MSR’s Laura McLaughlin and Glenn Austin, senior technical officer at PATH, present during the Inventions We Love segment at the 2015 GeekWire Summit. (GeekWire photos)

We love innovators, inventors and entrepreneurs here at GeekWire — especially those with offbeat and unusual ideas.

And that’s why we’re excited to bring back the popular “Inventions We Love” segment at the 2017 GeekWire Summit, taking place Oct. 9-11 in downtown Seattle.

Teenager Brooke Martin wowed the crowd at the GeekWire Summit, taking home the top honors in the 2014 Inventions We Love segment with her geeky dog treat-dispensing invention.

Here’s the deal: Six entrepreneurs with especially geeky products — past participants have showcased everything from smart socks to asteroid mining drones to home-brewing machines—will take the stage for short product pitches. GeekWire co-founder Todd Bishop and I will provide some light-hearted banter, and then the 800 attendees will help pick the winner.

Sound fun? It is.

This is our biggest event of the year, and it provides an incredible opportunity for tinkerers and innovators to showcase those oddball inventions from the garage or basement.

We’ve been scouring the local tech universe for especially geeky products, and already have a couple cool inventions in mind. Now, here’s your chance to get involved.

Inventions We Love contestants at the 2016 GeekWire Summit.

We are taking submissions for “Inventions We Love” from now until Aug. 31. Just fill out this form, and tell us why your gadget, device or machine is the coolest thing since sliced bread.

In order to apply, you must have a working hardware device that is available commercially. A strong preference is given to those entrepreneurs from the Pacific Northwest, and please provide a link to a video of you pitching the product, if you have one.

Get those applications filled out as soon as possible, and good luck!

And, don’t forget, early-bird tickets to the GeekWire Summit are on sale now. Get your tickets today to make sure you have the chance to hear from tech, business and political leaders, including Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson, Instacart CEO Apoorva Mehta and many other leading innovators, researchers, venture capitalists and executives.

A big thanks to IoT leader Sirqul, which is the presenting sponsor of this year’s Inventions We Love segment. Also, thanks to Summit presenting sponsor Bank of America.

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