The inaugural awards recognized excellence in automation, testing tools, emerging talent, innovative QA practices, thought leadership, community impact, organizational quality, and artificial intelligence across the software development lifecycle.
Software quality engineering is changing rapidly. Artificial intelligence, accelerated release cycles, increasingly complex systems, and growing expectations for reliability have expanded the responsibilities of QA professionals beyond traditional software testing.
Modern quality engineers contribute to automation architecture, product strategy, continuous delivery, AI evaluation, accessibility, security, risk management, and customer trust. Against this changing industry landscape, the inaugural Innovate QA Awards recognized individuals and organizations helping shape the future of the profession.
The awards were presented during the Innovate QA 2026 Conference, held June 4-5, 2026, at the Westin Bellevue in Bellevue, Washington. The two-day conference brought together more than 250 attendees, 40 speakers, and 35 sessions across leadership, practitioner, demonstration, workshop, and discussion tracks. Topics included AI-driven testing, automation architecture, accessibility, non-deterministic systems, engineering leadership, and the responsible integration of artificial intelligence into quality practices.
Building a Professional Platform for Quality Engineering
Innovate QA was founded and is led by Tatyana Arbouzova, CEO of Innovate QA Events and an experienced software quality engineering leader.
Under the leadership of Tatyana Arbouzova, Innovate QA has developed into a professional industry platform connecting quality assurance specialists, automation engineers, test architects, engineering executives, technology companies, and recognized experts through conferences, workshops, educational programs, and community initiatives.
Innovate QA reports a network of more than 4,500 community members, more than 50 events, over 200 featured speakers, and participation across more than 15 countries. Innovate QA organizes conferences, monthly professional events, workshops, and online programs designed to advance quality engineering through education, knowledge exchange, and collaboration.
The Innovate QA Awards were introduced to recognize excellence, innovation, and community impact across the software quality engineering profession. The program included seven principal categories with published evaluation criteria, while the final announcement also included an additional recognition for AI and Innovation in the SDLC. Industry judges reviewed the nominations and selected the inaugural recipients.
Individual Award Recipients
Emerging QA Talent: Lakshmi Navya Sivakoti
Lakshmi Navya Sivakoti, a QA Automation Engineer, received the Emerging QA Talent award.
The category recognizes professionals with fewer than five years of industry experience who demonstrate initiative, curiosity, rapid professional development, and commitment to software testing. Evaluation criteria included learning velocity, self-improvement, early contributions to projects or communities, and passion for quality assurance.
The recognition of Lakshmi Navya Sivakoti highlighted the importance of supporting the next generation of professionals responsible for testing increasingly complex software and AI-enabled products.
Excellence in Automation: Rohit Singh Raja
Rohit Singh Raja, Principal Software Product Quality Engineer at Clinical Ink, received the Excellence in Automation award.
The category evaluated innovation in automation frameworks and approaches, integration into SDLC and DevOps pipelines, measurable improvements in speed, coverage or defect leakage, and the scalability and maintainability of automation across engineering teams.
The recognition of Rohit Singh Raja reflects the importance of automation leaders who connect technical implementation with broader product-quality and business objectives.
Best QA Tool Contribution: Jason Huggins
Jason Huggins, founder of Vibium, creator of Selenium, co-founder of Sauce Labs, co-creator of Appium, and founder of Tapster Robotics, received the Best QA Tool Contribution award.
Jason Huggins is one of the most influential technology creators in modern software test automation. Jason Huggins created Selenium in 2004 at ThoughtWorks, where the project began as an internal browser-testing tool before developing into a globally adopted open-source automation ecosystem. Jason Huggins later established Sauce Labs to help provide scalable cloud infrastructure for automated browser testing.
Jason Huggins also played a formative role in Appium by encouraging the original project to become open source, implementing the WebDriver protocol, and helping establish the Appium name. Jason Huggins later founded Tapster Robotics, which develops physical robots for testing touchscreens, mobile devices, and connected hardware.
Jason Huggins currently leads Vibium, a browser automation and verification platform for AI agents and human users. Built on WebDriver BiDi, Vibium is designed to provide reliable browser interaction and help verify software created or modified by AI coding agents. The award connected the latest work of Jason Huggins at Vibium with more than two decades of contributions to web, mobile, cloud, and physical-device testing.
Community Champion: Anna Kovalova
Anna Kovalova, CEO and co-founder of Anbosoft, received the inaugural Community Champion award.
The category recognizes professionals who promote learning, inclusion, mentorship, and collaboration within the software testing community. Candidates were evaluated based on the consistency of their involvement, their impact on other professionals, their supportiveness, and their efforts to increase inclusion and visibility within the field.
Anna Kovalova has more than 15 years of experience in software quality engineering. Through Anbosoft, an outsourced software testing and quality engineering services company, Anna Kovalova supports startups, growing technology companies, and AI-native software teams with QA strategy, manual testing, test automation, QA process improvement, and AI software testing across web, mobile, API, SaaS, cloud, and AI-powered products.
Anna Kovalova is the BrowserStack QA Meetup Chapter Leader in Los Angeles and the leader of the WomenTech Network Circle in Orange County, California. Anna Kovalova is also an IEEE Senior Member, BCS Fellow, and BrowserStack Icons of Quality honoree. Through these professional and community roles, Anna Kovalova contributes to mentorship, knowledge sharing, professional education, and the development of local and international technology communities.
Innovation in QA Practice or Solution: Lavanya Jayakanth
Lavanya Jayakanth, Product Manager at HealthEquity, received the Innovation in QA Practice or Solution award.
The category recognizes a process, strategy, product, or solution that redefines how software quality is approached. Evaluation criteria included uniqueness, measurable improvements in quality, speed or stability, scalability, transferability, and the thought leadership supporting the innovation.
The recognition of Lavanya Jayakanth reflects the growing role of product and process leadership in advancing intelligent testing, predictive analysis, AI-assisted workflows, and quality practices that can be scaled across an organization.
QA Thought Leader of the Year: Priyanka Halder
Priyanka Halder, Associate Vice President of AI and Engineering at Deloitte, received the QA Thought Leader of the Year award.
The category recognizes an individual whose ideas, educational contributions, mentorship, communication, and professional influence have made a lasting impact on the QA industry. Candidates were evaluated based on professional reach, originality and depth of ideas, quality and consistency of contributions, and impact on QA teams and industry practices.
The recognition of Priyanka Halder emphasized the importance of professionals who help the industry interpret technological change, establish stronger practices, and prepare quality teams for emerging risks.
Organizational Award Recipients
Innovative QA Organization of the Year: NCQA Healthcare
NCQA Healthcare received the Innovative QA Organization of the Year award.
The category recognizes an organization pioneering new approaches to delivering quality at speed. Evaluation criteria included originality, impact, contribution to industry development, customer success, agility, vision, and execution.
The organizational category reinforces an important principle: sustainable quality requires more than individual expertise. It depends on leadership support, appropriate technology, measurable processes, and an organizational culture in which reliability is treated as a shared responsibility.
AI and Innovation in the SDLC: Coforge
Coforge, a global IT consulting and technology services organization, received the AI and Innovation in the SDLC recognition.
The recognition reflected one of the central themes of Innovate QA 2026: artificial intelligence is becoming integrated throughout the software development lifecycle.
AI is increasingly being applied to requirements analysis, software development, test generation, defect investigation, automation maintenance, release decisions, monitoring, and quality analytics. These applications can accelerate development, but they also introduce concerns involving reliability, accountability, non-deterministic behavior, data quality, security, explainability, and human oversight.
The recognition of Coforge highlighted the responsibility of engineering organizations to adopt artificial intelligence in ways that improve efficiency without compromising software quality or user trust.
A Broader Standard for Excellence in Quality Engineering
The inaugural Innovate QA Awards presented a contemporary definition of excellence in quality engineering.
The recipients were recognized not only for technical achievement, but also for technological innovation, organizational leadership, professional education, mentorship, community development, and the responsible adoption of artificial intelligence.
The presence of an internationally influential testing pioneer such as Jason Huggins alongside emerging professionals, experienced leaders, community contributors, and global organizations demonstrated the breadth and professional relevance of the inaugural awards program.
As software systems become increasingly complex and artificial intelligence becomes more deeply integrated into development, quality engineering will depend on professionals and organizations that combine technical expertise with strategic judgment, collaboration, accountability, and a clear understanding of user risk.
The Innovate QA Awards provide a professional platform for recognizing these contributions and highlighting the individuals and organizations helping shape the future of software quality engineering.
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