TITLE: And the Winner Is...
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: March 05, 2008  2:05 PM
DESC: 
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BODY:
The
<A HREF="http://www.technologyiowa.org/awards/2008/">
   Prometheus Awards</A>
are the Iowa tech industry equivalent of the Academy Awards.
At last night's 2008 award ceremony, CS alumni from my
school made a good showing.

<A HREF="http://www.t8design.com/">
   T8Design</A>
won Software Company of the Year in the Small Company
Division.  Alumnus
<A HREF="http://wadearnold.com/blog/?p=14">
   Wade Arnold</A>
is one of T8's co-founders, its former CTO, and its current
CEO.  Wade accepted the statuette and gave a fine acceptance
speech.  At least two other alumni were there in the T8
delegation, and it was good to be able to congratulate them
all in person.

<A HREF="http://www.alliancetechnologies.net/">
   Alliance Technologies</A>
won the award for IT Service Provider of the Year.  Alumnus
and UNI CS advisory board member
<A HREF="http://www.alliancetechnologies.net/news/mike-lang-award.php">
   Mike Lang</A>,
CEO and President of Alliance, represented the company on
the dais.

There were two other software connections to our program
among the winners.  Alumnus
<A HREF="http://www.tonybibbs.com/">
   Tony Bibbs</A>
was part of the team that wrote one of the pieces of software
nominated for Best Innovation in Government, which was won by
ABC Virtual.  And the most distant connection involved Express
Auto, which won Top Growth Company of the Year in the Under
$25M Division.  One of the first programs that got Express
Auto off the ground back in the mid-1990s was written by a
UNI alumnus and CS advisory board member Fred Zelhart.

It was a good evening for UNI Computer Science alumni, and
a good night for this CS prof.  With the exception of Mike,
who graduated the year before I came here, I had all of these
entrepreneurs and developers as students in class, and now
I work with Mike, Fred, and Wade on an ongoing basis.  I
feel a little paternal -- now fraternal -- pride!
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