BDPA Foundation: Zack Garbow (Funeral Innovations) Wins 'Most Promising Technologist' Epsilon Award

Monday, March 24, 2014

Zack Garbow (Funeral Innovations) Wins 'Most Promising Technologist' Epsilon Award

Zack Garbow, co-founder of Funeral Innovations, was honored at the 2013 National BDPA Technology Conference with an individual Epsilon Award as 'Most Promising Technologist'.

Zack is one of the foremost innovators in the industry, bringing his extensive Silicon Valley experience into the death care industry by co-founding Funeral Innovations. Before starting Funeral Innovations, Zack was a software engineer within IBM Research, where he gained over 100 patents pending and earned the title of Master Inventor, becoming the youngest Master Inventor in the history of IBM. Prior, Zack studied Computer Science and Mathematics at the University of Minnesota.

Zack is actively involved in helping his community. He was the technical director for BDPA Southern Minnesota chapter. He taught web technologies to high school students. Under his tutelage, the local chapter's students won their National BDPA High School Computer Competition championship a record five (5) straight years. The number of students trained annually more than doubled during his tenure.

In 2005, Zack was accepted into Y-Combinator, where he would develop social media products in Silicon Valley, while networking with startup specialists, including the founders of Twitter, Gmail and Pinterest. Zack developed www.BDPAStudents.com at that time to assist in remote management of BDPA computer camp activity.

In 2011, Zack moved to Boulder, CO where he continued to manage development of www.BDPAStudents.com development while in Boulder. The Rochester (MN) School District used this software platform to manage its web development classroom activities.

Thomas Moskalik, retired web development instructor for the school district said, “BDPAStudents.com surpasses anything commercially available. Instead of software that costs over six figures annually, www.BDPAStudents.com provides a flexible solution capable of supporting multiple chapters/entities, at virtually no cost. To say the least, I am impressed with the software and its creator.”