Companies that Caught Our Eye

Qardio – Healthcare Tech

One of the companies that first caught my eye in the Tech West Hall at CES was Qardio.

Qardio is a player in the blazing hot Healthcare Tech industry. Qardio makes personal health monitoring systems that elegantly helps to transmit health information to users, doctors and family members. The company is based in San Francisco and has 60+ employees there and in the UK and the Netherlands.

 

I spent a few moments with Monica Islas, the Head of Retail Channel Marketing and asked her about the job and career opportunities in her industry and with Qardio.

Monica herself has a degree in Business Administration and has spent most of her career in product management and marketing.

She spoke glowingly of the opportunities in software engineering and development; but she also talked about the growing number of career opportunities in marketing, sales, business development and product management. Her advice to students interested in the industry was to “first have a passion around healthcare and impacting the health of individuals.” Secondly “to further experiment themselves with the more than 165,000 mobile health apps and various health tech products” that currently exist to understand the user experience and application of the technology. Finally, she encouraged students to “be creative, prepared and persistent” in finding the right fit within the industry and with the right companies.

Segway – Personal Transportation & Mobility

While Segway has been around since Britney Spears’ debut # 1 Album “…Baby One More Time”, it has continued to produce innovative hits in personal transportation and mobility. The personal transportation industry is a growing segment of the overall expanding transportation industry which includes autonomized vehicles and ride sharing. Segway is based in Bedford, NH and has approximately 160 employees worldwide.

In my conversation with Gerry White, Director of Sales, we talked about the job and career opportunities for students in his industry and with Segway. Gerry has been with Segway for 3 years and considers it a place where “people are passionate not only about personal mobility but also the environment.” While Segway has had a very strong engineering and design emphasis since it’s founding, he said that “there are plenty of opportunities in marketing and sales,” particularly for those interested in international experience. His advice to students interested in internship or career opportunities with Segway was be able to “demonstrate a broad curiosity” in how to solve human challenges of mobility at all levels.

eBash/ggCircuit – eSports

eBash and ggCircuit are both eSport related companies founded in Indiana by Hoosier entrepreneur Zack Johnson. While they’re clearly not household names like Microsoft’s Xbox or games like League of Legends, they are one of many small and exciting players in the exploding eSports and gaming industry.

I spoke for a bit with Jason McIntosh, the Director of Technology Education for eBash about the industry and the opportunities available in it for students.

As an instructor of students, he had some great insight on how you could best prepare yourself to break into the industry and with companies like eBash and ggCircuit. His first insight was that having a deep “love of a game” is the best place to begin. He said you didn’t have to be an expert player of a game but must have an intense curiosity and experience with a game to understand how “gamers” interact with it. Jason was also quick to emphasize that students with graphic web design and storytelling talent were equally as in demand and needed as those with software development talent.

As a final tidbit from our conversation, Jason spoke about the 2017 expansion for ggCircuit into college eSports, and what a tremendous opportunity that will be for students who would like to get on the ground floor of that trend.

 

 See Part 1: Under the Radar Careers From CES