Microsoft exec, who's also an Air National Guard colonel, helps lead the effort.
By day, Charles Chas Jeffries leads a group of Microsoft techies. When he leaves his Redmond office, he often sheds his suit and tie for military fatigues as commander of an elite band of cybersoldiers who are quietly waging global warfare on malicious hackers. Jeffries, chief of security and a lead program manager at Microsoft,…
Bright Idea: Switch Doctor Gets Smart about Home Lighting
Deako Inc. makes smart lighting easier for builders and homebuyers.
About three years ago, Derek Richardson and his wife bought a second home a dark cabin, says Richardson. He began searching for an affordable smart lighting system but couldnt find anything he liked. It was $30,000 or $40,000 for a professionally installed home system, he explains, or it was do-it-yourself systems that were difficult to…
Ed Lazowska Is the 2016 Tech Impact Champion
Lazowska, University of Washington Bill & Melinda Gates Chair in Computer Science & Engineering, will be honored at Tech Impact Awards event.
In advance of its annual Tech Impact Awards event next month, Seattle Business magazine has named Ed Lazowska its 2016 Tech Impact Champion. The award recognizes a lifetime of work building up the University of Washingtons Department of Computer Science & Engineering into one of the nations top 10 programs; leading the UW eScience Institute…
Bright Idea: Planetary Power’s Battery Boost
Cell towers in remote locations use diesel generators; a Redmond firm has a greener concept.
Sometimes, bright ideas seem to fall from the sky, like Newtons apple. More often, as in the case of HyGen, they are the product of careful analysis. The team at Planetary Power Inc. in Redmond came up with the idea for HyGen because we were looking for what was the next big, world-changing problem to…