2008 high tech leaders questions

i got an email that i was nominated for the 2008 high tech leaders awards. i think the deadline is tomorrow, so i have to rush to get the answers out. hopefully, i'm not too late.

here are some questions that i'm working on. this might be a work in progress through out tomorrow.

Memberships in apst and current professional organizations (board memberships, trade organizations, etc) dates of affiliations, and offices held:

um.. none. :) that was easy.

Affiliations with past and current volunteer organizations (church, school, charity, etc.) dates of affiliation, and offices held:

I'm working on starting the University of Hawaii Department of Information and Computer Sciences Alumni Association. This is a work in progress as there has never been an alumni association for the department.

1) In your primary responsibilities at work, how do you use technology to improve or advance your organization?

At Referentia Systems, Inc I am an engineering supervisor and technical lead. Part of my duties as such is to provide technical leadership to my projects and department as a whole. I help my company by providing software design, quality, and process expertise. As an example, I am a part of a leadership team that is developing business processes to help manage and improve our entire company.

How do you contributions to professional organizations demonstrate your commitment to excellence in your profession?

I am a volunteer member of the Collaborative Software Development Laboratory. In this organization we work on open source software that was created by the University of Hawaii at Manoa. This year, we won a grant from Google, Inc to mentor students on a summer project. My contributions to CSDL is one way for me to give back by helping mentor students and project members and to just help put Hawaii on the technology map.

Where do you see Hawaii's technology industry in five years? How have you helped to realize this vision?

My goal is that in 5-10 years that Hawaii has jobs that rival jobs in companies like Google. I believe we can get there. We must nurture our students and industry and continue to grow our expertise. I try to play my part, by working with students of all ages. I have helped to setup and participate in high school career fairs, technology showcases for high school and intermediate students, mentoring of university students, and events like the Lacy Veach day of discovery or the College of Engineering Junior Expo. I work with students, interns, and even write blogs to do everything I can to try to help Hawaii's students.

How do you "give back" to the community (need not be technology related)?

When I was younger, I was able to spend a lot of my time volunteering and coaching for Little League Baseball. Since entering into my career, my involvement slowly halted to a stop. I've realized that I needed to give back in other ways. Through my company, I started several community initiatives; student activities and mentoring events, a Lokahi Family Adoption drive, a yearly Hawaii foodbank drive, and other community service events. I had a lot of support from my company and coworkers. The evens were such a success that I won the first annual Referentia Community Service award.



hm.. i wrote this fairly quickly. what do you think? i guess i need to work on it a lot more tomorrow....