Briefs
Quick and To the Point
Surprise Opens Fab Lab, Bolsters Burgeoning Tech The opening of Arizona’s first fabrication laboratory in Surprise, also known as a “fab lab,” will surface ideas of inventors from the community and all over Arizona in addition to advancing the technological education of Western Maricopa Education Center students. “For the public, it’s a place to come and test and patent what a member of the community is thinking about or dreaming about. They can have a place to come create their project,” says Adriana Alvarado, public information officer at West-MEC. Surprise will be among the few cities with such a facility; there are only 60 fab labs around the world, attracting doctors, artists, archaeologists, prototype inventors and more. The fab lab, opening in the vacant Heard Museum West building in late spring, will be open to the public during certain hours of the day for a small fee, with memberships available. Inventors will have access to 3-D printers, electronic workbenches, laser cutters and computer-controlled routers — equipment typically found only at universities and large companies. “Only your imagination can limit what can happen in the fab lab,” says Alvarado, relating the words of Diane McCarthy, director of business partnerships for West-MEC. —Melissa Mistero Western Maricopa Education Center
www.west-mec.org
Tech Games Boost Work Force Preparedness How to improve the employable skills of its graduates? When the Maricopa Community Colleges district office took this concern to one of the state’s largest tech employers, Avnet responded by developing the Avnet Tech Games to challenge the students in real-world skills. Now in its sixth year, the competition has not only changed the way students approach a project but has given the faculty at the colleges a greater understanding of what the industry is looking for. “We purposely build requirements in the game around the skill we want the students to have, so we can hire them and they can come up to speed more quickly,” says Teri Radosevich, VP of Community Relations and Public Affairs, who says Avnet also talks to its suppliers to develop the games to encourage skills that will support those products as well. And in 2009, Avnet launched its Virtual Games to open the opportunity to students across the nation. Ken Marlin, who has hired former Games competitors for his Technology Solutions team and is one of the many Avnet employee volunteers who make the Games happen, relates they added a quality metric in their judging after the first year. In the race to build a computer from the component parts they were given, the results “mirrored what we saw in the work force — no understanding of quality.” Now, as an employer, he says, “It helps our integration center to have students who understand quality.” Joe Tillison, Avnet’s director of technical product marketing, and Chandler-Gilbert Community College engineering professor Bassam Matar launched a curriculum change when they discovered that students would not be able to compete in a game Avnet wanted to run — because the engineering curriculum being taught was 30 years out of date. Matar implemented a changed curriculum, and then, with grants from the National Science Foundation, made the new curriculum available to other area colleges and universities. —RaeAnne Marsh
Sell, Swipe and Simplify with Mobile Apps With technology that allows business professionals to actually complete credit and debit card transactions directly from their phones, cell phone applications are making the sales component of business a lot easier. While there are many apps available with varying features, most have the same basic premise: process credit and debit cards, and electronically send a receipt to customers. Most apps have a feature that also allows users to track sales. As far as costs incurred to users, many apps are going to require a monthly charge, a charge per transaction, a percentage on swiped charge sales and a percentage on the charges that must be manually entered. The key for business owners is finding which version of the app will best suit their business. The answer is often based on the businesses’ volume of sales. Georgia Parker, co-owner of the mobile business Sunshine & Spice, uses the Square app by Square, Inc. and has found it to be efficient and suitable for her fast-paced work in the food industry. “The app is user friendly and was very easy to set up.” The Square app charges 2.5% for swiped charges, and 3.5% when cards are manually entered. Still, the app is cost-effective for her. Parker says the app is necessary for her business, since cards are so common and people don’t often carry cash anymore. Parker also has a lot of customers who use company credit cards, so the app accommodates people who are using their business accounts for purchases. “The convenience for customers outweighs any costs that we have to pay.” With these easy-to-install and simple-to-navigate apps, many possibilities emerge for mobile businesses, entrepreneurs and small business owners. —Kayla Karp Sunshine & Spice
Avnet
Maricopa Community Colleges
14
www.sunshineandspice.com
www.avnet.com
M a r c h 2011
www.maricopa.edu
inbusinessmag.com