You're up and running!

You’re up and running… this is where we all start. It’s hard to start a blog when you’re not really sure what to write about. I guess the best place to start would be an introduction to myself but you can also find something a little more exciting here.

Where I’m from

I grew up on long island for the first 18 years of my life. As a young lad, it slowly became apparent that making video games like Super Mario 64 or Donkey Kong 64 was probably a little too specific. But, it did incentivize taking some programming classes. We started with [MicroWorlds][microworlds] moving turtles around and making different coloured squiggles. From there we made the move to AP computer science where java was the language of choice. A program that accepted roman numerals and output their numeric equivalents (and vice-versa) was the first time that this programming stuff seemed impressive.

Where I’m at

Currently I’m in attendance at the Rochester Institute of Technology, studying Software Engineering, Computer Science, and Communications. RIT’s co-op program landed me a sweet job working at a startup in Columbus, Ohio called [CoverMyMeds][cmm]. Working as a web developer there has been both challenging and rewarding. I cannot say that I’ve pushed myself to work harder to keep up with my peers as I do here. In the brief 3 months working there, lessons in Ruby, Rails, HTML, Javascript, and ember have been a daily occurrence.

Where I’m going

Information is one of the most powerful tools in our lives. It helps us decide when to put gas in our car, when to wake up, how to better ourselves, etc. If you think about the boost in information that something like google has given us, you can slowly see threads of improvements in the overall quality of life for everyone on the planet. It’s more than just not having to go to the library and check out a book. Rather than heading to the bookstore, browsing cookbooks, published only because they had the potential to make money for the publisher, I can google what food I want to eat and easily find a recipe that was crafted by a food blogger who writes because they love it, not because they want to make money.

I want to use the tools of manipulating information to improve the lives of as many people as possible. I currently get that validation from working at CoverMyMeds. The knowledge that every prior authorization that is submitted could have been a patient who went without the drugs they need, is a powerful motivator. I’m currently working on a tool that helps a prescriber or pharmacist chat with us so that we can effectively guide them through the process. Sometimes it can feel like for every successful chat, there’s a patient who wouldn’t have received their medication.

At the moment I feel that I can share a lot of the talents that I’ve gained working at CoverMyMeds to help others with their problems. For every client I can guarantee that I will work my hardest to guarantee a realistic product that is high quality, within budget, and on time.

Picks of the week

Written on September 10, 2015