Computer security among BGSU Tech Fair topics

BOWLING GREEN, O.—Computer security, an ongoing concern in an online age, will be among the topics headlining Bowling Green State University's seventh annual Northwest Ohio Technology Fair, set for 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Wednesday (Nov. 15).

BGSU will welcome nearly 60 exhibitors to the free, public fair in the Lenhart Grand Ballroom of the Bowen-Thompson Student Union. Northwest Ohio high school students will also be on hand for the announcement at 11 a.m. of winners of the fourth annual high school Web design contest.

Among the exhibitors new to this year's fair will be QIN Inc., a northeast Ohio company whose presentation, “Paradise or Parasite,” will cover implementation of multiple safeguards when developing a secure yet accessible computer system.

In addition to manning a display table in the ballroom, QIN will give the presentation in a “break-away” session in 201A Union, adjacent to the ballroom. Indiana-based Matrix Integration LLC will also address security-related issues during a Web seminar about network access control. The “Webinar” is another of the break-away sessions, whose times will be posted at: www.bgsu.edu/offices/cio/studenttech/techfair.

Subjects of other sessions, also in 201A Union, include interactive, student response systems in the classroom, presented by Youngstown-based Turning Technologies LLC, and online tutorials for more than 100 applications used by students and educators. The latter session will feature Atomic Learning Inc., a Little Falls, Minn., firm that provides the training.

Also exhibiting classroom technology at the fair will be vendors such as Duluth, Ga.-based Logical Choice Technologies and its “ACTIVclassroom,” and Schoolhouse Electronics, a maker of presentation display products from Bluffton.

WBGU-PBS will project the breakaway sessions into the ballroom, where campus radio station WBGU-FM will broadcast live during the fair.

High school Web design winners will be chosen from four entries in the high school Web page category, 13 in the high school organization category and 14 entrants who submitted personal Web pages. Entrants represent Wapakoneta, Stryker, Perrysburg, Toledo Christian and Sylvania Northview high schools, as well as Penta County Joint Vocational School in Perrysburg and EHOVE Career Center, a vocational school in Milan with students from Erie, Huron and Ottawa counties.

The high school with the best Web page will receive a $500 cash award, and the top high school organization will win a Canon digital camera. First prize for the best personal Web page will be a Lexmark photo printer, while the runner-up will receive a SanDisk flash drive—a key chain-size data storage unit that plugs into a computer—and the third-place finisher, a Magnavox DVD player.

Flash drives, as well as a Web camera and DVDs, will also be among the prizes awarded to winners of drawings during the fair.

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(Posted November 13, 2006)