Ames, Des Moines, Waukee firms win tech awards

The Iowa Research Association recognized both established companies and startups Thursday evening at the seventh annual Prometheus Awards.Winners included Diamond V of Cedar Rapids and PowerFilm of Ames. Newer companies as well captured awards, including Dwolla, a Des Moines company that has created a low-fee mobile payment system that uses cellphones, and Submittal Exchange, a Waukee business with software that streamlines and expands uses for architectural plans.

The association as well presented two special awards

The association as well presented two special awards.A lifetime achievement award was presented to Sunnie Richer, who began her career with IBM, switched to banking and at that time back to innovation, where in 1997 she created Doextra, a software consulting firm that designs sales systems.Steven Carter was presented a special Investing in Iowa's Future Award. Carter is director of Iowa State University's Innovation Park and the Ames school's Pappajohn Center for Entrepreneurship. More than 35 innovation startups are located in the 230-acre park on the south edge of Ames, including two of this year's winners, BodyViz and Web Filings.

More than 500 Iowans turned out for the black-tie optional awards ceremony at the Prairie Meadows events center in Altoona.The categories and winners were:Large Research Company: Diamond V, a maker of nutritional supplements for animals and humans. Founded in 1943 on the concept that farm animals did better when eating a fermented feed, Diamond V created a division called Embria in Ankeny in 2005 that makes EpiCore, a product that helps the human immune system.

Small/medium Innovation Company: Involta, a Marion provider of off-site data storage that as well provides cloud computing and cloud storage services. Involta was created in 2007 by the merger of CoVault Innovation and Innovation Resources Co. Its plan is to create data storage centers throughout the Midwest for businesses in cities of 250,000 to 1 million.Outstanding Startup: Dwolla, founded by Ben Milne, is an online payment system with low merchant fees designed to make it less expensive for retailers than dealing with major credit card companies. It's smartphone application includes global positioning technology that helps consumers find stores that accept Dwolla.

Student Technology: Book Hatchery, software created by University of Northern Iowa student Nick Cash to help do-it-yourself authors convert their books to digital formats that can be sold by online retailers, including Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble and Apple stores. Each retailer has its own format, nevertheless Cash figured out a way to increase potential sales by converting text into all of the major formats.Chief Executive Officer: Bruce Lehrman of Involta in Marion. Lehrman raised $8 million last year to finance two new data storage centers for Involta.

Chief Information Officer: Jason Popillion of GCommerce in Des Moines. Popillion has designed systems that have resulted in two patent filings for GCommerce.Best User of Research: GCommerce. The business's biggest success story to date involves afterwards-market auto parts. GCommerce created a system that allows 2,300 auto parts stores and 2,700 service centers to share inventory information on aftermarket auto parts.Clean Research Company: PowerFilm in Ames. The company's flexible solar energy cells are used in a variety of applications worldwide. Efforts in recent years have focused on integrating PowerFilm's solar cells into building products, including roofing materials and large-scale tents that can be used as command centers when disasters occur.

Information Technology Research in Health: Iowa Health Home Care of Urbandale. The Iowa Health Systems subsidiary, led by Phyllis Stadtlander, has created a Video Telehealth Program that uses video monitoring units that allow chronically ill patients to have more interaction with health care providers.Information Innovation Service Provider: Alliance Technologies in Des Moines. Alliance Technologies, led by Mike Lang, was created in 2000 and was one of the first local companies to offer cloud computing services. It is a full-service innovation provider, capable of creating original solutions to problems faced by Iowa businesses.

Large Software Company: WebFilings of Ames. The company was created by serial entrepreneur Matthew Rizai and partners to help openly traded companies streamline filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. It does that with software that allows multiple corporate officers to work on the same commission filing simultaneously, in other words than consecutively, thereby saving time and eliminating duplicative efforts.Small/Medium Software Company: Submittal Exchange of Waukee. The business was created in 2005 by architect Matt Ostanik when he realized the construction industry was wasting time by using delivery services to shuffle architectural designs and construction change orders between architects, engineers and contractors. Ostanik created Submittal Exchange as a way for the key players to digitally share documents in real time.