Photo by Tim Fitzgerald / University Affairs. From left: Tu
Nguyen (seated, far left ), William Amissah, Ryan Snyder, Mo Seye, Todd
Fishback (seated, center), Trevor Schave, Ryan Billington, Fatou Diop (seated,
right).
Hand in hand
Tu Nguyen faced a unique
problem that required an innovative solution. His parents own the Saigon
restaurant in west Omaha, where they and the other chefs speak only Vietnamese.
The help out front, however, speaks English.
"I was the middleman," Nguyen
says.
Nguyen, then a student at UNO's
College of IS&T, had an idea. He applied the latest in Microsoft technology
to develop an application that would allow the English-speaking staff to place
orders for the kitchen via handheld personal data assistants (PDAs). The PDAs
transmit the orders to a computer server, which translates them into
Vietnamese.
The application earned Nguyen
(pronounced "win") first place in the national and international 2003 Microsoft
Imagine Cup competitions, a $25,000 prize and a 13-week internship at the
company's Redmond, Wash., headquarters.
Today, Nguyen is vice president
of information technology at DocCenter Inc., a document management and
information technology solutions company headquartered at the Scott Technology
Transfer and Incubator Center. Company President Todd Fishback, a UNO graduate,
has forged close ties to the College of IS&T and the Peter Kiewit
Institute.
DocCenter Inc. employs Nguyen
and three UNO graduates: Mo Seye and Baye Niang, both from Senegal, and Tu's
brother, Tom. The company also employs three interns from the College of
IS&T: Ryan Snyder, who is studying management information systems (MIS);
and Ryan Billington and Trevor Schave, computer science majors.
DocCenter was founded in May
2000 with a focus on Internet-based document management solutions. Tu Nguyen
was the company's first intern.
"In our first three years, we
were so far ahead of the curve, especially in the Midwest, we did not enjoy as
high an adoption rate for our technology as we had hoped," Fishback says.
In 2003, PKI proposed that
DocCenter utilize interns and provide consulting services at Union Pacific
Railroad. Fishback says IS&T Executive-in-residence Dorest Harvey and
Deepak Khazanchi, then chairman of the department of Information Systems and
Quantitative Analysis, took lead roles in the project, which evaluated the
health resource systems for Union Pacific's human resources department.
Union Pacific was pleased with
the quality of the work and other projects followed.
DocCenter since has expanded
its services to include document management and imaging, offering "a complete
turnkey solution" to consumers and small businesses. Developers at DocCenter
(www.doccenterinc.com) are working to design a document imaging, storage and
retrieval solution called EDDS Vault (for Electronic Document and Digital
Storage Vault) that Fishback hopes can be marketed and sold in stores alongside
other software products.
"We're moving the company from
being a service provider to offering product-based solutions as well," he says.
Nguyen, 28, says DocCenter's
interns earn valuable experience working on real-world projects ranging from
research and development to support services. "It's a great opportunity for
them to learn more than they would in a typical internship."
As for the restaurant business,
Nguyen continues to serve as his parents' informal "support staff" regarding
those PDAs, which he has named HOT Pads, short for Handheld Order Taking Pad.
"I still get a call as soon as that application goes down," he says, smiling.
"I guess it's easier to call me than teach everyone to speak Vietnamese."
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Living his dream
The dream of a young boy in India to become an engineer and
scholar has led Deepak Khazanchi to UNO's College of Information Science &
Technology, where he has been named to succeed Hesham Ali as associate dean.
Khazanchi was the college's
Peter Kiewit Distinguished Professor and chairman of the department of
Information Systems and Quantitative Analysis. He says he is eager to fulfill
his new role as part of the administrative team headed by Ali, who succeeded David
Hinton as dean.
"It will be my goal to assist
Dean Ali in his effort to bring the college to the next level of accomplishment
and recognition," he says. "Our students are our greatest asset, and we will
continue creating educational programs that challenge them here and afford them
great opportunities after graduation."
Khazanchi is a civil
engineering graduate of the Indian Institute of Technology in Kharagpur. He
worked as a structural engineer and project manager before coming to the United
States to obtain his MBA from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. He
earned his Ph.D. from Texas Tech University.
"Sounds like the American dream
one hears about on TV, doesn't it?" he says, smiling. "Truly, I'm proud of the
diverse path I took to get here, and the challenges and enriching experiences
that I encountered along the way."
Khazanchi also serves as the
joint coordinator of the Center for the Management of Information Technology
(CMIT) within the college. His research and teaching interests are focused in
the areas of virtual project management, business-to-business assurance
services and risk analysis in extended enterprise environments, and the
application of ideas from the philosophy of science to information systems.
His research has been published
in a variety of scholarly journals, and he recently co-published a book with
fellow IS&T faculty member Ilze Zigurs on patterns of effective virtual
project management.
He and his wife, Meenakshi,
have two sons: Rohan, 11, and Ruchir, 7. He enjoys traveling with his family to
the country's national parks, playing racquetball and reading.
Khazanchi came to UNO in
2000—and says he's been impressed ever since.
"The college is supported by a
world-class faculty—instructors, practitioners and scholars committed to a
student-centered learning environment," he says. "They have practical knowledge
of the information technology field and are well-known for their excellence in
teaching, research and their active participation in collaborative projects
with the private and public sectors.
"Working together, I believe we
have the opportunity and the ability to provide outstanding educational
experiences for our students, and to make an impact on our community through
new collaborations, service-learning projects and research."
He encourages alumni to take an
active role in the college's progress.
"Our alumni have always been
generous and can continue assisting us in many ways," he says. "They can donate
time and money, recruit students to our programs, share their experiences as
mentors and adjunct teachers, establish valuable collaborations between our
college and their businesses and organizations, and promote the college and the
Peter Kiewit Institute to others."
By doing so, he says, they
might just help someone else's dream become reality.
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Photo by
Tim Fitzgerald / University Affairs: From left, Michelle Lund, Ann Fruhling and
Kevin Weiss.
Packing a punch
When Ann Fruhling, Ph.D., assistant professor
of information systems at the College of IS&T, initially envisioned the
project, she saw it as a means to better address urgent health care issues in
rural Nebraska, like the area near Kearney where she grew up.
China, quite literally, was the farthest thing
from her mind.
But public health systems in China and other
countries across the world could be the beneficiaries if there is a global
release of work done in Omaha by Fruhling, her students, other IS&T faculty
and the health care professionals at the University of Nebraska Medical Center
(UNMC) and the Nebraska Public Health Laboratory.
The project is the Secure Telecommunications
Application Terminal Package (STATPack), a computerized emergency response
system for public health laboratories.
STATPack allows remote hospital or diagnostic
laboratories to send digital images of suspicious culture samples
electronically to a state public health lab for identification. It saves
precious diagnostic time and eliminates the inherent risks of having the sample
hand-delivered by courier to the state lab.
"We think STATPack is a great public health
tool that has potential applications nationwide and globally," says J. Rex
Astles, Ph.D., senior health scientist in the Laboratory Systems Development
Branch of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta. "In
China, for example, not many people are trained in public health issues. The
country geographically is so big, STATPack would be a real boon for someone in
a public health agency in Beijing to be able to look at a culture sample that's
under a microscope in a laboratory clear across the country."
STATPack incorporates secure, dedicated,
Web-based technology with a camera attached to a microscope and a
remote-controlled digital Web cam connected to a computer, all linked directly
to a state public health laboratory. There, a lab technician can focus the
camera in on a suspicious organism, download the image and respond to the lab
where the organism is being studied. If the organism is deemed a public health
threat, the STATPack system can be used to send an alert to every lab in the
network.
"For some of these distant laboratories, it is
difficult if not impossible for them to describe to us what they see in a
culture sample," says Steven Hinrichs, M.D., director of the Nebraska Public
Health Laboratory (NPHL) at UNMC. "STATPack allows us to actually see the
sample immediately and assist with the diagnosis in a matter of minutes."
The NPHL has deployed 20 STATPack systems
throughout Nebraska. The Oklahoma State Department of Health Laboratory is
placing STATPacks throughout the state, and the Kansas Department of Health and
Environment will begin deploying STATPack systems in 2007.
Fruhling says the STATPack system exemplifies
the mission of the College of IS&T to provide innovative technology
solutions, knowledge and community service to all of Nebraska, not just
metropolitan Omaha.
"The project also gives our students an
incredible opportunity to be on the forefront of technology, working with
industry and health care professionals to improve the quality of life in
Nebraska," she says. "That's important for everyone, but it's especially
important for our rural communities."
Michelle Lund, who received her bachelor's
degree in management information systems (MIS) from UNO in 2004, has been with
the project since the beginning and is a systems developer for the STATPack
software. "I've learned so much, not just about information technology but also
the health-related side of things. It really opened my eyes to the public
health environment and its needs."
Matt Puumala participated in the project while
studying computer science at UNO. He now works as a STATPack software developer
part-time while employed at the University of Minnesota.
Puumala says the project afforded him a comprehensive
look into the real-world demands of system administration, database design and
the dynamics of team programming. "It gave me great respect for the balance and
effort required to develop new software," he says, "and I could apply my
coursework in a concrete way."
Kimberly Tyser worked as a research assistant
to Fruhling while studying for her master's degree in MIS, which she earned
last December. She says the team aspects of the STATPack project continue to
benefit her in her job with a U.S. Department of Defense contractor. "Each of
us had very different areas of expertise that we were able to share and apply
to the project."
Kevin Weiss received a bachelor's degree in
computer science and works full time on the STATPack project as a software
engineer. He administers routine security audits, monitors the network,
maintains the hardware and travels to STATPack sites to perform installations
and general maintenance.
"Working on the STATPack project has
definitely been a positive experience," he says. "I owe Dr. Fruhling a great
deal for the opportunity. She has given me the tools and confidence I needed to
excel."
Fruhling is equally complimentary of her
students.
"They take a lot of pride in what they do,"
she says. "If an issue arises, they're right there, ready to roll up their
sleeves, get involved and solve the problem.
"I think they're proof that if you surround
yourself with good people, everything goes well."
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Sailing with Admiral Fruhling
Ann Fruhling, Ph.D., has considerable
experience as an instructor and in the corporate world, and she has applied
both in her nine years at UNO.
She earned her bachelor's degree from Colorado
State University and her master's degree in business administration from UNO.
She received her doctorate in management information systems from the
University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2003.
As an assistant professor in the Information
Systems and Quantitative Analysis department at the College of IS&T,
Fruhling conducts research that includes system usability studies specifically
regarding the health-care needs of rural Nebraska residents, agile methods
focusing on Xtreme Programming, and design and implementation strategies and
assessment for emergency response systems.
Fruhling lives in rural Gretna with her
husband, Brad. The mother of two teenagers, she enjoys gardening and golf, when
she has the time, and is an avid runner.
In October, she received the honorary title
"Admiral of the Great Navy of the State of Nebraska" from Gov. Dave Heineman
for her contribution to the state through her work on the "Infectious Disease
Early Warning and Surveillance System."
She says teaching is rewarding personally and
professionally.
"I do hear back from my former students, and
when they call to share news of career advancement or the terrific positions
they've earned, quite often they tell me that the classes I've taught or their
experience working with me on research projects really made the difference,"
she says. "I feel a lot of satisfaction through their successes."
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