Three to be inducted into Utah Technology Council Hall of Fame
The Utah Technology Council (UTC) has announced three inductees to its Hall of Fame: Aaron Skonnard, Amy Rees Anderson and Patrick M. Byrne.
The three will be inducted Nov. 10 at the annual black-tie Hall of Fame Gala at the Salt Palace Convention Center in Salt Lake City.
In announcing the inductees, the organization said they “have literally transformed their companies and helped propel our great state to become a nationally recognized tech hub.”
Skonnard is co-founder of Pluralsight and serves as its chief executive officer, having spent years developing course materials and teaching professional developers worldwide. He has authored numerous Pluralsight courses in the areas of Azure (cloud computing), WCF, web services, XML and BizTalk Server.
Skonnard has written numerous articles, whitepapers and books, and he is a contributing editor at MSDN Magazine, where he written “The XML Files” and “Service Station” columns for years. Among his books are Essential XML Quick Reference and Essential XML.
Anderson is managing partner and founder of REES Capital, an angel investment firm that provides entrepreneurs and business executives with support and guidance. Prior to founding REES Capital, she was chief executive officer of MediConnect Global, a cloud-based health information exchange, which she sold in 2012 for $377 million.
After that sale, Anderson founded the IPOP Foundation, a charity focused on helping promote, educate and perpetuate entrepreneurship as a pathway to self-reliance. Anderson is an author and weekly contributor to Forbes and the Huffington Post. She is also a public speaker, mentor and university lecturer.
Byrne in 1999 launched online retailer Overstock.com, which had revenues of $1.8 billion in 2016. In 2012, Bryne opted to have the company accept the digital currency bitcoin and created Medici Ventures, a subsidiary of Overstock.com, to build blockchain-based financial technology solutions. In 2015, Byrne used Medici’s t0.com securities trading platform to become the first person to purchase a digital bond entirely on the bitcoin blockchain.
Byrne made history again in 2016, when Overstock.com issued the first shares ever traded on an alternative trading system (ATS) using distributed ledger technology.
In addition to the induction activities, the Nov. 10 gala will feature keynote remarks from Satya Nadella, chief executive officer of Microsoft. The gala includes a 6 p.m. reception and a 7 p.m. dinner program.