Yesterday was a day of contrasts -  It began at Technology Association of Georgia’s (TAG) Technology Summit — thanks to Patrick Gaul who had an extra seat at his blogger’s table.

I was joined by fellow bloggers David Cohen, Amani Channel, Sherry Heyl, Justin Rubner, and Lance Weatherby.  Though to be honest Twitter seemed to be the platform of choice.

Hundreds of members from Georgia’s business establishment were on hand to honor some of the state’s most innovative technology companies the honorees.

Among TAG’s 2009 Top 10:

CCP Games North America –  a gaming company, creators of Eve and part of Georgia’s gaming future.

PlayOn Sports! – digital media company that allows fans to watch untelevised, high quality local community content.

Asankya – creators of a cloud application acceleration service.

NanoLumens – makers of digital screens that can be contoured in any shape and size.

New York Times columnist and author Thomas Friedman was the featured speaker.  One of his biggest applause lines was when he told the crowd he was for startups, not bailouts.

Shotput Venture’s Open House

That evening I attended Shotput Venture’s open house to kick off their efforts to find the next generation of web entrepreneurs.  The organizers expected 75 attendees; 200 showed up and a third were Georgia Tech undergrads.

One such student Andre Nasri is developing a iPhone application after working with fellow students on an automated login system.

The scale of this venue was less grand, but the goals were no less great:  to discover promising startups and help build Georgia’s technology future.

Good economic news is in short supply these days, but across Atlanta there seems to be no absence of innovation.

Let me get back to you.