Challenging the status quo ….

I had the opportunity and privilege of reviewing a few scholarship applications for an international conference on computing with registrants from all parts of the world. I had to review a few applications from India, Pakistan, US, Latin America, Africa. The contrast was very interesting to observe in the level of qualifications of the participants and their essays. The indian applicants were all from the undergraduate degree programs, and their essays were all focused around how the field of IT can be changed etc. I hardly saw mention of the kind of projects I saw from other applicants which included applictions of fundamental computing theories and algorithms to other fields as well as pioneering more work to expand the understanding of computer science itself.

The Indian applicants seemed to not have a clear distinction or understanding of field of computing where as the conference was primarily on computing. And these kids are from some of the Tier 2 colleges of India.

So relating to my experience and observations in India for the past 2 years. When I ask a kid who graduated recently or has been in the industry a couple years about their technology expertise, they will mention Java, .Net, etc. You ask the same question to their counter parts in the US or Europe, and I will highly suspect that the answers would be along – networking, ASIC design, mobile computing, web 2.0 technologies etc. A lot of kids here thanks to how the IT industry picks them up from colleges, put them through an assembly line and then move them from projects to projects based on their clients, are completely ignorant about the history of computing, and what it has taken to get to where we are today. The in depth understanding of computing is still lacking and the fields of applied computing is also missing.

And I believe we are making a big mistake here, because technology startups and companies don’t come out of thin air. They come out when our technology institutions are providing a rigurous curriculum on fundamentals of engineering and computing, and then also doing research and producing Masters and PhDs in applied computing areas in other engineering or technology areas like robotics, agriculture, textiles, civil, ocean engineering etc.

Is the IT industry going to wake up at all ??