A surprise tie between Seattle tech companies DocuSign and Isilon Systems for commercial product or service of the year was among the highlights of Thursday night’s Washington Technology Industry Association’s 16th annual Industry Achievement Awards. DocuSign provides a platform for businesses to replace handwritten electronic signatures with all-digital Internet solution; Isilon, recently purchased by EMC for $2.25 billion, provides scale-out digital storage for large companies.
Winner of the consumer product or service of the year was Swype, which provides a patented approach to inputting information on a smartphone keyboard. Instead of tapping keys, Swype enables users to swipe a finger continuously across a keyboard — a method they claim allows data entry faster and easier than others.
The best early-stage company of the year was Ground Truth, which provides what it describes as "precise measures of Mobile Internet usage."
Awards were also presented for the year’s best seed stage company; innovative manufactured productp; best use of tech in government, non-profit, or education; and the Technology Assess Foundations’s 6th-8th grade technology leaders of tomorrow. Four Washington state K-12 math teachers nominated for the Presidential Awards for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching were also honored. All finalists, including the honored teachers, are here; WTIA's summary of the winners is here.
The event held at downtown’s Showbox SODO, was hosted by Luke Burbank of KIRO-FM’s "Ross & Burbank" show and a frequent guest on NPR’s “Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me.”
This article has been updated to correct the winner of the best early-stage company award.
