Month: February 2019

EY is Hiring! Advisory Consultant Program

Attention all management information systems seniors! EY is currently looking for a full-time employee for their Risk Advisor Program. The Risk Advisor Program is a 2-3 year development program that helps budding professionals develop necessary risk-consulting skills by providing participants with career coaching and real-world experience. In risk advising, EY strives to help its clients evaluate a number of risks, including those dealing with operations and information technology. As a result, participants in the Risk Advisor Program will be assisting businesses in establishing and maintaining a relatively risk-free environment. These businesses come from a variety of industries, such as the automotive, entertainment, and information technology industries.

As part of the Risk Advisor Program, participants are expected to develop an understanding of their clients’ risks and needs throughout the consulting process. In addition, participants are expected to better themselves by keeping up with current business and industry trends and self-evaluating their performance.

To qualify for the Risk Advisory Program, you must have:

  • a bachelor’s degree in management information systems (finance, accounting, management, and computer science degrees also work)
  • a desire to work in advisory and audit
  • the willingness to travel
  • the willingness to work over standard hours when necessary
  • skill in Microsoft Office
  • the ability to work independently
  • project management, analytical, and problem-solving skills
  • excellent interpersonal, written and verbal communication skills
  • time management skills and the ability to meet deadlines under pressure

If interested, please email your resume to Jon Moore at jonathan.a.moore@uconn.edu.

Thank you!

A Reflection: Splunk Analytics Workshop

On Friday, February 22nd, OPIM Innovate hosted its Splunk Analytics Workshop. There, Professor Ryan O’Connor, UConn adjunct and Splunk Senior Advisory Engineer, explained to students the origin of Splunk and its uses. Other than Splunk’s three premium solutions: Splunk Information Technology Service Intelligence, Splunk Enterprise Security, and Splunk User Behavior Analytics, attendees also learned of the knowledgeable and supportive community behind the service. From dedicated end-users to passionate Splunk professionals, this community develops intuitive applications utilizing Splunk while also answering each other’s questions. Splunk, therefore, is a user-oriented platform which does everything in its power to help companies and individuals succeed with its data monitoring and visualization software.

During the workshop, O’Connor introduced students to time series data, which is how Splunk got its initial patent. In short, time series data is data that has been indexed on a time scale, either to organize the data or to derive conclusions from certain time intervals. For example, credit card companies use time series data in order to deduce whether or not purchases are being made by the authentic cardholder. In Splunk, machine data is categorized and searchable by date and uses time to sort out feasible and non-feasible data. If a purchase is made in one store in Connecticut, and then another store in Vermont 30 minutes later, chances are the card in question has been compromised.

Splunk is a very flexible service that allows users to integrate data from other software such as SQL Developer, a database client. “Databases are everywhere and important,” O’Connor explained to students, “but, some database clients don’t visualize data well. They just store it, keep its structure, and that’s it.” That is why O’Connor developed an application, called DB Connect, that can grab database information, make a copy of the data inside of Splunk, and then visualize it. “It can make pie charts, line charts, or whatever the case may be,” said O’Connor. “Splunk isn’t designed to replace any one of these [database clients], but instead to aggregate data from them.” Splunk can also capture real-time web data, such as the number of times a server is pinged by a computer or the number of times it is successfully infiltrated.

For those interested in Splunk, Splunk Fundamentals I and II are free for UConn students. The ability to use Splunk Analytics is a very marketable skill, especially for those interested in entering the world of information technology. Also, on March 8th, OPIM Innovate will also be hosting Splunk Day, where students can network with Splunk professionals. Don’t let these important networking opportunities pass you by! Get started with Splunk, today!

 

 

 

 

Travelers Is Hiring! E-Business Summer Internship

Travelers E-Business is currently looking for a summer intern who will help them with data integration. The project involves consolidating consumer data in various shared data systems and making the data available to both internal and external Travelers applications. This way, Travelers personnel will be able to utilize consumer data in a way that connects their current customers to new insurance products.

During the internship, the intern will learn about consumer data, mobile device management, cloud integration, and work with cutting edge technologies such as Node.js and Pivotal Cloud Foundry applications. All the while, they will be utilizing these gained skill-sets in the process of making consumer data useful.

Interested in this position? Please contact Jon Moore at jonathan.a.moore@uconn.edu.

Student Spotlight: Victoria Trautman

Originally from Neshanic Station, New Jersey, junior management information systems major Victoria Trautman grew up in a very traditional, small-town community. As she went through the motions of K through 12, she consistently found herself being pushed away from STEM-related interests in favor of more stereotypical female roles and careers. In grade school, she felt “weird for loving science and wanting to study it,” but that didn’t stop her from pursuing her analytical passions. She defied the expectations her community set out for her, took every science-based AP course she could, and made it her life goal to define herself and inspire other women in the process.

Sitting down to have a conversation with Trautman in the Student Union, I am met with a very compassionate and self-actualized woman. Yet, as Trautman informs me throughout our conversation, she wasn’t always so self-assured. There were challenges she had to surpass in order to reach the level of confidence she exudes, today. Even when she had originally applied to UConn in the fall of 2016, the social factors that surrounded her during her upbringing still held weight on her decisions, including her original major. “I came here as a nutrition major,” Trautman says, “because I wanted to be a dietician, and I did that because I loved science. But, it also felt very socially acceptable and safe–at least back home–to be a female studying STEM in a healthcare-related field.” However, upon beginning her undergraduate career at UConn, she was inspired by students, primarily other women, studying STEM, technology, and business, something that was not very commonplace in her hometown. “I said to myself, ‘Why am I not doing this? I’ve always loved business, I’ve always loved technology–what’s stopping me?’ And so I applied to the School of Business.”

So, why management information systems (MIS)? Well, according to Trautman, her decision was in part due to her personal interests and in part due to her friend circle. “My first semester, I joined a professional business fraternity [Alpha Kappa Psi] and that kind of shaped me towards business. A lot of my close friends also studied MIS, and so I gradually learned from them that MIS was what I wanted to do.” Big data and graphic art and design also drew Trautman to the major. “I’ve always been an artistic person, and I wanted to find ways to marry design and technology together. And, with big data, I think that it’s amazing that we can now look at all of these different data points, analyze them, monitor them, and then use that data to help people.”

In becoming a management information systems major, Trautman has pursued a variety of opportunities. From business case competitions and IT-related internships to being president of the Information Management Association (IMA), she is always learning, exploring, and overcoming. “I did a case competition representing UConn during the fall of 2017 through Travelers and that’s kind of how I got an internship with them. I was an IT intern in their Business Insurance Architecture and Infrastructure side, and I was able to master a bunch of different technologies. Basically, I told them on day one that I wanted to learn. The more you learn, the more you can understand.” For this coming summer, while Trautman is set to intern with Cigna for their TECDP program, she is also striving to make these possibilities as accessible to her IMA members as possible. “I joined IMA because I was looking for community, and now I want to give back by helping people interested in technology, regardless of their gender, find like-minded people while also connecting them with potential employers.”

For current and prospective School of Business students and management information systems majors, Trautman has this to say to you: “I think it’s very important for everyone, regardless of their gender identity, to be encouraged in terms of what they want to pursue. Don’t judge people based on how they look. You don’t know their story, but if you take the time to stop and listen, you might just learn something valuable while validating somebody else’s journey in the process.”

 

 

 

A Reflection: OPIM Innovate at Totally Teched Out Late Night Event

On Friday, February 22nd, OPIM Innovate co-hosted the Totally Teched Out Late Night Event in collaboration with UConn Late Night. In the Student Union, Room 104, a number of students from different academic backgrounds interacted with emerging technologies such as virtual reality headsets and leading software like Splunk Enterprise and HP Reveal. While many students walked in without prior knowledge of OPIM Innovate, they left with a piqued interest regarding what the initiative has to offer.

During the event, the Innovate Room was set up so that students could get a mini demo of all the technologies up for use. After signing in, students were first introduced to HP Reveal, an augmented reality application that superimposes digital images and video onto the real world. Then, they were introduced to Splunk Shake!, a Splunk Enterprise demo developed by Innovate’s Nathan Hom (’19 Management and Engineering for Manufacturing) which captures real-time data generated from shaking your phone. From there, students branched off into virtual reality demos or drone flying, either utilizing virtual reality headsets like Google Cardboard, the HTC Vive, and the Lenovo Mirage Solo, or flying drones of different shapes and sizes. The room was filled with rotor blade buzzing, laughter, and sounds of awe triggered by virtual reality immersion.

For some students, the Innovate Room at the Totally Teched Out Late Night Event was the first time they had ever encountered some emerging technologies or software. Xiaofeng Gong (’20 Mathematics and Economics), for example, had never heard of Splunk Enterprise before being introduced to the software by Nathan Hom. “After the Shake! demo, Nathan enthusiastically gave me a brief introduction to Splunk Enterprise since he saw that I was so interested. His enthusiasm and the software’s ability to monitor machine learning and capture real-time data really got me interested in data science. Now that I know that Splunk Fundamentals is free for UConn students, I will definitely check it out. Here was the right place for me, tonight!” Other students, such as Syed Hussain (’19 Communications), had a similar first-time experience with virtual reality, specifically with Google Cardboard. “Overall, I found the [Google Cardboard] experience super interesting coming from a gaming perspective,” Hussain said. “I always had an idea of how I would experience it, but I wasn’t expecting the images to be as crisp as they were.”

For the students running the Innovate Room, the hustle and bustle was worth every minute of getting to see interest emerge in another student’s face. Hannah Bonitz (’19 Management Information Systems), for example, felt accomplished knowing that she was helping bridge the gap between Innovate and the rest of the UConn student body. “I’m happy about the turnout,” Bonitz said, “and its very exciting to see that people are willing to come out on a Friday night to learn more about technology.”

 

Thank you to everyone who visited the Innovate Room on Friday! We hope to attend more events like the Totally Teched Out Late Night Event in the future!

Pfizer is Hiring! Student Summer Worker Program

Attention all Management Information Systems majors! Pfizer is recruiting for its Summer Student Worker Program. During this summer information technology (IT) internship, Pfizer will match you with professionals and departments that best embody your IT interests. All the while, you will be completing real-world projects and gaining valuable skills desired by the IT industry.

While there is no specific job description, a candidate for Pfizer’s Summer Student Worker Program will be well-versed in the following:

  • SQL
  • C#
  • Access
  • Excel
  • Tableau
  • Spotfire

For more information on the Summer Student Worker Program, please click here.

If interested, please email Jon Moore at jonathan.a.moore@uconn.edu.

 

Mark Your Calendars: Innovate at Totally Teched Out Late Night Event

This Friday, February 22nd, OPIM Innovate will be co-sponsoring the Totally Teched Out Late Night Event from 9:00 PM to 12:00 AM in the Student Union. During the event, Innovate lab specialists will be available to walk students through various emerging technologies, such as augmented reality, virtual reality, brainwave sensors, and drones. 3D printing samples will also be up for display, and Innovate staff members will be on the floor to answer any questions regarding the OPIM Innovate initiative and what it has to offer.

Interested? Come see us at Student Union Rm 104.

We hope to see you there!

A Reflection: OPIM Innovate Introduction to A.I. Workshop

On Friday, February 15th, OPIM Innovate held its Introduction to Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) Workshop from 1:00 PM to 3:00 PM in the Gladstein Lab, BUSN 309. Led by Stephen Fitzgerald, an adjunct professor in the Operations and Information Management (OPIM) Department, the workshop covered various aspects of artificial intelligence, including neural networks and evolutionary computing. As Professor Fitzgerald explained during the workshop, “A lot of intelligence as far as artificial intelligence goes is modeled after human intelligence–the way that humans make decisions, and the way that they think about things.” However, throughout the workshop, students learned that these models are more mathematical than contextual. In other words, machines do not have the capacity to understand complex ideas, but this does not always mean that they cannot perform tasks better.

After a brief overview of the different areas and categories of artificial intelligence, students were paired up for an introductory activity. During this activity, one student from each group was told to keep their head down while the other student was shown a picture on the projector screen. Once the picture was covered back up, the students who had seen the image were told to explain to their partners how to draw it without context (for example, you could not say “cat” or “falling”). Instead, they could only explain things mathematically in angles, degrees, and shapes, mimicking the understanding of a computer. Both partners had an opportunity to draw and give directions, and many students were scratching their heads in the process. The photo on the left is of the drawings I and junior finance major Christopher Narkon were able to conjure up. Given the two tails I drew on what is obviously a cat, thinking like a machine can make understanding the world very difficult.

As the workshop continued, one student brought up a good point that resonated with Professor Fitzgerald: due to a machine’s immense computing power and inability to comprehend distracting stimuli, it oftentimes has the upper hand regarding task accuracy. Machines can learn from mistakes, become as precise as possible with the steps they choose for task completion, and create preemptive and accurate decision maps. As such, projects like Deep Blue, Alpha Go, and AlphaStar have been able to beat the world’s best strategy-game players in games like chess, Go, and Starcraft.

After the workshop, students were left baffled with how immense the world of artificial intelligence has become. One student, junior MIS major James Mercaldo, stated, “I didn’t know there were a lot of hidden stages in machine learning. I always thought it was a fixed, input/output thing.” Yunqian Zuo (’22), a management and engineering for manufacturing major, added, “I didn’t know there were so many different branches [in artificial intelligence].”

For students who want to learn more about artificial intelligence, OPIM Innovate has tech kits that can be individually completed at your own pace.

Thank you to everyone who came to the Introduction to A.I. workshop. We hope you had a wonderful time!

 

A.I. & Analysis: Executive Lecture by Bret Greenstein

On Monday, February 11th, the Operations and Information Management (OPIM) Department held their annual executive lecture, a lecture series in which seasoned professionals in the field of information technology (IT) are invited to speak about their perspectives on the field. This year’s lecturer, Bret Greenstein, Vice President and Global Head for Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) at Cognizant Technologies, spoke to about 350 undergraduate business majors on the emerging role of A.I. in various industries and how that role is influencing current and future job opportunities. He also took the time to give students advice regarding career readiness and preparation. Many students enjoyed the lecture and had to the opportunity to speak with Greenstein after the event.

For the past ten years, the OPIM Department has conducted its executive lecture series with the goal of connecting UConn students with successful IT executives. The department strives to give each lecturer a platform to inspire and inform upcoming professionals on the IT industry and groundbreaking technological trends.

If you missed the lecture this year, please consider staying tuned for details on next year’s executive lecture.

The OPIM Department would like to thank all faculty that helped publicize the event and all students who attended.

 

Mark Your Calendars: HackUConn

On Friday, April 6th, UConn will be hosting its third annual HackUConn event, a 24-hour marathon that brings UConn students and tech industry experts together. During the Hackathon, hosted at Werth Tower, students will form groups and utilize various tools, such as hacking software, 3D printers, and laser cutters, to create technological prototypes. The cool thing about HackUConn is that tech mentors will be on deck to assist teams with developing their ideas. This year, the theme for HackUConn will be Healthcare and Technology, but no previous medical, technological, or business experience is required to participate.

During the event, other than the ability to network and attend informative workshops, students will be provided with free snacks, food, and giveaways. Various grand prizes will also be up for grabs, including a top prize of $2,000.

We hope to see you there!