Brandon Weber of Dwolla last year won Technologist of the Year. This year’s open to a new winner.
They’re the ones picking apart every little detail. Looking at white space or code into the wee hours of the morning. They’re the designers and technologists who make the products startups create engaging and functional. The eight individuals below are among the best we have in the Midwest.
During the second annual Silicon Prairie Awards, held August 29, two of these eight individuals will be named as the Executive of the Year and Student Entrepreneur of the Year. In anticipation of that celebration, we’ve put together overviews of the four contenders for each award category. The finalists—48 in all—are the result of public nominations submitted in July and input from our selection committee earlier this month.
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A public vote will help determine the winners of the awards, so cast your ballot for the Executive of the Year and Student Entrepreneur of the Year below, or visit the awards page to vote on all 12 categories.
Join us for the Silicon Prairie Awards: We have an exciting evening of community celebration planned for August 29 at Hoyt Sherman Place in Des Moines. Tickets are still available for the event, which includes an opening reception, keynote talk by The Brandery co-founder and Rockfish CMO Dave Knox, awards ceremony and closing party. Purchase your tickets today.
Meet the Designer of the Year finalists
This team member, freelancer or consultant made a mark on a startup’s product by providing an amazing user experience or beautiful design. (Descriptions, accomplishments and media appearances provided by each finalist)
Stephanie Jarrett, Bulu Box (Lincoln) As CMO of Bulu Box, Stephanie leads marketing strategy as well as all branding and design efforts for the website, print material, product packaging and video production. Work sample: |
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Justin Kemerling, MindMixer (Omaha) Justin has led all aspects of design for MindMixer over the past year and has recently come on as chief design officer as our very talented product team moves the application into the next phase. Most recently, this included the relaunch of MindMixer.com (engagement, stories, astronauts, more). Work sample: |
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Rick Knudston, Flywheel (Omaha) As co-founder and chief designer at Flywheel, Rick is responsible for all aspects of Flywheel’s user experience, user interface and branding work, including application design, site design and marketing materials. Work sample:
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Jake Stutzman, Elevate (Omaha) As creative director at Elevate, Jake leads a multidisciplinary team of designers who help organizations add value through brand foundations and design innovation. They solve problems through brand-building and user-centered design. Work sample: |
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Meet the Technologist of the Year finalists
This team member, freelancer or consultant made a significant contribution toward development of a startup’s product. (Descriptions, accomplishments and media appearances provided by each finalist)
Riddhiman Das, Galleon Labs (Kansas City)* Riddhiman is co-founder and technical counsel at Galleon Labs, software developer at Kansas City startup EyeVerify and a graduate research assistant at the University of Missouri–Kansas City. Work examples: Riddhiman writes software for EyeVerify’s eye vein biometrics mobile application, which uses off-the-shelf smartphones for secure information and transactions. At Giddeon Labs, he and his team of software developers help other businesses with problems using technology. At UMKC, he works on implementing and analyzing gossip-like algorithms for distributed systems. |
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Reza Derakhshani, EyeVerify (Kansas City) Reza is EyeVerify‘s chief scientist as well as the original eyeprint inventor and patent holder. He leads EyeVerify’s R&D efforts, continuously trying to improve performance and add functionality through scientific and technological innovations core to its technology. Work examples: Reza is responsible for creating core solutions to challenging problems in mobile image processing, machine vision, biometric security and pattern recognition that are the foundations of EyeVerify’s eyevein biometric technology. |
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Kelly Kerns, ABPathfinder (Kansas City) Kelly is the co-founder, COO and chief architect at ABPathfinder. He’s responsible for product vision and all technical aspects of product development, including requirements, user-experience, architecture, development process and quality assurance. He’s worked tirelessly to understand autism therapy to build an application that meets the needs of therapists helping children. Work examples: Kelly has brought the ABPathfinder web-based therapy management tool from concept to reality. Over the last year he increased the product feature set by nearly 500 percent, adding modules for new data collection types, therapy work flows and support for mobile data collection. He conceptualized and developed ABPathfinder’s exclusive artificial intelligence analytics engine, which helps therapists build efficient and effective therapy plans. Studies have shown a 25 percent increase in skills acquisition for patients following these therapy plans. |
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Matt Secoske, Social Assurance Matt is co-founder and CTO of Social Assurance, leading overall product and technical direction for the company. Its product is a web-based (SaaS) social media management tool for banks. Work examples: Social Assurance is obviously my current darling, with me developing much of the system. I’ve had the pleasure of a varied career. My job prior to starting SA was as chief software architect/CTO at Prairie Ventures, which included several portfolio companies ranging from (clinical) lab automation to remote patient monitoring systems and a self-publishing platform. I also worked with a social media company called Twylah from ideation to execution of the first versions of the product and led development of core components of Sojern’s first platform. |
*written by Silicon Prairie News
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