Wednesday, September 23 2009, saw the last of the 56 Demonstration presentations and 14 AlphaPitches, as well as marked the final day for Chris Shipley, leaving DEMO conferences in the hands of Matt Marshal.

“DEMO is a very special platform and community and it’s been my great pleasure and privilege to lead DEMO for the last 13 years,” said Shipley. “I look forward to watching Matt build on this platform and take it to new heights.”

Highlights from yesterday’s 24 Demonstrations include Answers.com, the online database of answers, pulling from a database of over 250 sources of licensed and user-generated content and wikis from across the Internet, as well as Hashwork, the “social business tool”. Hashwork connects users with customers, partners, and other business associates in a Twitter-esque style with file editing and management capabilities while integrating seamlessly with both Google Calendars and Twitter.

ePulze, “Sentiment Search Engine”, goes beyond search, monitoring and analyzing opinion, public perception, and sentiment from news, comments, and reviews sources, serving sentiment search results.

From the day’s AlphaPitch series, where 6 early-stage companies were given 90-seconds to preview their offerings to the DEMO audience, a wide variety of emerging technology solutions were shown. GuruStorms, from Melior Technologies, Inc., an interactive brainstorming site, offers a new solution to a common business problem—where to find fresh ideas. GuruStorms offers an on-demand curated team of top professionals in a variety of fields, providing ideas and solutions. In exchange, users offer rewards of up to $5,000.

Nubli. Inc.’s EmailSmarts is an email assistant dashboard that, based on datamining and machine learning principles, easily finds important emails and manages information overload, thereby increasing productivity.

The conference concluded with Co-Executive Producer Chris Shipley honoring 16 DEMO alumni with Lifetime Achievement Awards and the DEMOgod award ceremony.

Photo credit: Chris Shipley on DEMO mainstage. Courtesy of DEMO.