Annual Meeting Recap

Author: Shana Cornish, LJB Inc.

November 2009

Technology First held its "5 IT Initiatives" event on October 15th at Sinclair Community College’s Ponitz Center. Several presenters participated in the event including members of the Executive Committee from Technology First.
Ann Gallaher, Chief Operating Office for Technology First, thanked the Board of Trustees and annual partners for their contributions to Technology First.

Mikki Clancy, CIO of Premier Health Partners and Chair of Technology First, reviewed why Technology First revised their strategic plan.  The new plan strives positively represent IT in the region, strengthen technology thought leadership, and inspire volunteer leadership.  The outcome of the new plan promises to advance economic development and promote the Dayton region.

Paul Mooreman, IT Stategist for NewPage Corporation and on the Technology First Board of Trustees, discussed the revision of the strategic plan and what Technology First has to offer such as networking opportunities, work force development with training exchange and employment, business assistance and communication from Technology First by subscription, email or the website.  Mooreman also recognized Technology First's volunteers.

Speaker Jeff Johnson, Director of Operations for Avetec (the Advanced Virtual Engine Test Cell, Inc.) explained how Avetec is working to advance research within a world-class modeling and simulation capability and initiating educational partnerships to prepare a skilled future workforce. Avetec and its partners are conducting modeling and simulation research that aims to reduce the cost and time it takes to design, develop, and test complex systems.

Dave Vicars, CEO of Van Hoose and Associates spoke of VHA’s focus being on developing COTS software and providing services for increased collaboration and business efficiencies.  Vicars explained VHA entered into SaaS (Software as a Service) because it gives users an efficient alternative to email for tasking work, augments existing infrastructure and software in an unobtrusive way, prevents increasing company’s IT workload burden, creates an easy way for user’s team to effectively start collaborating, and price is very competitive. 

Stefan Kyntchev, Senior Consultant of Strategic Data Systems described BeyondPod, which is a RSS feed reader and podcast manager for mobile devices. With BeyondPod you can subscribe for RSS feeds, read the feed content, download and listen to associated podcasts directly on your mobile device.

Mikki Clancy discussed the region's hospitals collaboration with an Electronic Medical Records System.  This is important to the Dayton region because it provides better quality and wellness outcome. The Electronic Medical Records System will seamlessly connect a patient's information from different medical facilities, which will aid in the patient's care.  This will also help businesses, as businesses will look at benefits and see how their employees can be taken care of.

Steve Hangen, CIO of WinWholesale, and Jeff Van Fleet, CEO of Lighthouse Technologies, explained the CIO and CEO Councils and the collaboration between the two councils. The CIO Council allows council members to share best practices and advice in a private environment.  The CEO Council’s members own IT companies that bring money into the region.  Their focus is sharing business advice so that they can all continue to grow in the region.

Tim Hull from TDH Marketing demonstrated Technology First's newly designed website and website features, some of which include polling and blogging.

Technology First packed in another full house for this event.  The next event, Taste of IT, will be held November 12th.  Register online at: www.technologyfirst.org.