Connect, the nonprofit San Diego group supporting technology entrepreneurship, marked the 25th anniversary of its annual Most Innovative Products Awards Friday, recognizing nine companies and two individuals. The awards program was conceived as a way to highlight local innovations brought to market in the previous 18 months. More than 800 people attended the luncheon at the Hilton La Jolla Torrey Pines.
The 2012 MIP Award winners are:
—Action and Sport Technologies: Pear Sports for Square One, the company’s intelligent heart rate monitor and personal training system enables athletes to track their training and competition performance.
—-Aerospace and Security Technologies: Cubic Defense Applications for its combat identification laser technology, intended to prevent casualties from friendly fire on the battlefield.
—Clean Technology: Atlantis Technologies for its low-cost industrial wastewater desalination system. Using radial deionizing super capacitor technology, the system can desalinate industrial waste water from oil, gas, and mining operations for 40 percent to 70 percent less cost than state-of-the-art technologies.
—Communications & IT: TrellisWare, for developing is the Tactical Mobile Ad-Hoc Network, an all-in-one transmitter/receiver/relay offering multi-channel push to talk voice, IP data and streaming video services, and position location services.
—Hardware and General Technology: Logic PD, for the dime-size Torpedo+ Wireless SOM, an FCC-certified wireless device created for use in life-critical equipment.
—Life Science Diagnostics and Research Tools: Life Technologies for the Ion Proton System, a high-throughput gene sequencing system that uses semiconductor technology to sequence DNA and RNA bases in a massively parallel manner. The technology is expected to bring the cost of human genome sequencing below $1,000.
—Life Sciences Medical Products: Amylin Pharmaceuticals for extended-release exenatide (Bydureon), approved by the FDA in January 2012 for the treatment of adults with type 2 diabetes. Biodegradable microspheres provide controlled release of the medicine into the body throughout the week, working not only after meals but whenever blood sugar levels are elevated.
—Software: Independa for its Web-based healthcare technology platform to help seniors to continue living at home. In a collaboration with LG Electronics, Independa recently introduced “Senior TV,” which uses a TV to provide integrated video chat, email, Facebook, med reminders, photo-sharing, and other functions .
—Mobile Apps: LIA for Liberated Intelligence, an enterprise mobile sales platform that combines cloud computing, mobile devices, and proprietary sales enablement software.
Connect also honored Life Technologies CEO Greg Lucier and longtime San Diego real estate developer and philanthropist Malin Burnham with its Distinguished Contribution Award.
