Blockchain-as-a-service (BaaS) platform SIMBA Chain won the New Tech Product of the Year award during TechPoint’s 20th annual Mira Awards gala honoring the best of tech in Indiana.

In an environment where Gartner predicts worldwide information security spending will grow by another 8.7% and top $124 billion, this year’s Mira Awards judges have selected blockchain-as-a-service (BaaS) platform SIMBA Chain as New Tech Product of the Year. The cloud-based product has been compared to WordPress due to its ease-of-use in quickly creating blockchain distributed applications for iOS, Android, and the web.

SIMBA Chain was originally formed to build a secure and unhackable messaging and transaction solution for the U.S. Department of Defense through a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) grant to Indiana Technology and Manufacturing Companies (ITAMCO) and the Center for Research Computing at the University of Notre Dame. With impressive adoption among government customers, the platform was tailored for consumer use to significantly reduces the time companies would normally spend on developing, prototyping, and implementing blockchain technologies alone.

SIMBA Chain enables users across a variety of skill sets to implement dapps (decentralized applications) that allow secure, direct connections between users and providers, eliminating third parties.

The Mira Awards judges selected SIMBA Chain because it is a completely new category of product that solves an increasingly important global problem while reducing something incredibly complex to implement down to just four simplified steps. The judges believe SIMBA Chain is on the cusp of significant growth due to the revolutionary nature of what they have built and the multitudes of other products that will be created on the platform. The platform has the potential to be a transformative technology with wide-ranging implications for many sectors such as healthcare, banking, manufacturing, and more, and could be instrumental in reimagining new categories of products and services.

SIMBA Chain portrait by Polina Osherov.

TechPoint, the nonprofit, industry-led growth accelerator for Indiana’s tech ecosystem, honored the successes and innovation of Indiana people, places, companies and products at the JW Marriott Indianapolis during the 20th annual Mira Awards gala presented by Angie’s List, Infosys, and Salesforce. With a sold-out crowd of 1,400 attendees—up another 100 from last year—this was the largest Mira Awards in the program’s 20-year history.

Only a handful of the 2019 nominees existed as companies 20 years ago, and 82 percent were founded in just the past 10 years. Similar to the rapid adoption of the iPhone starting a decade ago and streaming services today, tech businesses in Indiana have grown from a few pioneers to a fast growing, vibrant industry that is a key driver of job growth and a critical part of the state’s economic success story.

SEE ALL WINNERS

A total of 14 award winners and honorees were chosen from the 109 outstanding people, places companies and products that were selected as nominees for their achievements during the 2018 calendar year. Fifty-two independent, volunteer judges spent more than 850 total hours evaluating applications, interviewing nominees, and selecting this year’s winners. Judges included company founders, CEOs and presidents, CTOs, CIOs, and other subject matter experts.

The Mira Awards are named after the first of the brilliant variable stars to be discovered – the Mira Star. It is also the Latin root meaning “worthy of admiration, wonderful, marvelous.” The awards represent the best of tech in Indiana each year.