Tacoma techies come together

Who said technology in the Puget Sound is just limited to Seattle and the Eastside? Recently, I attended the first annual SHIFT awards celebration, which honored South Sound companies that have shown technology innovation. Now it wasn't just a couple start-ups that were up for the award, Intel and MorphoTrak, both billion dollar companies with local offices were nominees. VOXUS client Internet Identity, an Internet security company that's been around since 1996, ended up taking home some hardware along with biometric ID company MorphoTrak, hotel Hotel Murano and building engineers BCRA. From my guesstimate, I'd say about 120 plus people attended the ceremony at Tacoma's Theater on the Square. All four companies who won a SHIFT award (which let's call a SHIFTy) got a chance to tell their company's innovation stories at the event. Pretty interesting stuff, but of course I'm partial to Internet Identity's story (see BAD cell phone picture of company CEO Lars Harvey below). The hometown company has  grown by 800-percent since 2001 to secure and defend some of the biggest companies in the world. Not bad for little T-Town. Here's to more Tacoma techies in the years ahead!

-posted by Andrew