Each week on “Tech Talk USA,” our host Jeff Hootselle sits down with experts in the information technology world. This week, Jeff spoke to Neil Chakrabarty from WV Department of Environmental Protection.
The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection is committed to protecting and improving the environmental quality of life for all of West Virginia’s citizens.
To learn more, visit https://dep.wv.gov/Pages/default.aspx
Short company description: Our agency is committed to protecting and improving the environmental quality of life for all of West Virginia’s citizens.
What is your competitive differentiator?: We don’t complete. However we are good at what we do.
How did you get started in the technology field?: I started as an interested child age 6, in 1968 writing code on a digital equipment PDP-8 in my Dad’s laboratory at Marshall University.
What do you consider to be the biggest challenge when bridging the gap between IT and the overall business for most companies?: Specific language of IT. Many IT people do not easily translate IT topics to plain language that non IT people understand.
What is the best or most worthwhile technology investment that you have made in the past 10 years?: Hiring the right people. We have a competitive hiring process.
What are the areas of technology that you see as being the most impactful to the business world in the next 5 years?: AI and the increased pace of Automation.
Brief description of what would you like to discuss on the show:
A range of IT Applications produced by our group. A two minute video of LCAP mobile inspections, talk about above ground tanks and the legislative mandate after the water crisis we met with an online registration system and our capable staff using multiple it systems to get work done during COVID.
Link to 2 minute video
Link to water crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Elk_River_chemical_spill#:~:text=The%20Elk%20River%20chemical%20spill,U.S.%20state%20of%20West%20Virginia.
