UT Arlington affiliation: exhibitor at the fifth annual Technology Fair

Interrupted: 2:33 p.m. Nov. 16 in the E.H. Hereford University Center Bluebonnet Ballroom

Are you a UT Arlington graduate?
No, I’m from Austin. I went to St. Edward’s.

What are your impressions of the Technology Fair?
I think it’s going very well. It’s a nice, big event with a lot of atmosphere and energy. I like that. I’ve probably talked to about 200 people.

Tell me about your company.
SwissBit is a memory company with USB flash drives and also internal memory for computers. We’re a Swiss company that’s been in business for more than 14 years, but we’re fairly new in North America. We were a division of Siemens at one point.

For those of us who are technologically challenged, what’s a USB flash drive?
It’s a small memory device that plugs into a computer’s USB port. Flash drives don’t have as much memory as an external hard drive, but they’re more durable because they don’t contain any moving parts. They’re very easy to carry around.

What are these things that look like Swiss army knives?
That’s our novelty item. We partner with Victorinox, the original maker of the Swiss army knife. We use their design and build a body style that allows us to put one of our flash drives in there. You’ve still got your knife blades in there, too.

Can I buy one?
No, these are just for display. We gave away some in a raffle.

How are people reacting to your product?
The feedback from students has been good. Our products fit their needs. The floppy drive is now obsolete because of the flash drive. It’s like a powerhouse floppy disk. They can store Word files, PowerPoint presentations, photo files, MP3 wave files, Excel spreadsheets—a lot of elaborate files. It’s like having a minicomputer in your pocket. Our storage capacities range from 128 megabytes all the way to four gigabytes on special request.

Will you come to the Tech Fair next year?
Most likely we will.

— Mark Permenter