Fifteen Years and a Lot of Changes at the Institute of Technology

If you count from the first class enrolled in the Computer Science and Systems program at the University of Washington Tacoma then we would be entering our fifteenth year. If you want to count only the years after the legislation acted to create a polytechnic (located on the UWT campus with a state wide mission) it is only thirteen years old.

But those thirteen years have been quite a roller coaster. It is hard enough to get the kind of funding that helped to launch the Institute at any time, but in the years after the dot.com fallout it would have been impossible. Instead, it was legislated into being when the pain created by the dearth of computer scientists, information technology professionals and engineers was at its worst and the voice of industry was at its loudest. THEN came the economic downturn in the tech sector known as bursting of the dot.com bubble.

And for a few years it made the growth and establishment of the Institutes original vision a difficult proposition. For several years many universities cut back on CS programs or closed them all together. The Institute for its part, held study. However that was not the trajectory originally intended. The truth is that the need for these professionals never went away. Even in the down years with the tech company washout and larger companies reducing their workforce, more positions were opening than were being lost.

Offshoring, which still goes on and has its place, was never the solution to a well educated, available work force on site at the workplace. And the rebound came first slowly, and then with a full head of steam. Amazon continued to grow, social networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest took off. Google went public and Microsoft, Adobe, Real Networks continue to produce. Major manufacturing companies such as Boeing and Paccar continue to hire large numbers of technology professionals. To add to that, a new field has become increasingly prominent and important to all organizations. Information Assurance and Cybersecurity.

The last three years have seen the Institute of Technology grow at the rate it was first intended, with around 25% growth in student population year to year. We have over 700 students at
the Junior, Senior and Graduate level in five programs. We have two established Centers of research. We are likely to see more programs added and additional centers created in the next few years.

Mike Monroe, COO of the WTIA, recently wrote about his visit last week to the campus.

http://www.washingtontechnology.org/uw-tacoma-whats-all-the-buzz-about/ 

Here is to another fifteen years.

Bridging the technology gap: Generation Connection

The end of the quarter in my Managing Technical Teams class means I get to see presentations from student teams of 5-7 people and the work they have done over the last seven weeks. (two weeks to form teams and decide on a project that makes a contribution to the community utilizing technology and the writing of a post mortem on the project bookend those weeks to fill the ten week quarter.)

I require a press release as part of their project launch presentation and will post a few of them here.  Below is the first.  I stripped out the contact information that normally would come with a release.

Bringing technology to older generations to keep them connected to friends and family

Auburn, WA, May 15, 2013– Today, millions of senior citizens in the United States have not seen their families or loved ones in over a month. Many older people today do not believe technology is for them; however in our rapidly changing world that is unfortunately just not true. Technology can help reduce loneliness by providing access to invaluable online resources and the ability to keep in touch better with friends and family.

“Generation Connection inspires older people to use technology, and in doing so, delivers digital training to open a host of opportunities, like reconnecting with loved ones or pursuing hobbies.” – Jared Eades

Generation Connection is a group of students in the Information Technology and Systems Bachelor of Science program at the University of Washington Tacoma. They wanted to give back to their community by applying some of their technological talents. After many ideas were brainstormed they decided the most rewarding project they could do was to help teach the seniors in their community. Generation Connection found an assisted living facility (Wesly Homes) where they could teach the seniors there how to use the technology around them and show them that technology is for them too!

“We greatly appreciate what Generation Connection has done here. Not too many people would take the time to do for us, what you have done for us.” Millard

Located at the University of Washington, Tacoma, Generation Connection was founded in 2013. Generation Connection is the best company that offers technical assistance to elderly people in order for them to communicate with their loved ones thru the use of technology.

Big Data a Big Deal

Big Data is such a non specific term that it may cause some confusion as to what it is and why it is important.

We are progressing further down the road as a data driven society, so it is becoming imperative that we better understand the big picture of Big Data.  How is it emerging as a technological solution set for business, community and how we evolve as a society.

Starting with the Wikipedia definition:

"In information technology, big data is a collection of data sets so large and complex that it becomes difficult to process using on-hand database management tools or traditional data processing applications. The challenges include capture, curation, storage, search, sharing, analysis, and visualization. The trend to larger data sets is due to the additional information derivable from analysis of a single large set of related data, as compared to separate smaller sets with the same total amount of data, allowing correlations to be found to "spot business trends, determine quality of research, prevent diseases, link legal citations, combat crime, and determine real-time roadway traffic conditions."

What does this mean to the South Puget Sound?

This will be the overarching them of this years South Sound Technology Conference.  We will explore what big data means and how it effects healthcare, business, protecting our national infrastructure and most importantly what it means to you.

March 8th in William Philip Hall.

Two Innovative Events Over the Next Seven Days

Two years ago we held a dry run of what we hoped would be a Startup Weekend like event.  Held at Suite133 and free to anyone who wanted to give starting up a company ago, we had 12 people who wanted to give it a go and some spectators as well.  It gave some idea of what needed to be done to make it a success.

Flash forward to tonight.  The inaugural South Sound Entrepreneurs Weekend is kicking off at 5:30 in William Philip Hall on the University of Washington Campus. This three day event has nearly 60 people signed up so far.  Most are attendees, but many are mentors and technical help that will be on hand to register domains, put together quick web sites and maybe even build a mobile app or create a company logo.

The number of attendees is exciting, but when you consider that this time we have a registration fee to cover food, coffee and a T-Shirt, it is even more impressive.

What will the outcome be?  I don't know, but I hope that there is enough momentum from the weekend to make this into an annual event.

If you like your innovation conversation in a presentation format, with access to many of the states innovative forces, then plan on attending the Pacific Northwest Innovation Summit in Seattle, Washington September 17-19, 2012 as part of the 50th Anniversary Celebration of the Seattle World’s Fair. The Summit will focus on building dynamic collaborations in the Pacific Northwest, stimulating entrepreneurship, examining Washington state’s innovation ecosystem, and a look a financial resources in the region. The Pacific Northwest Economic Region (PNWER) and the Washington Economic Development Commission (WEDC) are the co-organizers of the innovation summit program.

Participants will include business, government and academic leaders in the states and provinces of the Pacific
Northwest interested in accelerating innovation and economic collaboration. The Summit will be held at Intiman Playhouse located at 201 Mercer St., Seattle, WA. The cost to attend the summit is $95, which includes meals.

For more information about the Summit, visit http://www.pacificnwinnovation.com.

Summer 2012 End of the Quarter Colloquium

Time for the end of the quarter colloquium for the Summer quarter at the Institute of Technology.  There are around 35 presentations on internships, readings and research.  If the CSE program senior projects were included as they were last quarter there would be a record number of students participating this quarter.

Given that next quarter we will see the addition of around 120 more students in the Information Technology and Systems, Computer Science and Systems and Computer and Engineering Systems programs it will just grow in subsequent quarters.  In the next academic year there will be upward of 450 Juniors, Seniors and Graduates in the collective academic degrees.

For now, the unofficial program below gives a sampling of some of the presentations.

SCHEDULE FOR SUMMER 2012 Colloquium

CP 105

09:00am   Jody Weeks                 

Title:  Intern at The Boeing Company

Sponsor: Andrew Fry

Airplane Programs IT Business Partner: Review the past quarters opportunities and projects at the Everett based Boeing plant.

09:30         Nicholas Andrew Mennenga

Title:  Helping People and Enabling Business in the Eyes of a Systems Administrator

Abstract: My internship as a system administrator at Precision Machine Works (PMW) exposed me to a holistic view of the field.  The company had only one other person as an official systems administrator and they had only recently taken the position.  The change in administrator leads to a completely different style of management which meant that many parts of the company’s systems infrastructure needed to change. I was employed to help with most of these large projects and spent time working with everything from running cables in a building to redeploying the enterprise level antivirus to providing desktop support.  From this experience I’ve gained much experience in a very large amount of different areas of computing and feel that I’ve gained a far better understanding of how computer systems are managed in a business environment on every level.

10:00         Long Le Pham

Title: PACCAR Information Technology Division (ITD) Internship 

Sponsor: Yan Bai

Abstract: During my duration as a PACCAR intern I assisted the system administrator in software deployment. It includes packaging applications to deploy throughout North America, maintaining desktop support, and providing quality assurance for software coming down the pipeline. Although I mainly worked with the system administrator, I was also arranged to a rotation to different fields. I worked closely with PACCAR's specialist in fields such as VPN, software development, system architecture, active directory, and hardware implementation, and gained a broader understanding of the company.

10:30         Frank  Sinek

TITLE:  The Journey to Boeing and beyond.

SPONSOR:  Yan Bai, Andrew Fry

ABSTRACT:  The complexities of the Boeing Company are evident when you try and understand their enterprise system.  Boeing is thought to be an airplane manufacturer, which it is, but it is a lot more then that; this presentation will attempt to show that Boeing is a people company.  I will also give viewers an idea of the type of work I was doing and what it was like to work for Boeing.

11:00         Ryan C Wooten

TITLE:  Internship with digital advertising agency, Razorfish.

SPONSOR:  Yan Bai

ABSTRACT:  As a developer intern, the chance to learn the process of creating and deploying applications for clients was a must.  Razorfish is one of the top digital advertising agency's with clients like Microsoft and Nike.  They were owned by Microsoft and after being sold to their parent company, Publicus Group, are at the top of the list for the best advertising agency.  As an intern, I worked on a Microsoft project building a User Interface for an internal application that is used with retail technology stores.  I also worked with the other interns across the West with creating a plan for getting college students to consider Razorfish and the digital advertising industry as a career choice.

11:30         Robert Charles  Rankin

TITLE:  Pathway to the Stars: Summer 2012 Boeing Internship.

SPONSOR:  Yan Bai

ABSTRACT:  This presentation details my internship experience at the Information Technology Operations Center with the Boeing Company.  This presentation describes Boeing’s commitment to and purpose in their internship programs.  I then describe my past experience with Boeing and its impact on my internship experience.  After this, I tell exactly what I did and explain in general terms how it fits into the Information Technology business unit.  Lastly, I give my impressions of the experience and give an epilogue of how I am doing in terms of getting full time employment.

12:00         Rochat, Thomas L

TITLE:  CCDC Training Proposal 

SPONSOR:  Yan Bai

ABSTRACT:  Every year, selected members from the Greyhat Group represent the University of Washington, Tacoma at the Pacific Rim Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition (PRCCDC). In order to improve the overall training efficiency and performance at the PRCCDC a training methodology needed to be developed and implemented. In order for ever increasing performance a method of passdown needs to be developed so that outgoing seniors and veteran PRCCDC participants can train incoming PRCCDC participants in a reasonable amount of time. I will show the overall development plan for a virtualized training environment, a list of tactics and strategies for the UWT team to implement during the PRCCDC as well as thoughts and input from previous members of the UWT Greyhat Team from previous competitions.

12:30pm      Jeremiah Miller 

Masters Capstone Sponsor: Dr. Sam Chung (Dr. Yan Bai, Dr. Barabara Endicott-Popovsky, and Dr. Jan Whittington)                                                    

Title: An Online/Offline Cross-Platform Mobile Web App for Geolocation Field Data Collection: LocationSharpener

Abstract: 
This talk summarizes the first half of a two-quarter masters capstone project.  The inaccuracy of geolocations for small-scale water supply infrastructure as recorded in water management databases negatively affects the effective management of limited water resources.  Workers wishing to quickly update location data for these facilities from the field have used GPS terminals, which are expensive, platform-dependent, and not online. Instead, we propose a platform-independent mobile web application that simply runs in an HTML5 capable browser.  No native app needs to be compiled or installed since this is just a web application.  The Geolocation API is used to access geographic coordinates from the device. HTML5 Application Cache is employed to run the application regardless of interrupted or unavailable mobile Internet connections. A web browser standard interface for a local database, IndexedDB, is used to store the gathered GPS coordinates until an Internet connection is restored at which time the data are securely uploaded to a web app and enterprise data management system in the cloud. Our approach demonstrates that HTML5 mobile web apps are ready to supplant native mobile apps for geolocation field data collection. The usage of platform-independent technology, HTML5, reduces app development cost and supports easy data migration from a smartphone terminal to any application server. By employing the concept of a smart phone’s BYOD (Bring Your Own Device), the cost of data collection terminals can be saved. In addition, through the development of the mobile web app for offline or online data collection, we attempt to discover guidelines for prospective developers of mobile apps to use when they are considering whether to use a browser based HTML5 app.            

01:00pm                      Tom Rochat                                                    Dr. Sam Chung

Title: TINFO 499  Certificate Friendly Curriculum

Industry representatives are constantly in search of qualified graduates however they want to know exactly what technologies a graduate has experience and exposure in. The method by which industry measures that experience is through the use of Industry specific Certifications. Academia is not able to teach to specific certifications favoring a more theory based approach to education that can be applied to any technology. However a way by which to quantitatively measure how close specific course work prepares a student to take specific certification exams needed to be developed. I will show my work in this area during the past quarter, and preliminary findings in ways by which students and faculty will be able to measure how much extra study a student will need to undertake in order to prepare them to take a specific certification exam and stand a reasonable chance to pass.

01:30pm   Frantz Vibert          

            

Title:  Web Development in HTML 5

Sponsor: Andrew Fry

A self guided project to develop and enhance a website for a local restaurant.  Starting from the ground up the customer was introduced to the possibilities of a web presence and how it can enhance their business.  In order to complete the project, several resource books were used to teach implementation of HTML 5 technologies and Photoshop use.

 

02:00pm   Dallas James Rossen                        Dr. John Mayer

Title: The Advantages and Disadvantages of GUI Testing via Sikuli

Abstract:

This project involves exploring the advantages and disadvantages of automating graphic user interface testing by utilizing the Sikuli scripting language.  The goal is to discover whether or not Sikuli is an efficient and robust enough language to support shifting to an automated testing process without accruing a large overhead cost.  This has been accomplished by transferring existing test cases currently in use by the software testing group and converting them over into Sikuli centric programs through utilizing Sikuli’s provided integrated development environment or importing the Sikuli functionality as a plug-in into a Java project.  With examination of the data obtained from testing both development methods, it is clear that both implementations can be useful depending on the test case and the software tester’s experience with writing code.  From this project, it has been determined that Sikuli can be used successfully and effectively in conjunction with standard software testing.

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CP 108

09:00           Abbey David                                Bryan Goda

Title: Nordstrom Corporate IT Internship

Abstract: In this presentation, I will be discussing my internship experience at Nordstrom which includes being immersed into the Nordstrom culture and learning about various parts of the company by spending time working on the front-line as well as going on a tour of the Nordstrom Quality Center and the Innovation Lab.  I'll also be talking about my role and how I supported the project that my team has been working on.

09:20           Ravi Kumar Bansal ­                                Bryan Goda

Title: Virtual Networking

Abstract:

Virtual switches connect virtual network interfaces in virtual machines by emulating in software what a physical network switch does. The hope for this technology is twofold: to isolate network traffic (especially for security-related exercises and testing) and to seamlessly join VMs across subnets.       

                   

09:40           Mary Kozy                                    Bryan Goda

TITLE: The Service Delivery Management Role In IT at Boeing

ABSTRACT: This presentation will outline the variety of the role of a Service Delivery Manager (SDM) in the Boeing IT Infrastructure organization. A large part of the job involves good communication skills and being able to help the application managers determine the appropriate server hosting requirements for their applications and also to get them the right resources to solve any IT Infrastructure issues. Broad technical knowledge across the IT spectrum is helpful in understanding how the various applications interact with their platforms and aids in furthering Boeing’s effort to modernize their data centers and move to more modern OS platforms. In particular, an effort to move legacy applications off of outdated mainframe technology is being undertaken with an eye toward eventual retirement of the mainframe environment. These activities are just a small part of the overall SDM role that will be covered.

                   

10:00           Christopher Martinez                    Bryan Goda

TITLE: Anonymity & Security in Genomic Datasets

ABSTRACT: Definition of "best practices" for designing Proteomic, Genomic, and Metabolomic databases to enable data sharing and reuse while managing privacy and security requirements.

SPONSOR: The National Science Foundation (Grant #1062970) and Purdue University (Dr. John A. Springer).

                   

10:20           Alexander Olsen                           Bryan Goda

Title: More with Less

Abstract: Franklin Pierce School District is a smaller school district located within the heart of Spanaway, WA. With a small understaffed but dedicated IT department they service around 7,000 devices and growing and provide support fro 1,000 employees and a student population of around 7400. In most large companies, employees roles are defined and they generally work within in the confines of their job description. This is not the case in this district where no one is above any duty in regards to the IT field. This could mean laying network cable and building server racks, all the way to creating and maintaining network access points. From this standpoint I have done everything from image teacher laptops, to helping rebuild server racks, and even designing a play for ipad deployment. This team creates a new definition of overworked and understaffed yet seems to always pull off the impossible and complete the task assigned to them.

                   

10:40           Tom Rochat                                  Bryan Goda

Title Internship: Intern, Infrastructure Engineer with Avanade, Seattle, WA

I will discuss my work with Avanade as an Infrastructure Engineer Intern, during the summer and continuing into fall quarter. I will explain how a global enterprise level business conducts infrastructure operations to support multiple branch offices and datacenter locations all over the world. In addition, I will explain specifically what I have been asked to work on, and what the future holds for Avanade, and where I fit into that picture.

                   

11:00           Joseph Stout                                  Bryan Goda

Title "Going Mobile".

Abstract: I will be discussing the roles of an IT intern at weyerhaeuser and the weyerhaeuser values. Along with discussing my internship role in the Cellular Services team which is part of the Network Operations Team. Discussions will include the role of mobile devices in a international forresty company and the importance of these mobile devices in the development of weyerhaeuser. Lastly a discussion of my view of IT at weyerhaeuser and my general experience there.

11:20           Ken Norton                                   Bryan Goda                              

11:40           Robert Flood                                Bryan Goda

Title: Help Desk Technician

Abstract:

The topic of discussion will be on the Help Desk Technician.  I will discuss the various levels of the Help Desk Technician; tier 1, tier 2 and tier 3, and how these different levels apply towards various job applications in the job market.  I will explore the skills required to work in this field as well as interpersonal skills needed to work in the field.  I will explain the various technologies in use and how you can use this field to expand your technology skills and apply them to many different aspects in the IT field.

12:30           David Everitt                                Andrew Fry

TITLE: Directed Reading on HTML 5, Virtual Verification and internship support for mobile application development.

01:00           Sean Brown                                  Andrew Fry

Title: Costco Hardware Support Internship
Abstract: This summer I was privileged enough to work in the IS department at Costco's corporate headquarters in Issaquah, Washington.  The department of focus for this internship was Hardware Support, which manages and troubleshoots only escalated technical issues.  Most of these issues involve non-functional or troublesome hardware devices at the company warehouses and depots, including but not limited to: universal power supplies, thin client computers, full PCs, scales for meat/deli/bakery, RF guns and hand scanners, price checkers and printers.  Almost all of these devices are connected to Costco's internal network (many are also wireless), so as expected, many of these issues are related to networking.  Finally, I was able to utilize some of my data mining knowledge to assist my supervisor to create custom tables and charts that focused on the issue ticketing system and its data for six months prior.
Industry Sponsors: Rich Morris (supervisor) and Tod Dropelman (manager)

01:30           Shawn Paul Smith                       Ankur Teredesai

TITLE: Using and Comparing Big Data Storage Systems

ABSTRACT:
During the course of doing business, modern companies generate huge quantities of data.  This data can be used to make informed business decisions, and to make these decisions companies increasingly are turning from standard relational database systems to specialized data storage software designed for querying against large static datasets.  In this presentation, several features found in such systems are examined to consider why they are advantageous for this particular kind of work.  I will also describe benchmarking three different implementations of such systems using the TPCH Star Schema benchmark, with analysis of how performance scales, and what features might explain the results. 

02:00           Lane Harris                                   Sponsor: Dr. Matthew Alden

Title: Compilers and Programming Language Design
Abstract:  Programming languages and their accompanying compilers are
vital tools in the increasingly complex world of technology.  This
talk will outline some of the core issues and concepts related to
programming language implementation and usage.  A simple compiler that
implements a subset of the C programming language will be dissected
and demoed.                                                    

02:30   Ben Hadorn and Michelle Miller        Sponsor: Matthew Alden
Title: Mobile Development on the Android Operating System and Content Pre-Positioning

Abstract: Throughout the Internship process at Opanga Networks, Inc., we have practiced a full spectrum of software development tasks ranging from planning, designing, implementing, and testing. As Project Manager, Michelle Miller got the opportunity to schedule upcoming releases for the next year, plan the versioning system, implement a system for tracking issues and features utilizing software development tools and provide design documentation for new feature sets. As Software Engineer, Ben Hadorn had the opportunity to take the design documentation and provide an implementation from that. In addition, Ben was responsible for determining use cases for testing documentation and performing a thorough testing of the new software releases/feature sets. In addition to our specific tasks, we gained experience through working in conjunction with a software development team and using agile software development practices.

Greetings entrepreneurs and everyone interested in entrepreneurship.

Many of you may know of StartUp Weekend, an organization that puts on three day sessions where groups of people form and launch companies.  Some day we will hold one of those.  In the meantime....

We will be holding an event similar to that in September called the South Sound Entrepreneurs Weekend.

It starts Friday the 14th in the early evening, goes through Saturday and into Sunday in the late afternoon.
There will be many guest speakers and opportunities to ask people about business planning, deploying mobile apps, marketing, coworking (a style of work that involves a shared working environment and independent activity), etc.

There will also be pizza, coffee and pop, breakout sessions and a T-shirt.

The price for the weekend is 75 dollars but because I have wrangled some sponsorship money together from the WSEDC, I am able to provide a few waivers for qualifying students and recent graduates.  There will be folks from UPS, TCC, UWT and hopefully out of the business community as well.

I already know of a few students teams who have recruited others who are ready to leverage the information from this event to launch a business.  Some very interesting mobile application and game ideas.  But other types of businesses as well, including service industry and social networking tools.

However, if you just want to understand more about entrepreneurship or would like to find a team to join, that works too.  There will be a few prizes at the end to help support any team that feels it is ready to actually launch there idea.

There is a website at www.sseweekend.com which also has a link to the registration page.  If you would like to request a student waiver, contact me.

Andrew L. Fry
Assistant Director of Industry Partners
Institute of Technology
University of Washington, Tacoma
Pinkerton 313
253-692-4583

UPS Distinguished Community Partner in Entrepreneurship

Back in late April I was pleased to hear that the Institute of Technology at the University of Washington Tacoma had been selected as a "Distinguished Community Partner" by the University of Puget Sound School of Business and Leadership.  We were nominated by Dr. Lynette Claire, Associate Professor, Business and Leadership with the University of Puget Sound.  She also is the driving force behind the Collegiate Entrepreneurs Network, which has student groups on several campuses including ours.

She spoke at the South Sound Technology Conference in March, and recently, in early June, spoke to my Entrepreneurship in Technology class.

Here is what she said in regards to our nomination:

The UWT Institute of Technology has been an instrumental partner in Puget Sound's efforts to launch an entrepreneur network for Tacoma's college students.  The Institute has actively engaged students in entrepreneurship and has provided faculty sponsorship for the UWT's entrepreneurship club.

Andrew Fry, in particular, has looked for opportunities for collaboration, whether it's an entrepreneur network event or an Institute of Technology event such as the South Sound Technology Conference or the startup weekend we are working on for September.  The School of Business and Leadership values our cross-disciplinary, cross-institutional relationship with the Institute of Technology and has thus named it our 2012 Community Partner.

Note that she talked of the South Sound Entrepreneurs Weekend in her remarks.  Our expectation is that many of the seniors and recent graduates from our technology and business degree programs will be participating in the event scheduled for Sept 14th, 15th and 16th in William Philip Hall on the UWT campus.

We should have a web site up for the event by the end of next week, and registration will be available soon after.

Yes, the South Sound Entrepreneurship Weekend is Happening

It may be a bit late to say it, but the South Sound Technology Conference was quite excellent this year, with an outstanding line up of speaker and panels and attendance that blew the doors off the last several years. It was also a lot of work put in by a great group of people.

If you attended then you may know that the intent of course was to follow that up with a South Sound Entrepreneurs Weekend, which had tentatively been scheduled for May.

Well the SSEW is not happening this May, but it does have a date and a location and sponsors and everything.

I have been busy with a lot of activities here in Tacoma and the South Sound. Not just work and play related, but also including everything that may be attached to having a son in little league and Webelos, a daughter in track and dance and piano, another daughter in gym and cheer leading and the eldest in her final year of high school and as a daffodil princess. Things won't slow down much, but I have identified a free weekend to make SSEW happen.

Please save the weekend of September 14th, 15th and 16th for an opportunity to ideate, plan, prototype, (maybe fund) and launch a business in a 54 hour time frame. It starts with open mic pitches on Friday in the early evening. Both individuals and teams of people try to build teams based on their ideas and ability to gather interest. Saturday and Sunday is spent on prototyping, designing and developing a business plan. We will have a panel for judging and feedback on Sunday, and are planning on having prizes as well.

With a starting pair of sponsors and more to come, at the very least there will be coffee, pizza, t-shirts and a good time. There may even be a few companies launching as startups at the end. A group of great people have already started building on the ideas for the weekend, but I am always looking for more. The event will be held on the campus of the University of Washington Tacoma in William Philip Hall.

If you are interested in being part of the event as a speaker or a participant, let me know.

Howard Schmidt to Keynote at SST 2012

Big news for the SST Conference 2012, one of the keynoters for the event will be Howard A. Schmidt, the U.S. Cybersecurity Czar (official title Special Assistant to the President and the White House Cybersecurity Coordinator) for the United States.

Howard is the former Chief Security Officer for Microsoft and Vice President of Security at Ebay.

The South Sound Technology Conference is scheduled for March 9th in William Philip Hall with breakouts in different rooms.

The steering committee has met a few times and a program is being developed. Though not firm, we are looking at a more fully realized track in mobile applications this year. Last year we had a popular panel, but wondered if there was enough going on in mobile development in the South Sound to be impactful. That question has been answered over the last year with a boom in development and solutions. Therefore were bringing back a panel at a minimum and likely expanding to a second breakout session.

On May 18th, 19th and 20th we will be holding a South Sound Entrepreneurs Weekend. This is an offshoot from last years conference as well. In order to prepare for it, we will be asking several companies and organizations from the area to describe for us what type of tech company in the area would help their business grow and what solutions would they provide. Basically, we want to drop some business ideas into the hopper for a little fermentation before we break them out at the entrepreneurs weekend. (It must be close to a holiday for that metaphor to exist).

As the program solidifies more information will be forthcoming. As always, your ideas are welcome. Remember to save the date: March 9th.

A Full Ride, Living Stipend and a Job in Information Assurance

How does a full ride scholarship, a living stipend (because the funding organization wants you to work on research and studies) and employment once you’ve earned your degree sound? That’s what the Information Assurance Scholarship for Service program does, and is doing for two graduate students currently at the Institute of Technology. And there is more to come in the next three years.

To create a powerful incentive for students to enter the Information Assurance field, the Department of Defense is offering the program described above. As they put it:

Nearly every day, the United States faces growing threats and attacks against our critical government systems. DoD’s mission is to address the Nation’s urgent security challenges and to proactively seek solutions to protect and defend our information and information systems. One of the key security challenges DoD faces daily is assuring that the Department's information, information systems, and information infrastructure are protected and available in order to support the Department's transformation to a secure net–centric environment.

To continue to provide the growing number of trained personnel needed, DoD is working with universities across the country, known as, often referred to as CAEs, to develop and expand IA–related curricula and to offer programs of study for future IA professionals.

Universities must qualify in order to provide the scholarships and earn a National Centers of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance designation. Then that university has to pass muster during an NSF (National Science Foundation) site visit to be vetted to provide that opportunity. If you would like to apply for the scholarship, you must attend a qualifying institution.

As it happens the University of Washington has qualified as one of the universities to offer it. Last June, led by Dr Barbara Endicott-Popovsky, the Director of Center for Information Assurance and Cybersecurity at the UW, the site visit by the NSF was conducted and included visits to the Institute of Technology at the University of Washington, Tacoma.

The visit was such a success that they asked that Barbara increase the budget in her proposal.

Three months later Barbara sent out the announcement:

The NSF has officially awarded us $2.1M to fully fund 18 graduate-level scholars over the next 4 years to fully immerse in information assurance (IA) studies! Further, we received an additional $ ½ M on top!! This truly launches us on the national scene as a significant IA presence in the Northwest and in the field at large!
There are only 30+ schools in the US who have had similar awards, our sister iSchool—Syracuse University—being one of them, along with CMU, Johns Hopkins and Purdue. There are only 200+ such scholars in the US at any one time—we’ll have 4 this year—we are in elite company!!

Once again I am reminded of the strengths we have in the South Puget Sound to help generate success in research and technology in the area of Information Assurance and Cybersecurity. With our partners in academia to the North, and in particular UW Seattle’s Information School, we can be part of future solutions to the challenges described on the CISC (Center of Information Assurance and Cybersecurity) site:

The challenges of information assurance are not going to be solved easily, quickly, or independently. Solutions will require new research, new capabilities, new products and services, a spectrum of broadly and specially educated professionals, a much more aware public, and much innovation and broad collaboration. Washington is a convergence of international commerce, military defense, and network-based software development. As such, it is both vulnerable to disruption, and is the home of a spectrum of professional talent and organizations that can be well served by the presence of a national center of excellence.

If you are interested in applying for the program, consider applying to the graduate program at the Institute of Technology at the UW Tacoma or the Information School at the UW Seattle.

A Tech Events Calendar for the South Sound

Earlier this year, at the 2011 South Sound Technology Conference, a small group of people met in one of the breakout rooms in order to talk about the technology event calendar for the next year. That year being more of a Summer to Summer span as opposed to calendar, but I am already digressing.

My intent was to try and publish a straw man calendar so that a more firmly established annual list of meetings could be drafted, vetted and adopted. Also, edited, enhanced and engaged. Not to mention perused, published and... ok, never mind.

So poster boards were put up and people wrote down events, organizations and ongoing meetings. However, the end result was not really easy to digest and articulate into a calendar. I will give you the raw results first. If it is too much for you just skip down:
__________________________________________

POSTER BOARD ONE:

• EDB Annual Meeting
• A Funding Seminar
• ISSA Training – 1st Tuesday of every month in the Tacoma Room
• Pacific NW Cybersecurity Challenge
• PNW Cybersecurity Symposium
• City Club – a technical based presentation (social networks, online privacy, cybersecurity)
• Technology Career Fair (put on by Workforce?)
• Group meetings – Tacoma Tech Consortium
• - South Sound WTIA
• - Tacoma Angel Network
  

 
POSTER BOARD TWO:

• Ruby on Rails coding meetup
• Startup Weekend
• Suite 133 –
• William M Factory Incubator
• Tacoma Angel Network
  

POSTER BOARD THREE:

• Gaming – Intel
• Kinects – Microsoft
• Have an out of town big tech event meet up. Whether going to a Washington Technology Industry Event like the Industry Achievement Awards or the Technology Alliances Annual Luncheon, coordinate a group to attend the event together.
• Hold a digital government summit in Tacoma
• Washington URISA
  

POSTER BOARD FOUR:

• Shift Awards – Honoring Innovation
• Meet ups – unstructured
• Look at the www.washingtontechnology.org online calendar
• Harmon: Science Café
• Dorkbot
• South Sound Technology Conference 2012

POSTER BOARD FIVE:

• Startup Weekend
• Barcamp X 4
• Alliance of Angels pitch session in Tacoma
• Social Media Outlets
• Tacoma Library meetings (books?)
• FIRST Robotics – Intel Dupont SOTA Winners
• End of the quarter colloquium at the Institute of Technology at the UWT
• PLU

____________________________________________

You see. Plenty of stuff there, but where to start?

It seems to me, there are several organizations listed. Whether they put on events or might put on events that focus on the technology sector, they are part of what aggregating a calendar might look like. Now I don't know if dorkbot is an organization or an ongoing event, but they have not done anything around town for several years. I just know I enjoyed going to the meetings that they had. To the point, each of these organizations holds multiple meetings and events, and could contribute to a calendar.

1. The Tacoma Angel Network
2. Institute of Technology
3. Economic Development Board
4. Dorkbot
5. City Club
6. Grey Hat Group
7. Tacoma Tech Consortium
8. Tacoma Workforce
9. William M Factory
10. Suite 133
11. Washington Technology Industry Association
12. Technology Alliance
13. Washington URISA
14. Alliance of Angels
15. Tacoma Library
16. PLU
17. Not to mention, but I will, Microsoft and Intel.

Several ongoing events were listed as well. These are usually bigger events and have some history to them. These alone would be almost one big tech event per month.

1. The Pacific Northwest Cybersecurity Collegiate Challenge
2. FIRST Robotics Competition
3. PNW Security Symposium
4. The South Sound Entrepreneurs Weekend (A StartUp Weekend like event)
5. The South Sound Technology Conference
6. The Economic Development Boards Annual Meeting (listed, though not tech focused)
7. The SHIFT Awards (put on by SiteCrafting)
8. A Technology Career Fair

Not finally, but about as much as I want to cover right now, are events or meetings that take place several times a year. For example, the end of the quarter colloquium at the Institute of Technology happens four times a year. Each event, though student presentation based, brings about 70 people together during the course of the day. It should probably be more.

1. End of the quarter colloquium at the Institute of Technology
2. Barcamps (suggested we have one quarterly. The last was great.)
3. City Club meetings (on occasion tech subject matter)
4. Science Cafe at the Harmon (is this still going on?)
5. ISSA Training (Tuesday of every month)

That's about it for now. Please feel free to comment on edits, additions or subtractions.

Summer Colloquium at the Institute of Technology

It is the end of the quarter and time for another set of presentations from students on research, readings and internships. Taking place in two rooms in the Cherry Parkes building the discussions, discoveries and lessons learned start at 9:00am and go until around 2:00pm.

Here is the order of presentations:

Institute of Technology Student Colloquium
Summer Quarter 2011

Speaker Session One (CP 105):
09:00am Digital Forensics and Law Enforcement
Josh Phelps (Andrew Fry)

My internship with the Lakewood Police Department’s digital forensics services has a work flow and style is very dynamic and project oriented. I work with Detective Darin Sales and the Forensics services manager Brian Johnson. After the background check process I met with them to discuss a number of problems they have encountered from an IT perspective as well as possible projects to undertake as a solution to those problems. I communicate primarily through e-mail and of course in person. Currently I am working on two projects.

The first project is refining the departments “Computer Case Worksheet", a document that is the first step in the documentation process after a computer is seized and is being analyzed. Here, I am utilizing my system analysis and design experience as well as what I know and what I’m learning about digital forensics practices for law enforcement purposes.

The second project I’m working on is coming up with a sound, viable solution to an issue faced when prosecutors receive the report generated by our forensics software.

09:30am Web Development Internship with Weyerhaeuser
Travis Corbett (Andrew Fry)

Many large companies today utilize Microsoft products and technologies for the majority of their business needs. Weyerhaeuser is one of those companies. In my internship with Weyerhaeuser’s Web Content & Collaboration Services department I had the opportunity to work with some of these products and technologies, and in most instances, for the very first time. We in the Information Technology & Systems degree program have often been told of the importance of conceptual learning versus specializing in particular technologies. So while the trend in academia, it would seem, is biased against Microsoft products, I found myself in a situation where I had to use the conceptual knowledge that I have gained in college in order to adapt and become proficient in new technologies that I have had little to no experience with. In my presentation I will be discussing this experience.


09:50am Agile Development Methodologies
Sushma Konda (Dr. Larry Wear)


Agile software development is a group of software development methodologies based on iterative and incremental development based on requirements and a collaboration of team work. There are many such methodolgies implemented by various sectors of companies around the world. In this presentation, I'll be discussing the most popular methodolgies implemented by large companies and thereby gained profits. Scrum and distributed scrum and extreme programming are the topics on which I have been working with my advisor Dr.Larry Wear this quarter. I'll be discussing each methodologies behavior, its pros and cons.


10:10am Creation of Pedagogically Useful Algorithm Animations

Suma Gopalakrishna (Dr. Donald Chinn)
With a brief introduction to what Pedagogically Useful Algorithm Animation means, this presentation will go over the 2 algorithm animations that I created over the summer, under the guidance of Dr.Chinn. The presentation will cover details of the aspects we considered in design of the animations, the tools we used and the algorithms we animated. It will also include display of the said animations.

10:30am Avue Technology Internship: Java Development for a Web Based Application
Jeff Bleckert (Andrew Fry)

A discussion of the searching and interview process for a developer internship, as well as the experience of working as a fulltime Java developer intern, focusing the challenges of finding and beginning a new position as an intern and working with a web based, sql driven system using the Java language and libraries.



11:00am Weyerhaeuser Internship and Access Control Directed Reading
Shakil Sahim (Andrew Fry and Dr. Yan Bai)
Internship

I’ll have the presentation on my Weyerhaeuser internship split to 3 main topics. First will be Asset management. I’ll go over the routine process of handling a ticket that’s requesting change of ownership of an asset. I will include screen shots of the tools we use. Then go over some of the stuff on the side such as major updates, transitioning to new system (requirement gathering, testing, etc) and daily reports.
Next ill go over Identity management tasks that I was taught and did for a short period of time. This included practicing how to create new accounts, enabling, disabling, and terminating accounts, managing duplicate accounts, and granting/stripping roles, running scripts against Active Directory to pull data requested and the attempt to modify a Delete/Disable script that is outdated so it’s more accurate and runs efficiently.
Finally, I’ll go over some of the new tasks that I will be taking up starting in a few weeks. I’m currently reading up on ASP.NET, C#, Visual Basic and etc. My manager has also encouraged me to research on CRM systems because of its high demand. I’ll finish things off with some final thoughts.

Directed Reading

I’ll start the presentation off talking about the definition of Access Control and go into the main topics that the chapter covered. I will pick a particular topic from the chapter that has various sub topics to cover in greater detail. I’m not a 100% sure at the moment but it will most likely be the many forms of authentication such as passwords, key cards, retina scan, finger print, voice and etc.

I will wrap up the presentation with what I took away from the reading and a summary.


11:30am Internship at Regence – Agile Project, Directed Reading Computer Forensics and Mobile Devices
Brandon Son (Andrew Fry and Dr. Yan Bai)

The Proof of Concept consists of a 12 week agile project regarding Regence's PIM (Provider Information Management) system. The current system was written in VB6 10 years ago. This new project involves a PoC of Microsoft Dynamic CRM. The team involves lead developer (Garfield Lindo), three interns (Brandon Son, Jason Green, Shawn Smith), and a consulting firm: Collibrium Partners (from Atlanta, GA). Taking to account that it is a 12 week project and the system is large in scope, our sprints are focused on the main functionality of the important parts of the system.

Regence Sponsor: Garfield Lindo

12:00pm Internship at Institute of Technology – Critical Services Virtualization
Vera Brennan (Stephen Rondeau)

Turning the information technology to 180-degree view happens enough often in the industry. However breaking the connections
between hardware and applications layers has numerous advantages and disadvantages, and so brings hardware, software and networking conflicts between existing physical servers and new virtual servers. Especially if we consider the potential upgrading conflicts during the transformation of existing physical servers running Windows Server 2003 into virtual servers running Windows Server 2008 R2.

During the summer 2011 internship I was asked to learn in depth Linux and Windows administration commands, practice in setting and testing, virtualization environments, install Windows Server 2008 and 2008R2 in virtual machine, create and configure Windows domain, migrate existing INSTTECH users to INSTTEST, familiarize with Windows clustering for files,create cluster and migrate existing files to new cluster,create license management and much more. In my presentation I will present troubleshooting workaround that I gathered during the internship and a general overview of switching from physical servers to virtual.


12:30pm Micro Server Architecture Evolution and Associated New Architectural and Debug Challenges
Johnson Daniel (Dr. Jie Sheng)

In the recent years, the adaptation of micro servers is gaining momentum in the server market segment due to the compelling advantage of power efficiency, size, and total cost of ownership over traditional servers. Micro server is defined as any server with a large number of nodes, usually with a single socket or multiple low-power processors and shared infrastructure. The independent study will explore the three aspects of micro servers current state of implementations, architectural challenges, and debug challenges.

01:00pm Functional Test Automation in Web Applications
Sergiy Kulyk (Dr. Josh Tenenberg)

As technology moves toward web applications, developing functional test suites for such applications becomes of higher and higher importance. Small and large companies face the problem of maintaining the quality of their web products, while at the same time regularly updating and renovating them. I would like to share my experience as an SDET in a large online retail company. In my presentation I will introduce the problem at hand, why it is important, challenges that need to be solved, and how those challenges are approached by the QA team I have a privilege to work with.


01:30pm Temperature Control With a Thermistor and an Arduino Aakanksha Gaur (Dr. George Mobus)

It is a project to control (increase or decrease) the temperature of water using an Arduino board and a thermistor as main components. I will be giving a power point presentation along with the project demonstration.



Speaker Session Two (CP 108):

09:00am Internship at Isilon
Gavin Greene (Dr. Daniel Zimmerman)

The goal of my internship was to design and implement a web application that incorporates a variety of existing technologies in a modular way . The program is a web-based administrative panel that uses SQL alchemy to preform operations on a MySQL database containing areas that the company provides support at, and the level of support. The application takes user inputted addresses and uses Google's geocoding API to retrieve longitude and latitude information, verify that the user inputted a valid address, and normalizes data ('United States' as opposed to 'USA' or 'usa') . the front end of the application is written in JavaScript using Ext-JS 4 and the backed is written in python using pylons. This project involved learning about each of the languages, frameworks, API's and protocols (such as:SQL, Google maps api, Ajax, JSON), as well as the way each of the components interacted with one another. The project provided an excellent sampling of many different technologies and gave me an good example of how applications are designed, developed, tested, and implemented in the real world.

Isilon Systems, a division of EMC, is the global leader in scale-out storage. Our nearly 2000 customers attest to that. Our mission is to remove the barriers that exist between businesses and their data. And our goal is to help customers get to the information they need, manipulate it and act on it.

09:30am Hacking and Countermeasures
Douglas Kroll (Dr. Yan Bai)
In this project I am using new techniques for hacking and then showing how to defend against the different attacks I had researched.

1. Describe the different types of hacking techniques

2. Show the attacks on my secure network.

3. Show how I defended against the attacks


10:00am Internship With T-Mobile
Brent Sargent (Dr. Yan Bai)

T-Mobile is the #4 mobile carrier in the US. After forming through a series of mergers and acquisitions, T-Mobile itself is being acquired. My internship has been working in the product development group where new hardware / software is tested before release. In my presentation I will focus on what it's like to work for a seemingly large organization, what it's like in the product development team, and how the impending acquisition has affected the work environment and product development.



10:30am Sales Manager Form on Android Platform
Billie Jo Wood (Dr. Ankur Teredesai)

I did a project at CodeSmart Inc in Lacey, WA which Chad Stoker the president as the superviser and project lead.

The project: Establish an android application that will be used by for Sales Managers of Natural Molecular Testing Corporation utilizing Java in the IDE eclipse. The application is an order form for a client that includes the patients private data.

11:00am Text Mining Biological Research Papers to Index Drug-Drug Interactions
Aaron Munger (Dr. Ankur Teredesai)


In many scientific domains, there is a vast amount of useful information that is sparsely distributed across volumes of research papers. In order to make this information useful as a whole, text mining algorithms can be used to parse out and index the requested information using Information Exctraction (IE). I am proposing a project that will demonstrate the use of IE on the specific case of finding drug-drug interactions within Biology texts. A variety of techniques will be implemented, including the formerly developed PRISE, that searched for protein-protein interactions, as well as submissions from other contestants in a current IE contest to find drug-drug interactions.


12:30pm Internship at Boeing - Local Area Networks - Northwest Region Design & Engineering
Roger Klink (Andrew Fry)

I will go over the experiences I have had over my Summer internship with the Boeing Company. In particular I will highlight four areas of interest which include:

1. Company Overview

2. Organization

3. LAN Technologies

4. Summer Internship Activities


01:00pm Internship With the School District
Gary Armstrong (Andrew Fry)

To be provided


01:30pm Internship System Three a Real Life Website – Reading Computer Forensics

Tyler Withrow (Dr. Yan Bai)
The main objective for the internship was web development, code debugging, and research. The website is actually a collection of three different applications that work together to create the web site and its features. The main framework is ASP.NET and then there is a cart program and a PHP locator application that works together with the framework. I researched the code that I have never worked with, ASP and the cart, then developed and debugged the code I knew, PHP and basic web code. After changes were made, they were approved by the internship sponsor and owners of the company.

Internship Sponsor: Brett Cowman VP
System Three Resins

Directed Reading with Bradon Son: The main objective was to continue our study on computer forensic applications and methodologies using the book “Guide to Computer Forensics and Investigations” by Nelson, Phillips, and Steuart. Our focus was on current computer forensic tools (ch.7) and forensic methodologies & tools for mobile devices (ch.13). Using a complementary lab book, we tested the tools and methodologies.