An interview with Steve Mizokawa about eWorld Enterprise Solutions.
Hi Steve. Please tell us about eWorld Enterprise Solutions.
eWorld Enterprise Solutions, Inc. (eWorldES) is a local company that was founded in 1999. We specialize in full life-cycle application development, management and information management consulting. Our consulting staff consists of over thirty-five (35) professionals who have skills in J2EE and .Net technologies and are certified in IBM and Microsoft products. A majority of our projects are with the State of Hawaii, supporting many of their key departments.
What are one or two interesting and/or high profile projects that your company is currently working on?
eWorldES designed, developed and has been maintaining key programs within the Department of Human Services’ welfare system for over a decade. In recent years, we have been modernizing the system to leverage new technologies. Initially, we web-enabled the application to leverage the internet. More recently, we developed self-service applications to enhance worker productivity that are accessed via the Department’s Portal. In the near future, we will be enabling mobile applications that will allow case workers to access and update information while in the field.
For the Hawaii State Department of Education, eWorldES has been assisting with their Race-to-the Top Initiative. Through a series of project, eWorldES has been providing development services, management consulting and project management services. We designed and developed a financial reporting system, enhanced their facilities management system, provided enterprise architecture guidance and review and project management for a number of key initiatives.
What do you think about Hawaii as a place to do high tech?
Although businesses and departments within the State of Hawaii have an appetite for Information Technology (IT), the lack of critical mass and limited scale makes it challenging to sustain an IT company. That being said, if a company can find their niche, there is an opportunity to flourish within this environment. In general, the Hawaii marketplace is not a trend setter. Most emerging technologies take several years to take root. For example, mobile computing is just starting to find a foothold in the marketplace.
What would your advice to ICS students who are interested in working locally in high tech? How can they be best prepared?
There are several consulting companies in Hawaii, including eWorldES who are looking for local IT talent. Students should familiarize themselves with these companies and establish communications with these companies if possible. Getting yourself on their radar screen is critical to getting hires locally.
In order to best prepare, take a look at what companies are looking for. For example, here is what eWorldES looks for in a candidate: (1) Java experience, (2) Understanding of object oriented programming, (3) Basic data structures, and (4) Strong writing and communication skills.
If your goal is to be prepared to develop business applications, we find the following skills to be useful:
- Building enterprise web apps using AJAX
- Building Web Services
- Integrating into legacy and ERP systems
- Reverse engineering other people’s code – especially if it’s messy
- Refactor code while maintaining the business logic or extract the business logic from code
- Clean maintainable code best practices
- Functioning portfolio projects that are practical
In addition to technical skills, a student really needs to hone their interpersonal and communication skills. Development work is rarely done in a vacuum and interfacing with clients is critical. Making the clients comfortable and gaining their trust and confidence are much needed skills to being successful in this field.
Do you have internship opportunities for our students? How would they apply?
Yes, we are actively looking for new candidates. To apply they should send their resume to jobs@eworldes.com.
Anything else you’d like us to know?
eWorldES is committed to creating job opportunities in Hawaii for ICS students. It is our desire to give students the option to stay in Hawaii to further their IT careers versus having to move to the mainland to find a comparable career.