The year is finally set to start! strangely enough it comes around just after the Tibetan New Year (22nd February, 2012). I'm wrapping up as a Research Technician at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and starting my new (and return) career as an Engineer! In a few short weeks, I will be starting with BioRAFT and combining my diverse background of chemical engineering, research, & Drupal web development to help them create & roll out some amazing software applications for researchers at the university and institutional level.
Why the change?
The BioRAFT motto: Our Company was founded by researchers, for researchers. We support researchers by enabling them to focus on their research.
Having worked in various laboratories for over 10 years - I was immediately sold on BioRAFT's incredible application!
Foremost is their dedication to taking the non-research (and more mundane administrative) tasks common to all laboratories across all universities and simplifying them and making them accessible to the appropriate people involved. This could be as simple as following a simplified path to IBC Biosafety Registration; managing training modules within a laboratory including re-training and renewals; managing radioactive substances within the lab; and maintainance of occupational health & safety.
I believe wholeheartedly that this is an application that would be an asset to every university (institution, & high school) laboratory. As a researcher, we tend to take training courses for granted and forget what we're qualified in as well as to file the paperwork. With BioRAFT - everything is handled online and organized in a matter of clicks by either the safety officer, PI, or member of EHS.
So I am very excited to jump on board and to go charging into the mapping of this semi-un-charted territory.
Their application is based in the Drupal CMS and therein lies the double excitement given my background in web developing and mucking around with all things Drupal. BECAUSE their application is in Drupal, I am again confident that this application will carry through for all of eternity given the robust, secure, and dependable foundation that Drupal provides to a software.