Tour Wrist Takes the Judges' Award at coolTECH 2011

On Friday, more than 550 people walked through MOSI's doors for TBTF's fourth annual coolTECH to see the latest technology and trends coming out of our region and beyond. Attendees checked out more than 40 exhibitors showcasing their technology that promises to change the way we live, work and play. A diverse range of technology was featured, including consumer gadgets, assistive technology, life sciences, biotech, green technology, mobile applications and devices, technology for the defense industry and more.

Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist, spoke to a sold out crowd encouraging everyone to work together for the common good by giving their time, money and even just attention to causes and organizations that are doing good. He also talked about the early days of craigslist, which he is no longer involved with on a daily basis, but remains a customer service representative. Newmark joked that he figured out early on that as a manager, he sucks, so he hired someone else and focused primarily on the customer service side. Newmark noted that he has now grown largely useless to craigslist because he transferred his knowledge to everyone he could. He now is focused on craigconnects.org where he blogs about people doing good stuff you don't hear about. The one big lesson he learned from craigslist is to listen to people and do something about it.

A panel of judges had the difficult job of selecting this year's awards recipients. Several of the judges commented on how impressive this year's exhibitors were. Honorable mention was Altorr Freedom Technologies with its automatic door opener that uses speech recognition technology, the runner up was ZVRS, a video relay service provider that gives deaf and hard of hearing customers the ability to make and receive video relay service calls to hearing parties and the winner was Tour Wrist, an online and mobile marketing platform using virtual 360 tours.

The attendees' favorties voted by live-text voting were ZVRS in third, National Forensic Technology Center in second and the most favorite was CAMLS - Center for Advanced Medical Learning and Simulation.