NGA meeting-goers taste Pennsylvania
By Barbara Hale

Penn State’s newly refurbished and expanded HUB-Robeson Center was the site of the National Governors' Association meeting’s Monday social event, A Taste of Pennsylvania reception hosted by Gov. Tom Ridge.

Pennsylvania food, art, music, commerce, government and education were showcased at dozens of exhibits, food stations, and entertainment sites but high technology was actually the real focus. Each of the exhibits – and even some of the food stations – sent the message that Pennsylvania is committed to a high-tech future, through collaborations among government, the private sector and universities.

Featured prominently were a new online course at Penn State’s one-year-old School of Information Sciences and Technology (IST), businesses aided by Penn State’s Ben Franklin Technology Center, high tech collaborations involving Penn State, Pitt, Lehigh, and Carnegie-Mellon, even the technology behind the Penn State id+ card which packs photo ID, meal plan access, ATM functions, cash and calling card services all on one piece of plastic.

Sounding one of his major conference themes, Gov. Ridge told reporters gathered for a briefing before the party that Pennsylvania is in the forefront of the New Digital Economy, first to have a statewide web portal, first to put its World Wide Web address on its license plates and voted, this spring, one of the top eight cyberstates by the American Electronics Association.

"It’s all about attracting high tech employers and their high paying jobs by creating and retaining a skilled workforce and investing in technology," he said.

Reporters received an early afternoon preview of the exhibits. A robotic dog that responded to attention from reporters almost like a real canine was featured at the Pittsburgh Digital Greenhouse (PDG) display. PDG is a collaboration among Penn State, Carnegie Mellon and the University of Pittsburgh, the Commonwealth, and 17 leading global high-tech firms, including Sony, the company that developed the dog. The toy poodle-sized plastic pet, named Aibo, was there to illustrate advanced artificial intelligence and chip technology that is the PDG’s goal. Gov Ridge last year helped launch PDG to make Southwestern Pennsylvania a worldwide leader in next-generation, systems-on-a-chip technology.

The "It’s a High Tech Environment" exhibit focused on the first IST course to be offered online. The course, Introduction to Information Sciences and Technology, is being developed by Cole Camplese, IST director of education and training solutions. It will debut at University Park in the fall and will be available on the World Wide Web through a partnership with the Penn State World Campus in the spring. Justin Plock of Boalsburg, Pa and Jeffrey Otto of Montrose, Pa, both members of IST’s first class of students, demonstrated exercises from the course and invited conference-goers to try their hand.

Two high school students from the Governor’s School for Information Technology showed visitors how to use a palm top computer to control go-cart style robots made of legos. The Governor’s School is an intensive, annual five-week summer program for gifted high-school students launched last summer at Penn State and Drexel.

Brian Baxter, a student at West Chester East High School, explained, "We got to write our own software for the robots and do the programming so the palm top could direct it." His teammate, Alex Intihan from Seneca Valley High School, added, "It was fun."

Another group of Governor’s School students demonstrated how they collaborate via telecommunications with students at Drexel on making a website accessible to people with visual or hearing impairments. A third group worked with WPSX-TV to tell the NGA story from the student viewpoint. Production teams of young people swarmed around Gov. Ridge and Penn State President Graham Spanier as they came to watch the students’ demonstrations.

Corporate exhibits showcased Pennsylvania companies’ large and small includingVideon Central, Inc., a rapidly growing three-year old State College company. Videon received funding from Penn State’s Ben Franklin Technology Center and also is an affiliate member of the Chamber of Business and Industry of Centre County incubator program which is housed at the PSU Research Park. A "boot-strap" company founded on only $1500, Videon is now the leading developer of HDTV products for the personal computer industry.

An exhibit featuring Furman Foods, Inc. of Northumberland, Pa., the largest producer of tomatoes on the East Coast, and SCT, a Malvern company that develops information solutions for specific industries, illustrated the food — high tech connection. At that exhibit, called A Day in the Life of a Tomato, meeting-goers could watch a magician named Giovanni make cherry tomatoes disappear. They could also make tomatoes disappear themselves by eating them along with mozzarella at a nearby food station. The exhibit also demonstrated how e-commerce can help deliver produce to people’s tables quicker and better with software enabling the supply chain.

The crowd of nearly 900 included close to 40 governors, plus their families, staff members, state and national policy makers and corporate leaders. As they strolled through the exhibits, galleries and musical events they could sample Pennsylvania regional food specialties.

Scattered throughout the HUB were the Bellefonte High School Dixieland Band, the NIA SteelPan Ensemble from Pittsburgh, the Penn State Graduate String Quartet and the new Les Shaw Swing Band. Later in the evening, they could enjoy a performance of all-American works by Penn State’s Music at Penn’s Woods orchestra and the U.S. Army Chorus led by Luis Biava, principal conductor of The Philadelphia Orchestra.

The meeting concludes July 11, after an address by Federal Reserve System Chairman Alan Greenspan.