New Year, Bright Future: Tech Titans Celebrates the 21st Annual Award Gala In Person and Virtually

With the pandemic forcing the 2020 gala to be presented virtually, attendees, sponsors and hosts celebrated the Tech Titans 2021 Awards Gala in a hybrid format. The gala took place at the spacious Eisemann Center and was streamed on MarketScale.com, on January 19th to honor high achievers in the North Texas technology industry.

A Gala Made Possible by Generosity

Bill Sproull, Tech Titans’ President and CEO, opened the ceremony and after excitedly thanking the sponsors, planning committee, and crowd who all enabled the gala’s success.

The complete 2021 Event Sponsors list includes:

• Armanino
• AT&T
• BALANCED Media|Technology
• BravoTECH
• Comerica
• Ericsson
• Dallas Business Journal
• Dallas College
• Deloitte
• Fujitsu
• Humcap
• Masergy
• Matrix
• Mavenir
• Moss Adams
• NTT Data
• Qentelli
• RealPage
• RevTech Ventures
• Richardson Texas
• State Farm
• Texas Instruments
• University of Texas, Dallas

Showcasing Those Who Impact Tech for the Better

 The award’s purpose is to provide visibility to the innovators, adopters, and executors impacting the technology industry for the greater good, be it an individual or company.

With 15 total award categories, there were eight companies and thirty-nine individuals who made it to the 2021 finalist list. While all finalists were deserving, Tech Titans made the difficult decision of selecting the winners of each category:

$20,000 Grand Challenge Winner

Recognizes entrepreneurs who won the challenge of designing and pitching a solution that uses edge computing.

Dr. Corey Clark + Team, BALANCE Media|Technology

Hall of Fame Award

Recognizes an individual for outstanding leadership in assisting, advancing, and accelerating the performance of the tech industry and/or adoption of technology in North Texas, spanning more than one decade and reaching beyond the individual’s company/organization.

David Matthews, RevTech

Corporate CEO Award

Recognizes the CEO or division president of a tech company having a corporate headquarter or a division office in North Texas. The company had operating revenue of more than $200 million in 2020.

Randy Pitchford, Gearbox

Community Hero Award

Recognizes an individual employed by a North Texas technology company for outstanding achievements in community service to the North Texas area.

Anurag Jain, Get Shift Done

Corporate Innovation Award

Recognizes outstanding innovation and unique accomplishments through recent or potential breakthrough technology or approaches within the technology and communications industry.

Emerging Company Innovation Award

Recognizes outstanding innovation and unique accomplishments through potential breakthrough technology, processes, or services within the technology and communications industry.

Emerging Company CEO Award

Recognizes CEO leadership for an emerging company within the technology and communications industry.

Mance Harmon, Hedera Hashgraph

Start Up CEO Award

Recognizes the CEO of a technology company with 2020 operating revenue of no more than $2 million.

John David (JD) Enright, TMGcore

Corporate CIO Award

Recognizes the Chief Information Officer for exceptional technical leadership that fosters the deployment of IT, resulting in significant value for the company.

Neelu Sethi, Reddy Ice

Corporate CTO Award

Recognizes technical leadership, team building, creation and maintenance of a creative environment, and market awareness skills.

Maria Lensing, McKesson Corporation

Emerging Company CIO/CTO Award

Recognizes the Chief Information Officer or Corporate Technology or Science Officer of an emerging company for exceptional technical leadership that fostered the development or deployment of new technology, resulting in significant value.

Andrew Wildrix, INTRUSION

Technology Inventor Award

The Technology Inventors Award recognizes the pioneering accomplishments of a person, team, or group responsible for the creation of breakthrough ideas, processes, or products which have advanced the discipline(s) of the arts, education, electronics, energy, engineering, environment, medicine, and/or science.

Leemon Baird, Hedera Hashgraph

Technology Advocate Award

Recognizes a technology advocate/champion for their outstanding leadership in assisting, advancing, or accelerating the performance of technology companies and/or the technology community.

Michael Hill, Cumulus Technologies

Tech Titans of the Future – University

Recognizes educational institutions that encourage and support students in choosing engineering and technology-related disciplines as a preferred path. This award category spotlights DFW area higher educational institutions’ tech-related curricula and incentives to perpetuate tech-related knowledge transfer.

Jeffrey McGee, University of Texas at Arlington

Tech Titans of the Future – High School

Recognizes a high school math or science teacher for the development and implementation of an innovative teaching technique or program that inspires student interest in math and/or science.

Morris Goldade, Wylie ISD

Numerous sponsor representatives had the honor of presenting each award. In true tech fashion, supplementary videos were pre-recorded and branded to be featured during the ceremony, highlighting the various sponsors, projects, and winners.

Looking Forward to a New and Bright 2022

Sproull closed the evening with words of gratitude for all those involved with making the gala happen and the diversity represented throughout the event. “That’s who we ought to be,” he added.

Join the North Texas tech community at the 2022 Awards Gala on Thursday, October 20, 2022. Nominations will open February 1 on the Tech Titans website. If you know someone who should be nominated, send Tech Titans a lead form