Pete Roden

For Pete Roden, his career, volunteer work and hobbies all revolve around his passion for technology, especially the Internet of Things and Embedded. He shares his excitement with Cincinnati area teens through INTERalliance, a community-driven program with the goal of inspiring and assisting young talent to pursue careers in IT. Pete leads a workshop at the program’s annual Tech Olympics that focuses on Embedded Design. The kids build and program circuit boards where the they solve mazes, race their friends with internet-controlled bikes, and much more, with the aim of using technology to interact with their surroundings while coaching them to engage positively with each other.

Pete started his tech journey in IT for a print publishing corporation in the financial sector. His role involved digitizing books, training manuals and magazines. He was so often a customer of Microsoft and became such a fan of their products that he wanted to work there too! He eventually transitioned to Microsoft in a services and support role, the team he had worked with the most in his previous job. In his first 9 years at Microsoft, Pete moved through Technical Sales, Cloud Architecture, and a Global Blackbelt before transitioning into CSE where he turns his code into impact.

Some of projects of note Pete has worked on involve his work with mapping Cystic Fibrosis and measuring the effect of various therapies with Project Fizzy0. The aim is to improve patient care and develop credible evidence to guide treatment practices. Pete also worked on a project with the city of London and Mastercard (LINK) to understand how large public events effect traffic locally and enable the city to make changes to their underground system and traffic lights based on high-activity periods.

Technology follows him home; some of his hobbies include 3-D printing and building CNC (computer numerical control) machines. Pete is working on building an arcade cabinet like those with Space Invaders but will also house a plethora of old arcade games through an emulator. In his pursuit to become a grill master, he is also working on crowd-sourcing development of an internet-controlled charcoal grill so he can moderate the grill’s temperature from his phone using dampers and fans, mitigating outside influences of wind and weather. Technology has enhanced everything in Pete’s life, and he enjoys using it to improve the world. A little code can make all the difference, from regulating a grill to developing an e-bike that brings teens together.