How are members of Rhode Island’s high tech community feeling about their industry and where it fits into the Rhode Island economy. Providence Business News has compiled its second annual ‘Who’s Who in Technology’ list in part to recognize at least some of the players within the high technology community, and more importantly, to learn from what is fueling their success.
Name: Howard Boksenbaum
Age: 54
Company/organization: State of Rhode Island’s Chief Technology Officer
What do you consider to be the biggest challenge now facing Rhode Island’s technological community? Attracting investment capital and hiring and retaining talent.
How has your company or organization adapted its technology to serve the ever-changing business climate? The State of Rhode Island has been focusing on developing interactive digital government resources internally and externally to serve all Rhode Islanders, the Rhode Island business community, visitors to and potential investors in the state. This fall we will be implementing a state WWW portal to provide a framework for further development.
How would you describe the Rhode Island high technology community to an outsider? A dynamic, engaged integral part of the Rhode Island scene.
What technological advances do you see that may have the most significant impact on a wide range of Rhode Island industries? Enhancement in the telecommunications field including increased capabilities of both wire and wireless technologies.
Name: Marc Davis
Age: 59
Company/organization: Unicom
What do you consider to be the biggest challenge now facing Rhode Island’s technological community? The biggest challenge now facing RI’s technological community is determining how they are going to realize the true potential of networked digital technology. New technologies and products are now emerging, like IP Telephony and Web services that allow for incredible efficiencies and advantages. Technology decision-makers across the state are considering their options for moving their companies forward and weighing those options against the investment cost.
What technological advances do you see that may have the most significant impact on a wide range of Rhode Island industries? The second generation of the Internet. Until quite recently, most Web apps have forced users to suffer from the inefficiencies of poor user interface and tedious hierarchical layout. HTML apps made us all happy but many represented a step backward from the sophisticated functionality present in the client/server apps that emerged in the ’80s.
But that’s all about to change. If you examine tools like Visual Studio.NET, you’ll see that now, really for the first time, developers can focus on quality ergonomics. They can concentrate on an app’s real business value, rather than wasting their energy just making it work. Finally, with industry consensus around the potential of non-proprietary standards like XML, SOAP, and WSDL, the noble goal of ‘re-use’ now has another chance to come true, this time in the form of Web Services. This is of especially profound import in businesses where the IT infrastructure has grown to the point where ‘one hand may not know what the other one is doing.’
Name: Tracey Dodenhoff
Age: 38
Company/organization: Slater Center for Design Innovation
What do you consider to be the biggest challenge now facing Rhode Island’s technological community? Fear. We need to keep our eyes on long-term strategies.
What technological advances do you see that may have the most significant impact on a wide range of Rhode Island industries? Improvement in wireless technologies and other communications. It brings resources to our doorstep and flexibility/agility to our business models.
Name:
David A. Durfee
Age: 43
Company/organization: Bay Computer Associates
What do you consider to be the biggest challenge now facing Rhode Island’s technological community? Improving the business climate and increasing the number of technologists in Rhode Island. Improving the business climate is the most difficult.
What technological advances do you see that may have the most significant impact on a wide range of Rhode Island industries? I find it hard to characterize the Rhode Island industries that would take advantage of high technology. We seem to have a large retail and tourism base. It is hard to identify other industries that have significant representation in Rhode Island.
Name: David Hemendinger
Age: 42
Company/organization: Lifespan
What do you consider to be the biggest challenge now facing Rhode Island’s technological community? The perception that Rhode Island is not a “technological community.”
How has your company or organization adapted its technology to serve the ever-changing business climate? Lifespan is deploying technology solutions, which are changing the way health care is delivered.
What technological advances do you see that may have the most significant impact on a wide range of Rhode Island industries? High-speed networking, wireless technologies, smart card technology.
Name: Stuart Jordan
Company/organization: JFmedia
What do you consider to be the biggest challenge now facing Rhode Island’s technological community? I think the biggest challenge for the technology industry is the uncertainty of how people will react emotionally to recent world events and an economy that isn’t growing as fast as it has during recent years. Aside from personal service, ramping up with new technology and increasing employee’s technological skills remain among the best choices for future business growth and efficiency, but the technology sector has to consider how confident businesses today are to spend the money necessary to pursue these avenues. In my opinion, businesses that are able to enhance or expand their technological foundation right now are the same ones that will prosper most during stronger economic times.
How has your company or organization adapted its technology to serve the ever-changing business climate? In our industry, antiquation can occur so quickly that we are constantly adapting in order to remain current. We have recently expanded the strength of our hosting network by adding additional firewalls, strengthening security measures, and increasing our network’s redundancy. Web-based programs like Min-E-Commerce now offer more complex variables, more robust administrative features, higher levels of customization, real time credit card processing and real time UPS or FedEx shipping.
What technological advances do you see that may have the most significant impact on a wide range of RI industries? With the growth of broadband services we are able to push online technology further than before. Coupled with the increasing affordability of more powerful computers, a greater number of consumers and businesses are able to handle these new advances.
Name: Martin J. King
Age: 30
Company/organization: The Gurnet Group
What do you consider to be the biggest challenge now facing Rhode Island’s technological community? Educate the workforce, future generations and regional businesses. Educating the workforce is imperative to achieve our short-term objectives.
What technological advances do you see that may have the most significant impact on a wide range of Rhode Island industries? It’s still the Internet.
Name: Rick Kovar
Age: 44
Company/organization: Rhode Island Technology Council (RITEC)
What do you consider to be the biggest challenge now facing Rhode Island’s technological community? Positioning Rhode Island’s technology community to take advantage of the next economic upturn.
How has your company or organization adapted its technology to serve the ever-changing business climate? Expanding the capacity of our Web site to maximize its value to our membership.
How would you describe the Rhode Island high technology community to an outsider? A critical mass of companies with a wide range of expertise.
What technological advances do you see that may have the most significant impact on a wide range of Rhode Island industries? Greater coordination and improvement of our transportation and telecommunications.
Name: Jay McNally
Age: 40
Company/organization: Ibis Consulting
What do you consider to be the biggest challenge now facing Rhode Island’s technological community? Building robust distribution systems that extend the reach of those businesses beyond the state line.
How has your company or organization adapted its technology to serve the ever-changing business climate? Ibis was a pure technology play. We are now customer focused and market-driven; a significant change in how we do business.
What technological advances do you see that may have the most significant impact on a wide range of Rhode Island industries? The development of multi-faceted transportation options is having a huge impact.
Name: Robert Petrocelli
Age: 35
Company/organization: Heartlab
What do you consider to be the biggest challenge now facing Rhode Island’s technological community? There are issues that are certainly specific to Rhode Island, however, given the events of September 11, and due to the recent lack of support in the public markets for technology companies, the largest challenge facing the Rhode Island technical community for the next several years will be raising capital.
What technological advances do you see that may have the most significant impact on a wide range of Rhode Island industries? Probably the single most important set of technological advances that are coming but not quite there yet, but are also currently taking a pause to catch their breath are the widespread dissemination of broadband communication networks.
Name: John E. Ottaviani
Age: 44
Company/organization: Edwards & Angell
What do you consider to be the biggest challenge now facing Rhode Island’s technological community? The ability to convince itself and outsiders that Rhode Island has a visible and vibrant technology community.
How has your company or organization adapted its technology to serve the ever-changing business climate? We are continuously upgrading our technology to be able to provide better services to our clients.
What technological advances do you see that may have the most significant impact on a wide range of Rhode Island industries? The worldwide adoption of the Internet as a standard business communications platform, together with continual improvements in telecommunications and bandwidth.
Name: Dana Paul
Age: 35
Company/organization: Shazamm
What do you consider to be the biggest challenge now facing Rhode Island’s technological community? Too many good companies are closing their doors or laying people off. We all need to band together as a community and work with organizations like RITEC to help one another.
How has your company or organization adapted its technology to serve the ever-changing business climate? Shazamm’s ideology has always been forward thinking, to always push the design envelope further.
What technological advances do you see that may have the most significant impact on a wide range of Rhode Island industries? To have a state that’s wired for the future, where any company could move in, plug in and be in operation.
Name: Hal Records
Age: 55
Company/organization: Bryant College
What do you consider to be the biggest challenge now facing Rhode Island’s technological community? Maintaining currency of technology products and services in the face of economic downturn, and developing new products to support future income streams.
How has your company or organization adapted its technology to serve the ever-changing business climate? Yes, Bryant College provides significant technology programs at the graduate, undergraduate, and executive development levels.
What technological advances do you see that may have the most significant impact on a wide range of Rhode Island industries? Data and information security, voice recognition, business visualization/financial imaging, digital multimedia communications
Name: Jim Rose
Age: 41
Company/organization: Sane Solutions
What do you consider to be the biggest challenge now facing Rhode Island’s technological community? The reduction in IT spending and the lengthening of the sales/purchase cycle is one of the largest challenges for technology companies both in Rhode Island and elsewhere.
How has your company or organization adapted its technology to serve the ever-changing business climate? Not really. We have always developed our technology based on customer feedback and continue to do so now.
What technological advances do you see that may have the most significant impact on a wide range of Rhode Island industries? None come to mind.
Name: Thomas Vrabel
Age: 45
Company/organization: Slater Center for Environmental Biotechnology
What do you consider to be the biggest challenge now facing Rhode Island’s technological community? The biggest challenge is to create or provide sufficient employment opportunities so that graduates from our universities can find jobs in Rhode Island and thereby keep our talent in the state.
How has your company or organization adapted its technology to serve the ever-changing business climate? By expanding our recruitment activities to reach outside of traditional technology discovery areas.
What technological advances do you see that may have the most significant impact on a wide range of Rhode Island industries? Advances in environmental detection technology to include bacterial agents and other environmental contaminants.
Name: Edward Weisberg
Age: 44
Company/organization: BX.com
What do you consider to be the biggest challenge now facing Rhode Island’s technological community? Even though we are close to Boston, it takes an extra leap of effort to get Boston investors and employees to consider companies in Rhode Island.
What technological advances do you see that may have the most significant impact on a wide range of Rhode Island industries? Technology is here, and we have great schools that continue to evolve both the underlying foundations, and the application of these technologies. The challenge which faces Rhode Island is how to keep the bright kids who are graduating from our schools to stay in Rhode Island…
