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The genome-sequencing technique from 454 Life Sciences was selected as the Gold winner in The Wall Street Journal’s 2005 Technology Innovation Awards competition. Innovative technologies from around the world were eligible for awards in categories including biotechnology, software, security, energy and the environment, among others.
Around 750 applications were screened by a Wall Street Journal editor, who narrowed the field to 104 semifinalists. Then a panel of expert judges from industry, research organizations and academia scored each entry and picked the winners.
Entries were judged on two main criteria: Does the innovation represent a breakthrough from conventional ideas or methods in its field, and does it go beyond incremental improvements on technologies that already exist? Some judges also considered the utility of the innovation. “I looked at how much of an impact it’s going to have — really how useful it is,” says one judge, Diane Greene, president of VMware Inc., a Palo Alto, Calif., company that sells software that enables different operating systems to run on a single computer.
The 12 competition’s categories are the following:
- Biotech-Medical
- Medical Devices
- Energy and Power
- Environment
- Materials
- Network/Broadband/Internet
- Security (Facilities)
- Security (Network)
- Semiconductors
- Software
- Transportation
- Wireless
Source
The Wall Street Journal’s 2005 Technology Innovation Awards