Ask a tech person: Steve Davis of Bio::Neos

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It's a summer of code on We Create Here as Sarah works through Dev/Iowa, a nine-week course in web development fundamentals. We'll be blogging along the way, highlighting the local tech community, and probably asking for help. 

In 'Ask a tech person' we'll chat with those who live and breathe tech. Who should we feature next? Let us know in the comments. 

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Meet Steve Davis, president of Bio::Neos. By day, he's a software consultant for life science researchers. Bio::Neos writes custom software from scratch to enable effective and efficient research. Steve is also the instructor for this year's Dev/Iowa summer series and a University of Iowa graduate.

How did you get started in tech?

“I love this story – I tell this one all the time. I learned to program at age 13. My dad worked at Northwestern Mutual, and he brought home an Atari 1200XL one year – it was a computer they had at work, but they upgraded, and weren't using anymore. So he brings the thing home, plugs it in, shows us it, but at that point we didn't have any software – we were like, ‘oh, ok cool, that's a computer.'

“Then a few days later he comes home with a huge box – or a few of them. And in each box was 5 ¼ floppy disks, and every single one of them had a game.  So, we were kids, I had an older sister and two younger brothers…we were like ‘woah!' so we stared playing, literally, every single game out of this box.

“At one point, I found a disk called ‘BASIC.' And I pulled it out, put it in, booted up the Atari – and it said, Atari BASIC, and a caret and a flashing cursor. I was like “this game is stupid!” I typed a few things, hit enter and it said, ‘syntax error.' So I put it back in the box and didn't think about it for a while.

“My sister was in high school, and was coming home from school an hour before I was. She loved to read. So my dad, along with these boxes, had brought home a huge 3-ring binder that said ‘Atari BASIC.' And, I didn't look at it, but for whatever reason, one day, when my sister gets home from school, she opens up this big binder and starts reading it.

“She's reading the Atari BASIC user manual like a book. And while she's doing that, she's learning to program Atari BASIC. So over the course of that hour – when I got home, she threw open the door and said ‘Steve – you've got to see this!' She runs over to the computer and goes ‘watch!' and hits enter. It's that same blinking cursor that I'd seen, but it prints off a trivia question, with like three multiple choice answers.

“She literally taught herself to program BASIC and wrote a video game in an hour. It was unreal. But it was also the coolest thing I'd ever seen – so from that moment on, I was like, ‘I've got to learn how to do this.'

“From that point, not only was I interested in computers because you could play cool games, but I was also interested because you could build something cool. At the time, a lot of my friends were really into video games – we were all playing Nintendo – but I was more interested in how the games were made.”

There's been a push in some fields, including journalism, as well as the Iowa STEM advisory board, to steer everyone toward learning some basic tech skills. Do you think everyone should learn to code?

“I do. Programming is an art. It's not as simple as understanding the syntax. And two people of equal skill level, will do things differently, just because of the feel.

“It's like, we all have a basic art class as we're gowing up, but it's not like we all become great artists. We all take rhetoric when we come to college, but it's not like we all become public speakers. We all take English for many years, even though it's most of our native language, but that doesn't turn us all into writers.

“I think programming is something that people need to understand – it needs to be a little demystified for everyone, because it's so important. So even if you don't become a great coder, or if your creativity, your art in that area, is not world class, I still think it's important that you learn it.”

When I'm talking to companies and economic developers, I hear quite a bit about a shortage of highly skilled, technical workers. What do you see as the workforce situation?

“So, the fact that I think everyone should learn to code, none of that statement is effected by economic concerns. I just think people should learn to code because of the way the world works.

“For this area, speaking of the Corridor, and what we can do to increase the available tech talent and help local companies and groups succeed – I think it's less related to teaching everyone to code. Like I said, it's an art, and not everyone is going to be great at it.

“I think it's more important that we make sure, that as those people who really do have an aptitude…for one, they need to identify that, so they do need to be exposed. For two, as they do figure that out, we need to find ways to foster that, build it, and get them connected to community. And honestly, I feel  like we're doing all of that. I feel like the Corridor is changing, and has been for four or five years.

“We've been in a tech business for 11 years, and the last four or five years just feel different. It's like the ball has started rolling, but it hasn't picked up a whole lot of steam, but it will at some point. So I think we need to keep doing what we're doing, keep providing those opportunities for people that are really skilled to connect to each other and to stay in the area.”

What's the next thing around the corner – the next frontier in tech?

“I'd be a bizillionaire if I knew that. I've seen – at least for us – there was a big push to put everything in the cloud. And while certainly that applies to a lot of situations, when you start talking to researchers with some really confidential information, like things covered by HIPPA, they either aren't allowed, or really would not prefer, to put anything on a public system, even if it's got the best security ever. They want it in house.

“So that's one thing I'm seeing – things moved to the cloud, and now they're kind of moving back. They're still using web technologies, but just using them locally. Sometimes it's called the enterprise cloud, or the personal cloud, but that concept of hosting things using your web technologies, but actually physically using your server on site. I feel like that's got some room to grow.

“For most personal uses, I don't think it's ever going to trump the convenience. But in those cases where security is important, or is mandated to be the most important, it's definitely a factor that's something to watch.”