A middle school technology camp and an early PC put Andy Hughes on the road to his own digital development company. Today, Hughes runs the technology camp and his Franklin-based firm,
Designing Digitally develops e-learning tools, virtual worlds and websites for clients nationwide.
Hughes, the company's president and founder, says a junior high technology camp run through the Putnam County Educational Service Center (ESC) helped him "learn early on a little bit about technology. And at the same time, my father had brought home a personal computer. And my father said one critical thing to me when I was very young, and he said 'play with it all you want. If you break it we'll figure out how to fix it.' '"
Hughes must have learned well. At 15, he helped build the infrastructure for his local telephone company's first Internet service, and later helped the ESC convert school records from microfilm to digital files.
He says that after earning a digital design degree at Bowling Green State University his freelance work became so robust that, in 2001, he formed his own company.
"We do a lot of e-learning, web-based training," he says. Building virtual worlds for a variety of applications has also been a growth area.
For example, executives at one client company use avatars and computer microphones to meet virtually with one another in place of conference calls or videoconferencing, he says. "They push a button and they're talking to each other and able to virtually meet and have a physical representation of themselves and have that avatar talk."
The company does business with a variety of customers including not-for-profits, corporate clients, educational institutions state and federal agencies -- including a project to develop a virtual world for the Air Force Academy.
The company has eight full-time employees, 16 contractors and consultants, and is hiring.
Source: Andy Hughes, Designing Digitally
Writer: Gene Monteith