Against the backdrop of a worsening recession, San Diego’s innovation community came together for the 21st annual “Most Innovative Products” awards luncheon today in La Jolla. The event is intended to showcase new products introduced over the past year in eight categories that reflect technology clusters, such as wireless communications, medical devices, and aerospace and security technologies that are concentrated in the region.
“Whenever I think of these communities of innovation, I think we’ll come out of this okay,” said Connect CEO Duane Roth, referring to the economic downturn that has dominated recent headlines. Connect, the non-profit organization that has organized the awards since 1987, promotes innovative technologies by helping provide entrepreneurs with the information and resources they need to build a business.
More than 800 people registered for the event at the Hilton La Jolla Torrey Pines, in the heart of San Diego’s technology center. This year’s winners were culled from 24 finalists, which were selected from more than 100 nominations, and included the first tie in the history of the award—for Aerospace and Security Technologies.
The nine categories and the companies that received Connect’s most innovative products award are:
—Action and Sports Technologies: The “Direct Drive” surfboard design
Author: Bruce V. Bigelow
In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here.
Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University.
Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.
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