ICS Industry Day at UH Manoa

Today was the ICS Industry day at UH Manoa, an event I've been waiting to go to for awhile now. High tech companies from all over Hawaii come in and do presentations on what their company does, while showing some of the real life jobs that are available to a newly graduated student. Since I am a senior computer science student, I was extremely interested in seeing these presentations. I was also interested into seeing what sort of internships are available currently. Sadly though, I was not able to stay the entire time due to a 12:00 class I had (which I left early in order to get back to the presentations). 

All in all I was able to see the following presentations:

• Oceanit - A company based on Oahu, Kauai, and Maui that works on a wide range of 'innovative' projects for the government. They do a lot of Research and Development work.
• Alion Science - A larger company that also does a wide range of things, including software modeling for the military. 
• Concentris Systems - A company whose primary focus is on developing technology for the military. They developed the 'Indestructible Instant Network' system.

I have to say that I was really impressed by all the presentations. Growing up in Hawaii but traveling around the world, I never really saw Hawaii as an innovative place with high standards. However these companies are doing really innovative things! And in Hawaii nonetheless! It was really cool for me to see this.

OCEANIT

The Software Manager of Oceanit, Scott Libert, was an extremely friendly fellow. Even before the presentations had begun he had introduced himself and was telling me about what they do at the company, as well as what types of internships they have, etc. I learned that Oceanit likes to be on, as Scott put it, 'the bleeding edge,' constantly pushing the limits of technology. They've done some really cool stuff there, like use nano technology to make building structures more robust, as well as create technology that can check and see if people are in a building before entering (for military usage). It's really cool stuff to say the least. 

After Scott did his presentation, I went and had a talk with him about their internship they have for the summer. He was really nice about everything and gave me a bunch of information on what the interns do, as well as how to go about getting the internship. What's nice about their internship is its project based, so at the start you are given some project which you complete over the course of the internship. A recent intern just developed an iPhone application for the company. 

ALION SCIENCE

This was a pretty fun presentation put on by two guys who work for the company in Hawaii. They basically work on making simulations for the military, sort of like video games. What was great about their presentation was that they presented some of the facts about working as a software developer in the real world. I believe one of them stated that "you spend 80% of your time looking at other people's code or old code, rather than creating your own." He was making a point about how having good documentation is essential. They also mentioned a lot of the things we use in ICS413 like SVN, Continuous Integration, and JUnit. It felt pretty good to know all about those things and they stressed how important these technologies are to any project.

CONCENTRIS SYSTEMS

After initially leaving the presentations and going to my math class, I found myself extremely uninterested in what was going on, so I decided to pack up and go see some more presentations. I really wanted to see the Ikayzo (makers of techhui.com) presentation but I was too late. What I did get to see though was the presentation by Concentris Systems, which develops wireless technology primarily for the military. The presenter seemed really informed on just about everything and it was nice to actually see some of their physical technology there (he brought in a portable network module).

Concentris does some really cool stuff with their Indestructible Instant Network devices. What this basically does is set up network nodes on these little portable modules, which then all connect automatically in the most efficient way possible, thus enabling solid communication. What makes it indestructible is the fact that if one node goes down, the network is still in tact and running. Very cool stuff. They've developed all sorts of things that can use this technology, like land mine robots, or submarine docking communication. I was really surprised to see their plans for the future which were really large. For instance, with their network nodes, they are creating a user interface that links up to google earth and displays exactly where each node is on a map. This is integral for military units.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Overall I realized that there are in fact some really great technology companies in Hawaii that I could definitely see myself working at in the future. I've always planned on doing the big mainland move to get work elsewhere. However, there is a lot of stuff going on here now. Its really great for Hawaii. It's also good to see that these companies are still hiring workers all the time in light of the current state of the economy. I would recommend all ICS students go to presentations like this.