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TechBirmingham To Host A Girls Day Of Code In August

TechBirmingham, in conjunction with the 100 Girls of Code (100girlsofcode.com) program, is hosting a “Girls Day of Code” on August 8, 2015. The event is designed to get young women to participate in coding activities and development. Self-guided activities and webcasts are available for individuals interested in participating in the event. There are 15 events currently scheduled across 12 US cities, including Birmingham.

The mission of 100 Girls of Code is to achieve gender parity in STEM fields by introducing more young women to coding education and computer engineering at a young age. The organization seeks to inspire more female participation in STEM by providing young women an opportunity to create and gain confidence in what they create. All 100 Girls of Code workshops are led by female programmers who are not only experts in their fields and academically trained, but most importantly, they are “girls of code” themselves.

“The support from the local business community has been overwhelming. In addition to this event, TechBirmingham is still looking for volunteers as well as sponsors to enable at least four local 100 Girls of Code events over the next year,” said Jennifer Skjellum, President of TechBirmingham.

The event will be held at Innovation Depot from 8:30-12:00 p.m. and is open to girls ages 10-18. For more information and to register to attend please visit www.100girlsofcode.com/birmingham-al.html.

TechBirmingham President Featured on Ignite Alabama

Listen to TechBirmingham president, Jennifer Skjellum, on the most recent episode of Ignite Alabama. In the episode, Skjellum and host Sheree Martin cover everything from the recent Kaufmann Foundation report which ranked Alabama 49th in startups to the recent 100 Girls of Code announcement. LISTEN HERE

Meet our Member Companies – Domani Software

TechBirmingham thrives through its immensely talented and diverse group of member companies. Meet our Member Companies is an ongoing Q&A series highlighting this group of movers, shakers and makers in Bham’s tech industry.

Meet Mike Combs, President at Domani Software, a relatively new software company, as well as a new member of TechBirmingham. Mike is originally from Hemet CA and has lived in Birmingham for 5 years. Read on to get to know more about his company and the great things they are doing in Birmingham and beyond.

Hi Mike! Let’s get started — Tell us more about Domani Software.

On a given day our people are working on three or four different projects at once. Each member of the team has a different specialization which allows us to work simultaneously on projects in different stages of their life cycle. One person is working on UI design for a web interface while another writes a PHP back end for a corporate asset tracking system, while yet another is building the game engine for our next app.

What do you think is the biggest misconception about your field?

I think there’s a perception that all software development companies are in fierce competition with each other. I find that software comes from ideas, and there are more worthy ideas out there than all the developers in the world could hope to capture and capitalize on. Part of my hopes in joining TechBirmingham are to meet companies like ours and learn from them. Perhaps work together for all of our benefits.

What exciting news or product/service announcements does your company have on the horizon?

We released an anti-abduction app named Phone Beacon for the Android platform. It gives the user a way to call for help and send their location in a hands-free way. When you’re in a dangerous situation you may not be able to pull out your phone and send out a text or call with shaky hands. Phone Beacon sends a text to a friend with your location every five minutes until it is turned off with the user’s password. Here’s an article about it!

How do you feel about Bham’s tech scene?

I think the biggest strength of the Birmingham tech scene is the energy that is put into it by so many members. The focus and effort going into all of these events bodes well for the city’s future as a technology center. Coming from working in enterprise-level companies, I think the biggest challenge has is reaching all of the talent that can be found in the many large IT houses located around the Birmingham/Hoover area. If I could change anything, it would be to move more of the seminars and events from being 1.5 hours at lunch time to being after work. That way more people who work on banker’s hours could participate.

Anything else about you or your company you want us to share?

We began as a mobile app company but branched out into custom software development for companies. Our mission is to empower people to build their better tomorrow. We are ready to work with anyone who has a system they want built from scratch or updated from a clunky older build.

Very cool! Thanks so much for sharing, Mike!

#TechTuesday Recap: Tools for Managing a Distributed Team

The modern day office is being redefined daily. Slowly but surely we’re saying goodbye to white walls and cubicles and saying hello to the concept of a distributed team. These days, all you need is a functioning computer with a solid internet connection to make working for your dream job from your dream location a reality.

At this month’s Tech Tuesday, Fleetio Founder + CEO Tony Summerville took some time to tell us about just how he makes the modern day office work for his team. The secret to his company’s success? Taking advantage of all the tech tools at their disposal.

From communication tools like Slack and Hipchat to HR essentials like Zenefits and Zenpayroll, the crew at Fleetio relies on dozens of apps and sites to keep their distributed team well-managed and keep their company growing.

Remote culture is where the workplace is headed, but some companies are hesistant to embrace it. Here’s why Tony says you should:

1. Remote culture provides a larger talent pool

2. It makes businesses more scaleable

3. Contributes to better productivity

4. And it makes happier employees!

The up and coming workforce was born in the internet age, and location doesn’t matter to them any longer. What matters is a well-run business who knows what they are doing, where they are going and how they’re going to get there.

Check out more of Tony’s talk here. And don’t forget to follow him online @summerville.

TechTuesday Series Kicks off with Panel on Strategies for Attracting Top Tech Talent in Birmingham

January 27th marks the start of the 2015 TechTuesday Series sponsored by Burr Forman. Our panel of experts will focus on recruiting strategies for attracting and hiring tech talent, addressing the challenges the nation is facing when it comes to available tech talent, working with outside recruiters, as well as share some of their company’s initiatives for finding and developing talent.

Our Panel includes:

Atlas RFID Solutions, Inc

Jessica Genry , Director, Human Resources & Recruiting, has been in HR since graduating from the University of Montevallo in 2004. She became certified as a Professional of Human Resources (PHR) in 2006. She has served on the board of the Birmingham Society of Human Resources (BSHRM) in 2010 and 2011 and remains an active member and contributor on a volunteer basis in the community. Most of her career has been in the software industry where she has been managing recruitment, new hire onboarding, benefits administration, company policies and programs, employment branding, and employee relations.

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Alabama

Jim Dorris, Department Manager – Application Development, has been with Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Alabama for 12 years. He began his Blue Cross career by managing the Network Engineering team for 7 years, then had the opportunity to lead the IT Infrastructure team as a Department Manager in our Technology Support Division. Jim is currently the Department Manager responsible for the Application Development team that supports Finance, Legal, HR, and IT applications within Blue Cross. Prior to joining Blue Cross he worked for 16 years in the Systems Integration and Technology field in a number of roles including Systems Engineer, Director of Support Services, and Regional General Services Manager.

EBSCO Industries

Carlton Kemper, Corporate Technical Recruiter, has been in the recruiting and HR profession for nearly twenty years working in both corporate and agency settings. His recruiting background spans the gamut from creative to technology at major companies like EDS and Time Warner. Currently Carlton is the technology recruiter for EBSCO Industries where he is focused on supplying talent for a wide range of critical technical needs.

ITAC Solutions

JG Carver is a partner with ITAC Solutions, and joined the firm in 2002. ITAC is a staffing and recruiting firm with corporate headquarters in Birmingham. JG has 15 years of IT Recruiting experience in Birmingham, as well as other geographic markets. Additional experience and responsibilities include market expansion, internal IT, and making the coffee.

NOTE: JG will start the program off with some regional and national data and provide the audience with some supply and demand intelligence.

Regions Bank

Amruta Dadhe, Corporate Recruiter – Risk Management , started her career in India as a Management Associate. Her experience includes many years working overseas where she supported a spectrum of industries from Information Technology and Telecommunications to Consulting. She has been an OD Practitioner and has implemented HR / OD consulting projects through organizational diagnosis & analysis and has designed interventions to evaluate organizational change. She came to the United States in 2012. Today, she manages a portfolio of recruiting assignments in commercial banking, credit underwriting, compliance administration, enhanced due diligence, operational risk, risk analytics and consumer credit. She works towards developing client relationships & supports the full cycle recruiting of Regions Bank’s Risk Management line of business.

Registration and details for the program are available HERE.

TechFetch Partners with TechBirmingham on Birmingham Tech Job Channel

For Immediate Release

TechBirmingham partners with TechFetch on New Job Channel

Birmingham, AL (Nov 4, 2014) – TechBirmingham, in collaboration with TechFetch.com, have announced a job channel partnership together to reinvigorate career fairs and job Posting Boards for TechBirmingham Member companies.

“I am pleased to announce our new partnership with TechFetch.com. Finding and retaining talent is always a top issue for Birmingham tech companies, and we strongly believe TechFetch.com jobs platform and local career fairs will accelerate the local job creation and add a great value to our member companies. We are looking forward to using the strengths of both organizations, to form a unique career advancement opportunity for our members as well as local candidates. Our focus is to help companies to reach local candidates as well as out of state candidates through the Techfetch platform and fill the opportunities within Alabama”, commented Jennifer Skjellum, President, TechBirmingham, .

The job channel will provide access to member companies with Job posting and resume database. Also will provide market intelligence regarding local talent availability ongoing basis.

Prabakaran Murugaiah, Founder & CEO TechFetch.com, stated “we are excited to launch the co-branded tech job channel for TechBirmingham. TechFetch’s nationwide reach with over 2.5 million unique visitors and 300,000 tech job postings annually will bring great value to the TechBirmingham member companies as well as job-seekers in Alabama. We plan to host multiple career fairs in association with TechBirmingham to bring the hiring companies and candidates together. Career fairs provide great opportunity to candidates while facilitating companies assess and experience the ground reality of the local market. We look forward to having a great partnership with TechBirmingham.”

The mission of TechBirmingham is to strengthen and promote Birmingham’s technology ecosystem by highlighting tech companies in the region, helping to recruit and retain technologists and entrepreneurs, and providing technical training. For more information visit www.techbirmingham.org

TechFetch.com is a Technology Job Portal that helps companies to find the best fitting resumes open for a job, position or a project quickly. It effectively replaces the time consuming, manually tedious and error prone task of scanning thousands of resumes to fit a job. TechFetch’s highly automated, relevant candidate recommendation system has proven its value for 1000’s of customers in the USA over three years.
TechFetch ofers Job posting and resume access services to Enterprises, IT consulting companies, Staffing agencies and Independent Recruiters. Our premium membership can help companies to hire Direct Employees, Contract to Hire, Independent Contractors or Corp-Corp Third party consultants. Our resume database has been constantly refreshed with active candidates that include US citizens, Green Card holders, H1B Work Permit holders and Third-Party Agency consultants. For more information visit http://www.TechFetch.com

You can see the new job channel here:

http://www.techfetch.com/job/techbirmingham/

Make sure you Like TechBirmingham on Facebook and Follow @techbirmingham on Twitter.

TechBirmingham and TechFetch Bringing Tech Focused Job Expo to the BJCC on September 26th

TechBirmingham Announces Get NetWorking Tech Job Expo in coordination with Alabama Launchpad Innovation Conference

Birmingham, AL, September 8, 2014—TechBirmingham has partnered with Alabama Launchpad and TechFetch to host Get NetWorking, a tech job fair on Friday, September 26^th from 8:00 am to 2:00 pm in the BJCC East Ballrooms.

More than 20 employers are expected to be on hand to speak with job seekers including: Atlas RFID,BlueCross BlueShield of Alabama, Command Alkon, Chesapeake System Solutions,Curse, Daxko ITAC Solutions, Matrix,McLeod Software, Regions Bank, TekLinks, UAB, and Whiteboard It.

In conjunction with the in-person tech job fair, participating employers will also post select job openings on an event specific page hosted by TechFetch. TechBirmingham and TechFetch.com will market the job fair to local candidates and candidates who are interested in relocation to Alabama. Jobs from participating companies will be promoted to the network of 5000+ niche sites at a national level helping to showcase the technology jobs that Birmingham has to offer.

Registration to attend the Get NetWorking event is free. Attendees can register directly on the TechFetch website .

http://www.techfetch.com/Tech-Job-Fair/Birmingham-AL-SEP-2014.aspx

For more information on becoming a featured employer contact TechBirmingham at events@techbirmingham.com or visit the Techbirmingham website for more details.

ABOUT TECHBIRMINGHAM: TechBirmingham is a 501(c)(6) nonprofit membership tech association focused on growing the technology ecosystem and innovation economy in our region. The mission of TechBirmingham is to strengthen and promote Birmingham’s technology ecosystem by highlighting tech companies in the region, helping to recruit and retain technologists and entrepreneurs, and providing technical training and education. For more information visit www.techbirmingham.com.

ABOUT TECHFETCH.COM: The vision ofTechFetch.com is to create a global tech workforce community and empower them with opportunities to deliver global technology solutions. They are one of the fastest growing talent acquisition platforms reaching over 2.5 million IT professionals in a year and registering over 300,000 jobs annually.

ABOUT ALABAMA LAUNCHPAD: Alabama Launchpad is a program of the Economic Development Partnership of Alabama Foundation. The EDPA Foundation partners with seven research universities in Alabama to promote and reward high-growth, innovative start-ups from across the state. Alabama Launchpad gives early-stage start-ups momentum to take an idea from concept to reality.

Test Case Management Using a Wiki

Written By Geoffrey Rodgers, Manager, Software Quality Assurance, Atlas RFID Solutions

As a software quality assurance specialist for the last 12 years, I have seen test case management done about the same way in each of the companies where I either worked or consulted for. Most medium-to-large organizations use a system specifically designed for test case management, so it seems that would be the ideal solution. However, I have noticed time and time again that so much of the effort that goes into creating test cases is wasted on inefficient processes and duplicated information. In many cases, by the end of the project, the majority of the test cases have become obsolete due to changing requirements and code.

The intent, I believe, for most documentation on a project is that it is ‘living’ – meaning, constantly updated and accurate for its purpose. The reality is that it takes time to write documentation, and it is one of the first things to get dropped when it comes time to push harder and faster and get the software released. In an effort to overcome the temptation of ignoring documentation altogether, I set out to find a new solution for test case management. What I came up with was something that we were already using for other purposes: a wiki.

Using a wiki for test case documentation is not as simple as moving all of your existing test cases into a new tool. The key to making the most of a wiki solution is to transform the information found in system requirements and test case documents into a full-fledged knowledge base for the entire system. That knowledge base then provides all of the necessary details, making test case creation more efficient and accurate. The knowledge base can even be reused to provide detailed information for user guides and technical support teams. Effectively, the same principles used to make the software itself more manageable can be used to make documentation more manageable and accurate.

For more information on how this solution is implemented, be sure to join me on August 19th for the next TechTuesday meeting, hosted by TechBirmingham and sponsored by Alabama Power.

TechBirmingham Selects Non Profits for “Connect With Tech” Project

Birmingham, AL, June 23, 2014—TechBirmingham is pleased to announce the following organizations have been selected to participate in the Birmingham Women in Technology (BWIT) first annual “Connect With Tech” service project: Greater Birmingham Humane Society, the YWCA and Childcare Resources.

The BWIT Connect with Tech project pairs volunteers with specific participating non-profits based on their skill sets and abilities to help the organizations solve their specific technical challenge. Each team includes professional technical women and one high school-age girl participating in her school’s Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) program.

Teams consult with their assigned non-profits throughout June and July, then meet for a final work date (August 16th), to finish the work and debrief the organization. Each team and their non-profit will present the results of the project at the Birmingham Women in Technology meeting September 18th.

According to TechBirmingham President Jennifer Skjellum, the BWIT group wanted do a meaningful, hands-on project that would give back to the community. “Working together to scope the project, develop solutions and work collaboratively with the non-profit to solve their technical challenges, participants get the satisfaction of helping their community as well as the opportunity to foster new relationships and mentor others.”

“We have a lot of passionate, community-driven professional women who want to give back in meaningful ways,” says Andrea Walker, Connect with Tech’s project lead. “The teams are putting their skills together to provide a valuable service to our city’s non-profits.”

About Birmingham Women in Technology
Birmingham Women in Technology was founded in 2012 by a group of professional women, business owners and executives. The goal of the group is to bring together women working in technology and IT fields for mentoring, and to create a support network to expand their resources and career advancement opportunities.

About TechBirmingham

TechBirmingham is a 501(c)(6) nonprofit membership tech association focused on growing the technology ecosystem and the innovation economy in our region. TechBirmingham was originally formed by key leaders in Birmingham in 2002—with the goal to lead, support and coordinate the start-up, attraction, growth, retention and expansion of technology-based businesses, investments and jobs. Today, TechBirmingham is focused on increasing national exposure and recognition of the growing number of local software and technology companies; increasing technical education and training opportunities in our region; and connecting technologists to form a community to improve our region’s competitive advantage—while increasing the number of early-stage start-ups and overall innovation.

Daxko Acquires NetVentures Corporation

Daxko, a Birmingham based software company, and TechBirmingham member, is excited to announce the acquisition of NetVentures Corporation. The combined business results in Daxko handling the enterprise software needs for 600+ member-based organizations, including YMCAs and JCCs across the United States.

The full press release can be read HERE.

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