Conduit Is a TechX Awards Finalist

Conduit by Wyre is a finalist for the Early Innovator Award at this year’s TechX Awards, ChaTech’s annual night for the Chattanooga technology ecosystem.

The category, sponsored by Unum Group, is for a breakthrough idea or prototype with real potential to disrupt an industry. I want to be precise about what Conduit is, because “AI-native” gets used loosely.

Conduit started as an internal question at WYRE Technology: if we rebuilt an MSP from zero today, with AI as the foundation instead of a bolt-on, what would it look like? The first answer was mcp.wyre.ai, a tool I built to automate my own team’s work. It grew into a v2, conduit.wyre.ai, and this year the tool became its own company, WYRE AI, where I’m now CTO and cofounder. The thing being judged is a platform that runs real IT operations work, not a demo.

Being named a finalist means a panel of judges looked at that and saw disruption potential. So do I, but I’m biased, so look at the rest of the list instead: Brooks Band by Sensory Bridges, DAN AI by Paragon, and TN Quantum Works by Thinking Media. A sensory wellness band, an AI health prototype, a quantum computing initiative, and an AI-native platform for IT operations that grew out of a local MSP. Four genuinely different bets on the future, all from a mid-size city in Tennessee.

Chattanooga keeps showing up like this, and it still surprises people who haven’t been here. The gig network got built here. The testbeds get run here. The family command center on my wall is just the hobbyist end of the same instinct.

Awards night is September 24 at the Wolford at McKenzie Arena. Whatever happens, the finalist list itself is the story I’d point a skeptical outsider at.

If you’re local and have never gone to TechX, fix that. You’ll leave prouder of this city than you arrived.