For Dennis Cheng, the founder of twobytwo Solutions, every day is a mission in search of the truth.
twobytwo Solutions is a digital forensics and electronic discovery firm located in Jessup’s TekRidge Center. A Chamber incubator program client for the past one-and-a-half years, Cheng readily admits that no two days are ever alike in his office.
“Digital forensics is the examination of any digital device, normally a computer or cell phone,” he said. “A lot of times, we’re asked a question or to perform an investigation. A classic example is that an employer or lawyer might have a question about an employee that had allegedly been misbehaving, so they will call us and we will make a preservation of that computer and analyze it to reconstruct the employee’s behavior.”
Some of the questions that Cheng and his team need to address while analyzing devices include whether or not the employee was looking at inappropriate sites during work hours or if the employee was stealing confidential information.
“We’ve taken on a broad spectrum of cases,” he said. “We’ve represented clients involved in white-collar criminal matters, like tax fraud or misappropriation of funds, helped both major defense contractors and mom-and-pop shops resolve the issues threatening their businesses and performed internal investigations of municipal governments and law enforcement. ”
In terms of electronic discovery for legal proceedings, twobytwo Solutions uses computers—an entire roomful—to do in fraction of the time what used to take legal staffers days or weeks to do.
“The legal system itself—both lawyers and clients—is ill-equipped to handle large amounts of data,” Cheng said. “It would take dozens of people to go through the information or a lot of computing power, and computing approach is often more cost-effective.”
“I feel like we’re doing positive work,” he continued. “It is very exciting to work in this field; a lot of the stuff that’s the headline in the paper, we have our hand in it.”
While combing through a computer’s files might seem like a solitary task, Cheng feels that his location at TekRidge and his participation in the Chamber’s incubator program provide him with a solid business network.
“We’ve developed good relations with other tenants at TekRidge—it is a very collaborative environment here,” he said. “We bounce questions off of each other. We also collaborate on projects and refer business. It is a collegial environment here.”
“Utilizing the network of Chamber members, not just in terms of gaining exposure, but also in terms of being mutually helpful, is where Chamber membership brings its value,” he added. “There are also resources and programs the Chamber brings to the table. We’ve had useful sessions here that we might not have had if we were out on our own. For example, a fundraising specialist might not come directly to you but since you’re in the incubator network, they will come and present to all of the tenants. The Chamber facilitates that and it has been helpful. They are interested in the success of all the businesses here at TekRidge.”
