John Harris, editor-in-chief and co-founder of Politico addresses the Northern Virginia Technology Council Monday, Nov. 12 at the Tysons Corner Ritz-Carlton Photo by Alex McVeigh.
The Northern Virginia Technology Council hosted their annual banquet Monday, Nov. 11 at the Tysons Corner Ritz-Carlton, recognizing technology contractors and raising funds for their Equal Footing Foundation nonprofit. Though the event was postponed due to Hurricane Sandy, it didn’t stop hundreds of council members from attending.
“We made the decision to reschedule as the storm approached, so we’re pleased that so many people were able to adjust their schedule,” said Bobbie Kilberg, president and CEO of the NVTC.
Bryan Stygar, chief technology officer of KoreFederal, was given the small company award for technology government contractor innovation.
“This past year, Bryan has automated many of KoreFederal’s back office processes, including cloud computers and software service solutions. He also developed an IT service model that improved KoreFederal’s office automation and IT capability, while minimizing capital requirements to procure, staff and manage IT infrastructure,” said Sherry Covell of Harris IT Services, who presented the awards. “Brian is also directly responsible for sales, development and management of . . . more than 60 percent of the company’s estimated 2011 and 2012 revenues.”
Yogesh Khanna, vice president and chief technology officer of CSC, was given the award in the large company category.
“Under Yogesh’s leadership, CSC’s Chantilly Innovation Center has evolved into a strategic asset for CSC, becoming a primary hub for evaluating leading edge products and technologies,” Covell said. “Last year Yogesh developed a strategic road map for product offering to support the Federal Data Center Consolidation initiative.”
THE NVTC awarded more than $60,000 to the Equal Footing Foundation, which supports community initiatives that include technology in their mission, which came from several recent fundraisers.
An October golf tournament raised $41,000, and the “Run Geek Run” 8K race in September netted $20,000 for the foundation. An additional $4,800 was raised during the banquet from a raffle.
“Today, the foundation has seven clubhouses between Fairfax and Fauquier counties, which serve more than 1,700 youth every week,” said Ellen Harrison, chair of the foundation. “Without the dedicated support of the NVTC and its members, we would not be able to offer quality programs that engage and empower our region’s students, helping them become the next generation of technology and community leaders.”
The keynote speaker for the banquet was John Harris, editor-in-chief and co-founder of Politico. Harris founded the website in 2007, and spoke about the current and future ramifications of the recent presidential election.
He commented that despite the enormous scope of the election, more than 500 days between the first Republican debate to election day, it seemed like people were more focused than ever on the small things.
“It lasted a long time, and in that sense it was large, but in every other sense, it was small. There were a lot of big questions, like what direction should the country take, but coverage seemed to be dominated by gaffes or silly statements, or cable TV uproar,” he said. “We talked about Big Bird, argued about what Donald Trump said about Barack Obama being a citizen, about what the ‘47 percent’ remarks meant, or ‘binders full of women.’”
He said it was incumbent upon media outlets to help keep the debate focused on the serious issues facing the country.
“We had small arguments, a small playing field with the electoral college, in this case about five states, where campaigns focused on tiny slivers of the electorate,” he said. “It’s made politics more segmented, but elections are fundamentally about everybody, and I feel most people could participate only as spectators.”