Companies honored for innovative ideas at 2010 Utah Innovation Awards

SALT LAKE CITY — Innovation can come in many forms. Sometimes it's a product that can help doctors diagnose speech impediments. Sometimes it's a product that dispenses windshield washer fluid.

Be it a cool new idea or product or developments in existing technologies, competitors at the 2010 Utah Innovation Awards event Thursday often prompted the question, "Why didn't I think of that?"

Consider the Smile Reminder Patient Communication Software Suite, winner of the Innovation Award in the Enterprise Business to Business Software category.

"It's a service that's designed to help dental and medical practices communicate better with their patients," Bruce McKay, vice president of sales for Lehi-based Smile Reminder, told the Deseret News. "Using e-mail and text messaging, we tie directly into their scheduling software to automatically generate things like appointment reminders an hour before your appointment."

That imaginative thinking, coupled with practical use and function for a large-scale industry, is just the kind of ingenuity the awards are meant to recognize.

The awards were presented at the Marriott City Center at an event co-sponsored by the Utah Technology Council. The awards program acknowledges inventiveness in eight technology-related categories.

"Utah is an incredibly innovative state with innovative people who are very creative, outside-of-the-box thinkers who are looking for ways to advance industry and business," said Nicole Kershaw, business development manager for event co-sponsor Stoel Rives.

She said the eight winners were chosen from 120 nominations, the most in the eight-year history of the program.

"Our selection committee is made up of experts in the various categories, so they set the criteria that best reflect the merits of each of the nominees so that it's a fair evaluation," Kershaw said. "They look at things such as novelty, competition, creativity and whether it's generating revenue for a company and contributing to our economy."

Among the other award winners was a gadget aimed at one of the most popular hobbies in Utah and around the country: scrapbooking. Utah County-based Provo Craft and Novelty Inc. took the prize for computer software/electrical devices for its Gypsy for Cricut. According to the company's vice president of product development, Jim Colby, the device allows people to use the Gypsy — a kind of Etch-a-Sketch/iPad — to make all their designs, which can be saved and then linked to the Cricut, which produces the original stencils or artistic designs.