Hawaii's high-tech industry: now hiring!

The ICS Industry Presentation

On Thursday, November 20, seven companies local to, or with locations in Hawaii visited UH Manoa to share information about their companies, missions, people, and products. As a student of the university for only about six more months, I'm more motivated than ever to see what Hawaii can use me for, lest I become part of the brain drain to the west coast, which certainly doesn't have as nice weather. Luckily, I was pleasantly surprised by several facets of the presentations and hope to take advantage of the information and networking gleaned from the experience.

Oceanit

Scott from Oceanit started things off with his experiences that lead him to Oceanit. His presentation felt a little fragmented with its terse slides, but was interesting and he is an excited presenter. As with many companies presented, this company feels like a science think-tank, always looking for a great new idea. Also, like many companies, it is closely tied to military contracts which is of interest in today's times with our ongoing conflicts in southwest Asia and a new president and congress coming into power. I spoke with Scott afterwards and he noted that they were mostly looking for people with experience in image processing, which I'm afraid isn't me, but seems like one to keep my eye on.

Alion Sciences

The next presentation was by Darren and Sid of Alion Sciences. Another company with close military ties, they emphasized their experience working on modeling and simulation which was quite interesting. The presentation felt a little disorganized as they tried to share their time and delegate their speaking, but it sounded like an interesting place and they had some really good information to share. It still is impressive to me how close to the rest of the world Hawaii is today, such that meeting with team members across three states and 9000 miles is merely an issue of time zones.

Referentia Systems

From Referentia Systems Inc came a Austin, a recent UH Manoa graduate. Another company looking for great ideas, this was the second company in a row, and not the last, which made me think "Maybe Johnson is right!" Ant, SVN, Junit, test-driven design, etc are no longer complete mysteries to me and I feel like I am developing many of the skills that these companies are looking for. I spoke with Austin afterwards and definitely am going to look into their company some more. Unfortunately, I was "that guy" and managed to leave my freshly printed copies of my resume on my desk that morning!

Datahouse.com

I didn't get a lot of notes for this presentation, or the presenter's name, but I plan to look into it more as database issues are of some interest to me and an important field to experience. The presenter seemed a bit nervous, but knowledgeable of the company.

Camber

Presenting for Camber were David and Kevin who shared information about their First Responder Readiness System. They didn't have a Powerpoint presentation, but were perfectly able to share a lot of information about their company and their experiences with software engineering. Their focus seemed mainly on Ruby on Rails design, which I'm not familiar with, but am sure I can pick up.

Ikouza

I missed the name of the presenter for this presenter, who's company comes out of the Manoa Innovation Center, which I'd heard of, but didn't really know the background of beforehand. While the presentation was interesting itself, the information about the MIC and Act 221 I found to be at least as important to know about.

Concentris

The final presentation was by Larry from Concentris, another MIC related company. They again have military ties, though with a product viable for commercial use. The presentation was well put together, and he even had a sample to pass around. I always find it good to have a solid product at the presentation - that was a good touch.

Thank you to the presenters

My thanks goes out to the presenters who came to see us, and also for the cookies - I was kinda hungry after three hours! I really enjoyed the presentations, and was especially pleased to see that there are companies right here looking for people with the skills that I'm developing. I'm glad I made a good effort to be seen and heard during and after the presentations and hope I left a good impression. A very common thread throughout the presentations was the emphasis on failing is okay! Try, fail, LEARN, repeat, and succeed. That's how great engineers and great products come into existence. They wan't people with good skills, but more importantly a willingness to learn and expand and reapply those skills. I thinking I'm definitely up to the challenge and look forward to proving it very soon.