MistyWest announces the winners of its 2024 Misties Awards

MistyWest, a Vancouver-based engineering design consultancy specializing in IoT devices, wearables, and ML applications, has announced the 20 winners of its 2024 Misties Awards — spotlighting individuals who’ve built and commercialized intelligent and connected devices.

According to the company, MistyWest has been working with global clients and partners for over a decade to create devices that accelerate the world’s transition to a sustainable future. As part of this mission, the Misties was established to celebrate innovation in the hardware industry while fostering a stronger community among leading companies.

“We’ve seen how crucial industry collaboration across geographies is to driving innovation in the hardware sector,” said Leigh Christie, co-founder of MistyWest. “Hard tech faces logistical challenges, including the need for chips, manufacturing capacity, supply chain reliability, and other areas that often must be met through a vast trusted network that takes years to establish and maintain.”

Christie added, “The need to foster this collaboration is highlighted further when you begin to understand the crucial role these technologies have to play in addressing global challenges, enhancing human well-being, and driving sustainable development.”

The Misties judging panel included industry leaders such as Eric Migicovsky, founder and CEO of Beeper; Sherry Huss, co-founder of Maker Faire and head of community at Freeman; Adam Benzion, CXO at Edge Impulse; Chuck Martin, editorial director for AI & IoT at Informa Tech; and dozens more. 

"Being part of the Misties judging panel is an insider's view of the latest innovations in hardware,” said Benzion. “The Misties Award serves as essential inspiration for future inventors, designers, and engineers building complex products that make people go, ‘Wow, that's awesome!’"

The winners were announced yesterday in a virtual ceremony followed by an exclusive in-person event. Prizes included over $10,000 in cash to support the development of future projects of the winners. The list includes individuals from across Canada and the U.S., along with a few in Europe. Those close to home include Laurent Pelissier, founder of Vancouver-based Clarius Mobile Health, and Stephanie Willerth, CEO of Victoria-based Axolotl Biosciences and professor of biomedical engineering at the University of Victoria.

The full list of winners:

• Dr. Achin Bhowmik, CTO & EVP of Engineering at Starkey Hearing (Minnesota)

• Adam Woodworth, CEO at Wing (California)

• Chris Van Hoof, VP of R&D at Imec (Leuven, Belgium)

• Conor Russomanno, Founder & CEO at OpenBCI (New York)

• David Merrill, CEO & Co-Founder at Elroy Air (California)

• Dev Singh, VP & GM, Robotics and Embedded IoT at Qualcomm (California) 

• Darryl Nelson, Nelson Environmental Remediation (Alberta)

• Jim Coates, Founder at KryoTek Systems (Yukon)

• John Van Scoter, President & CEO at Solid Power (Colorado)

• Jason Currie, Staff Robotics Systems Software Engineer at Triton Medical Robotics (California)

• Kriti Pachhandara, Senior Technical Program Manager at ŌURA (Finland)

• Laurent Pelissier, Founder at Clarius Mobile Health (Vancouver) 

• Mark Langer, CTO at Artyc (San Francisco)

• Megan Thurlow, CTO at Aclima (San Francisco)

• Noelle Russell, Senior Research Fellow, AI at AI 2030 (Florida)

• Pablo Bleyer, Senior Principal Engineer at Collins Aerospace (Florida)

• Paolo Pirjanian, CEO & Founder at Embodied (Los Angeles) 

• Tusher Chakraborty, Senior Research Engineer at Microsoft (Washington)

• Dr. Stephanie Willerth, CEO at Axolotl Biosciences, Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Victoria (Victoria)

• Yusuf Haque, CTO & Co-Founder at Exo (California)