Savannah Moring News
Bill Dawers
Tuesday, October 25, 2005

CITY TALK: Awards banquet highlights Savannahs growing tech business sector

Its hard to know what to expect from a banquet when theres a TV set in the reception area showing “Saturday Night Fever.”

Or when the pre-dinner music features classics like “Turn the Beat Around,” the smash disco hit by Vicki Sue Robinson.

Or when the emcee – Rick Winger of the Savannah Economic Development Authority – does a disturbingly good impersonation of Johnny Carson doing his Karnack the Magnificent routine.

While the event may have had a retro disco theme, last week’s Coastal BETA Technology Awards Banquet at Savannah Station was all about looking toward the future.

It was the third annual banquet organized by the Coastal Business, Education & Technology Alliance (www.coastalbeta.org), but it was the first one that I attended. I’ve been writing about initiatives like The Creative Coast for years, but there’s still something stirring about seeing 400 people in the same room with something approaching a shared vision for the city.

If the energy and enthusiasm of the attendees is any indication, Savannah may indeed have a high-wage future built on knowledge-based businesses.

It was a great pep rally.

Of course, there were some actual awards passed out. The top spots for various efforts in the public and private sector went to the Advanced Technology Development Center, to the City of Savannah for its sponsorship of The Creative Coast initiative, to the Savannah Science Seminar, to e-commerce software developer Color Maria, and to BlueLime Studio, which creates virtual computer tours of un-built buildings for a variety of architectural and sales clients.

There were at least three nominees in each of five categories, and all of the nominees seemed to have enthusiastic representatives among the crowd. Brief introductions to the nominated enterprises were given through taped interviews presented on large video screens.

S. Hart Williford, president of Morris Technology, was awarded the 2005 Howard J. Morrison Leadership Award, given annually to someone who advocates a collaborative, technology or creativity based economy.

Clearly moved by the award, Williford’s brief remarks centered on Savannah’s livability and friendliness, traits frequently used for marketing the city to companies looking for homes.

But the event wasn’t really about winners and losers. (I doubt any of the runners-up went out afterward and drowned their sorrows.) Among other things, it was a bonding event for the players in the local technology community.

A sometimes skeptical outsider, I was at times convinced that Savannah now has the critical mass of intelligent, energetic, far-sighted businesspeople, educators, and public officials necessary for luring and nurturing high-wage knowledge-based businesses.

Still, it’s a big goal, and it’s going to be a long uphill battle to improve a poor public education system and to ameliorate endemic poverty.

A few pep rallies along the way sure can’t hurt.

City Talk appears every Sunday and Wednesday.
Bill Dawers can be reached at billdawers@comcast.net.
Send mail to 10 E. 32nd St., Savannah, GA 31401.

Original Article Here

digg this!