Culture of Engineering: Silicon Happy Valley 2016
What is Silicon Happy Valley?
Silicon Happy Valley (SHV) is the premier forum to network, exchange ideas, learn about emerging trends and technologies, and promote and reinforce our industry partner's interest in Penn State Engineering. The second annual technical conference for alumni, students, faculty, and industry partners was held at the Nittany Lion Inn on April 18th, 2016 and featured selected presentations from leading Penn State engineering alumni, panel discussions by distinguished experts and top students in the fields of electrical and computer engineering and computer science, and the presentation of the Penn State Department of Electrical Engineering Early Career Recognition Alumni Award. This year’s theme, the Culture of Engineering, provided a glimpse into the ever-expanding role of engineering in innovation.
Presentations
SHV Speakers for this year’s event covered a broad range of topics related to the theme: from space travel and exploration to Agile methodology; from women in engineering to globalized virtual teams; from product integration to software security. The presentations did more than bring alumni together – they helped to expand the knowledge of the participators and broadened the view of current engineer’s ideas of what EE and CSE mean in government and commercial environments. Each speaker brought a new perspective to the conference and professionally delivered it to a rapt audience.
Starting off the day with the Early Career Recognition Alumni Award winner, Corey Cochrane, SHV participants were given a taste of the work done at the Jet Propulsion Lab with magnetometers – which is currently being used to search for signs of water on other planets. In keeping with the space theme, Michael Paul - Director of Penn State’s Applied Research Lab (ARL): Lunar Lion program - posited that engineers must serve the world and showed how Lunar Lion work has done so, and will continue to do so in the future. Anita Trnka from Mythics, Inc. also gave an eye-opening presentation on the culture of women in engineering which compelled the audience to agree that when women win, everyone wins. Then Katie Barrett delivered an expert walkthrough of successful product integration using an anecdote from her days at IBM followed by Penn State’s own Gang “Gary” Tan who delved into the culture of human error and cyber security with a session on compiler-based security. Another Penn State ARL representative, Sara Lego, shed some light on the topic of Chimera Teams through their successful modification and application of the Agile Scrum methodology. Finally, SHV’s own Matthew Graham enlightened the crowd with a culture shift that leads new business to success – organizational learning when things go wrong.
Taking the full day to absorb this information, meet like-minded engineers, and have full-bodied discussions about professional topics defined this event. From the presentations to the conversations, the culture of engineering was on full display.
Panel Discussions
Silicon Happy Valley 2016 engaged the audience in many different ways. Besides the intriguing presentations, it offered question and answer sessions for two important topics to new and lifelong engineers: Virtual teams in the workplace and internships.
In an age where computer and mobile digital cameras are ubiquitous, global teams have become more of a reality. Not all facets of this partnering environment have been eased, though. The presentation and panel discussion led by the President of the Penn State Engineering Alumni Society (PSEAS), Mike Erdman, addressed the benefits and challenges of this environment with an engaged audience. Successful virtual teams in a global environment not only talked about global teams, but it also served as a demonstration of a virtual team with two of the five presenters joining via Skype from Africa and Europe. The culture of engineering is constantly changing to meet the technological advances of the future and this discussion and demonstration adroitly explored and emphasized the cutting edge of virtual teaming today.
Most engineers easily see the value of internships: adding an element of apprenticeship to the formal learning process, building resumes and skills, and getting a taste for workplace culture. Chet McQuaide, an SHV veteran and avid mentor, assembled a panel of the top Penn State engineering students to share their recent internship experiences. The biggest takeaway from the panel of five: Mentorship makes all the difference in the internship. It’s not surprising then that the students who saw major gains in their confidence, skills, and abilities were also the ones who emphasized their relationship to their mentors. Having an audience full of leaders and managers at SHV allowed for more than a debriefing from these students, it provided a blueprint for successful internships and new employee integration for the future.
Engineers thrive on providing solutions to problems, both simple and complex. The socialization of the topics in these panel discussions provided the SHV participants a forum to work through solutions to future workplace culture options and decisions in an intimate, engrossing way.
Join us!
Interested in the topics discussed this year? Itching to share your alumni experience and research with the top minds in Penn State Engineering? Want another reason to visit your alma mater? Ink Blue and White weekend into your 2017 schedule and enter your work request for the third annual Silicon Happy Valley technical conference!
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