From farm robots to cybersecurity to AI-enabled medical records, the winners of the 2026 GeekWire Awards Young Entrepreneur of the Year represent some of the ambitious bets being made in the Pacific Northwest’s startup space.
The finalists in this category, presented by Prime Team Partners, are: Emily Choi-Greene (Apparently AI); Caleb John (Pioneer Square Labs); Kavian Mojabe (MediScan AI); Charles Wu (Orchard Robots); and Zheqing (Bill) Zhu (Pokee AI).
Now in its 18th year, the GeekWire Awards is the premier event to recognize the top leaders, companies and achievements in Pacific Northwest tech, bringing together hundreds of people to celebrate innovation and entrepreneurial spirit. It takes place on May 7 at Showbox SoDo in Seattle.
Read on to find out about the Young Entrepreneurs of the Year, selected by a panel of independent judges in the community nominations. You can help choose a winner: Cast your vote here or in the embedded form below. Voting continues until April 16.
Emily Choi-Greene is the founder and CEO of Clearly AIcybersecurity startup that helps security, privacy, and compliance teams review new products, features, vendors, and AI implementations before they’re shipped.
Less than two years after its launch, Apparently AI raised $8.4 million in interest. The company was also named as one of the 10 finalists in the RSAC 2026 Innovation Sandbox Contest, a high-level competition in conjunction with the RSA Summit, the largest cybersecurity industry event. Choi-Greene previously worked on natural language understanding for Amazon’s Alexa and later on device security teams at the tech giant.
Caleb John is an engineer and investor at Pioneer Square Labsa Seattle-based startup studio and fund.
John’s previous experience includes robotics, AI, and defense technology. He co-founded AI startup Pongo (acquired by M87 Labs) and founded Cedar Robotics, which builds robot waiters for restaurants. He also contributed to national security AI at Anduril Industries and was recognized on the Forbes Under 30 Seattle list in 2023.
Kavian Mojabe is the founder and CEO of MediScan AIa Seattle startup uses AI to help medical professionals analyze patient records.
Launched in 2024, MediScan AI raised $1.4 million in funding last June. Its platform can quickly scan records – including typed and handwritten notes – and generate summaries and comprehensive reports, reducing the time it takes human inspectors to perform such tasks. The startup is positioned at the intersection of the pharmaceutical, insurance and legal industries. Mojabe was previously a software engineer at Amazon.
Charles Wu is the founder and CEO of Orchard Roboticsan agtech startup using AI to deliver accurate farm performance data.
Wu is a Thiel student who dropped out of Cornell University to launch Orchard Robotics. The startup, which raised $22 million in Series A funding last September, has developed a system with cameras mounted on tractors and other equipment to collect images as they traverse the farm. The images collected are then analyzed by Orchard Robotics’ AI to generate data on the vines, trees and plants, which are then processed to track growth, yield and plant health.
Zheqing (Bill) Zhu is the founder and CEO of Pokee AISeattle-based construction startup AI agents automate online workflows.
Pokee, which raised a $12 million seed round last July, differentiates itself by using reinforcement learning to help agents sequence and use tools correctly, rather than relying solely on large-scale language models. Zhu was previously the head of application reinforcement learning at Meta, where he worked for over seven years. He completed his Ph.D. at Stanford in the same field and did his graduate and undergraduate studies at Duke.
Astound Business Solutions is the presenting sponsor of the 2026 GeekWire Awards. Thanks also to gold sponsors Amazon Sustainability, Baird, BECU, JLL, First Tech and Wilson Sonsini, and silver sponsors Prime Team Partners.
The event will feature a VIP reception, dinner and fun social gatherings. Tickets are going fast. A limited number of partial table sponsorships and full sponsorships are available. Contact person [email protected] to reserve a spot for your group today.
Create your own user feedback survey
