These days, Dr. David Chou, a urologist on staff at The Queens Medical Center, operates in a world of miniaturized surgery, thanks to the helpful hands of the da Vinci surgical robot.

As of earlier this year, the $1.5 million machine resembling a giant praying mantis, became the first of its kind available in Hawaii. It provides better care for patients using minimally invasive (also known as laparoscopic) surgical techniques previously offered only in Mainland hospitals.

The da Vinci® Surgical System provides surgeons with an alternative to both traditional open surgery and conventional laparoscopy, putting the surgeon’s hands at the controls of a state-of-the-art robotic platform. The da Vinci system enables surgeons to perform even the most complex and delicate procedures through very small incisions with unmatched precision.

Pacific Technology Foundation’s 2007 Tech Woman of the Year, Debra Pyrek, is not your ordinary “techie” woman. Pyrek, who is the Vice President of Corporate Information Systems for Title Guaranty of Hawaii, says she sees herself more as a business person, making business decisions that just happen to have a large technology component to them, than an IT person.

When questioned on the challenges facing women in the tech industry today, she honestly concedes that overall, there aren’t as many gender-based challenges that one may think. In fact, Pyrek believes that women have a great advantage in the often male-populated IT world in that women are strong communicators and it is her belief that if a woman communicates well and is competent in her IT role, she has the potential to make all the difference in a company.

Traci and Hunter Downs give new meaning to achieving the perfect work-life balance. This duo has been married for eight years and have owned and operated Archinoetics since 2005. Having both grown up in countries all over the world, the two met in 1993 while working at the Research Imaging Center in San Antonio, Texas. In 1999 they married in Charlottesville, Virginia while Traci was working on her PhD in Neuroscience and Hunter was a faculty member at the University of Virginia.

One might think that working and living together would have its disadvantages. Not for the Downs’, who actually seem to use it to their advantage. Of course they are always discussing work outside of work, but they state that some of the best ideas come from that “free time” together, at least whenever they aren’t preoccupied with their four-year-old son, Aiden.

Patrick O’Brien is one busy guy. Being the developer and CEO of Security Resources has been a full time job. But, when it comes to work, he is a firm believer that you need to enjoy what you are doing.

Born and raised in New York, O’Brien made the decision to enter the security industry 22 years ago while he was enrolled at the College of Criminal Justice at Northeastern University. As the first University to establish a Private Security Concentration in their degree program, Northeastern provided this security guru the perfect educational atmosphere which to learn. While in college, one of his professors helped him to discover the private security industry, helping him establish an exciting career in the industry.

For a long time, the mother of DRFortress’ chief financial officer, Rosa White, thought her daughter sold kitchen cabinets for a living. Likewise, the wife of company president Fred Rodi had a hard time wrapping her mind around what her husband did for a living.

“I explained it to her and she said, ‘Oh, so it’s like DRFortress is public storage for computers?’ Then she was disappointed when I told her that wasn’t quite right,” says Rodi.

It’s a hazard of the job for the founders of DRFortress, Hawaii’s premier colocation and Internet peering exchange provider, but one that they’re used to.

Simply put, a colocation center is a type of data house where customers rent out “suites” or “cabinets” to store their network and mission-critical servers and interconnect to a variety of telecommunications and other network service providers at minimum cost.