I recently had the pleasure of attending the Mass Technology Leadership Council's 2008 Awards Gala at the Sheraton Boston. The awards recognize technology innovators and leaders in the state. I was delighted to spend time with Tom Wilde of Everyzing, Foster Hinshaw of Dataupia and especially Dave Kamins (and more) from Litle & Co., our gracious hosts.

The gala opened with a challenge to all attendees to comment on how the marshmallow test for kids applies to the state of the world today. Some felt that it was a good test and highly relevant; that in order to solve complicated problems we have to be able to imagine a different (better) outcome and then have the drive to see it realized.

On to the awards... Zink Imaging won for "emerging innovative company of the year". Their inkless printing technology is truly next-generation technology - the kind of thing you might easily confuse with magic! Robert Keane of Vistaprint won "CEO of the year" in recognition of remarkable (and profitable) growth. It's amazing to see such innovations in a field that might easily be taken for granted or viewed as a solved problem.

MIT won the Commonwealth Award for, among other things, the fact that if you created a new country consisting of all the companies founded by alums it would have a GDP that ranked 15th in the (real) world... that's a pretty concrete impact on high tech, to say the least.

Perhaps the most inspiring moment was Paul Maeder's acceptance speech for his individual Commonwealth Award. He pointed out that innovation cycles are driven by large government investments in basic research. For example the PC revolution in the 1980s was driven by the development of the integrated circuit which was to no small degree championed (and funded) by NASA. Similarly the internet revolution of the late 90's which was enabled by decades of funding by DARPA. He felt that a major government investment in clean/renewable energy was now inevitable and that such a move would turn the economy around. He was genuinely optimistic about the future and felt that this was an excellent time to start a new venture.

Y Combinator's Paul Graham, who won the Innovator of the Year award, went even further, saying that economic cycles are getting shorter, and since startup cycles are now typically longer then the economic cycles, the economy shouldn't be an overriding concern when you decide to start a business. (He recently posted about this on his blog here). Entrepreneur Doug Levin, who recently left the Waltham start-up Black Duck Software as CEO but remains a board member and big fan of the company, wrote a similarly refreshing post on important traits entrepreneurs should strive to emulate...

Anyway, it was a terrific event. Read the press release for the complete details.