More than 400 Orange County businesspeople gathered on Sept. 25 to honor notable innovators within the local community at the Business Journal’s fifth annual Innovator of the Year Awards at Hotel Irvine.
Dean Stoecker, co-founder, chairman and chief executive of Alteryx Inc. (NYSE:AYX), delivered the keynote address. He implored other entrepreneurs and innovators to “follow all the data around you” when figuring out their business plans.
Stoecker started the data science and analytics company in 1997; the firm’s 2017 IPO marked a “20-year overnight success story” for Alteryx, which now counts a valuation of $7 billion.
He encouraged other firms to delay getting venture capital backing until absolutely needed, choose VCs who can provide more than just money, and to overcome “the long swamp of despair” common during the long struggle to get an upstart company on the right track.
Winners
The luncheon recognized several area individuals for pioneering products and services.
This year’s winners are:
• John Kao, founder and chief executive officer of Alignment Healthcare in Orange.
• Neel Grover, founder and chief executive officer of Indi in Newport Beach.
• Mark Bachman, founder and chief technology officer of Xidas in Irvine. The company recently rebranded; it was previously called Integra Devices.
• Ray Grainger, founder and chief executive officer of Mavenlink in Irvine.
• Andrew Ninh, co-founder and chief executive officer of Docbot in Irvine.
The Business Journal will profile the five Innovator of the Year Award winners in the Oct. 7 print edition.
UCI Wireless
In addition, the event also recognized Huan Wang, who was the recipient of the Maschoff Brennan Student Innovator Scholarship for his research and co-invention of breakthrough wireless technology, referred to as RF Direct Modulation and Demodulation. He was awarded $2,500.
Wang and his fellow University of California-Irvine scientists were profiled in the July 29 edition of the Business Journal; their team has developed silicon chips that are at least four times faster than the speed of the upcoming 5G wireless standard.
