Irving Wladawsky-Berger

Changing Perceptions: The New "Grand Challenge" in IT Research & Education

I was in the UK last week, where I visited a number of universities and was a keynote speaker at a conference sponsored by BCS - a leading organization of IT professionals around the world which was originally known as the British Computer Society.  The conference, entitled Perceptions in Computing, focused on the challenges facing Information Technology -- specifically, the fact that despite IT's unprecedented ubiquity and importance, there has been for several years a decline in the number of students choosing careers in IT.  The conference web site succinctly describes this paradox:

"A number of widely varying perceptions of computing are…

‘One of the most significant advances of the 20th century’
‘Of vital importance to the future economic prosperity of the UK’
‘The agent of chaos when projects fail’
‘Now in nearly 60% of households’
‘Not the subject I want to study at university’

… these perceptions challenge the UK academic community to deliver world-class applicable research, and exciting degree programmes producing high quality graduates that industry needs."

Why is Innovation Such a Hot Topic? Two Sides of a Coin

It seems that wherever you turn these days, you hear about innovation.  Nations and regions all over the world have innovation initiatives such as the NII in the US, which is run by the Council on Competitiveness and the European initiative on innovation being led by CORDIS.  Many businesses have integrated innovation into their overall strategies and marketing campaigns, such as the Innovation that Matters initiative we at IBM launched earlier this month in conjunction with an advertising campaign around the theme of What Makes You Special?.   

For a while now I've been intrigued by innovation’s emergence as such a hot subject.  One conclusion I have come to is that the major reasons for all the activity around innovation are all the changes taking place around technology, business and society, which I believe are historic in nature and which may have the kind of impact on us in the 21st century that the Industrial Revolution had on previous generations.

The Global Innovation Outlook: What is Going On Out There?

IBM, as you would expect from a company of our size, has long conducted in-house forecasting to determine the emerging trends in technology and business that should shape our strategies.  In 2004, as the focus on innovation started to take shape, we realized that our approach to forecasting and strategy itself had to change.  Increasingly, innovation was occurring at the intersection of technology, business and society, so one had to step back and take a more holistic approach to discern emerging trends in these three dimensions instead of just looking at them individually.   

Thus was born the Global Innovation Outlook (GIO).  We made the decision to sit together with thought leaders from businesses of all sizes, academia, government, public interest groups, the venture capital community and other key constituencies to collectively peer into the future and identify major trends, insights and opportunities.  In order to focus the discussions, we picked three broad societal themes for discussion.  In addition, we tried to surface insights that applied to all three focus areas and spanned various disciplines and industries.

IT Jobs Migration: Fears vs. Reality

The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), one of the largest organizations for IT professionals and students worldwide, has just published an excellent report, "Globalization and Offshoring of Software".  It presents the findings of the organization’s study of the global migration of jobs in the IT industry. 

The study found that despite the intensifying competition for IT jobs around the world, the movement of jobs between developed and developing countries can actually benefit both parties.  Developing countries like India benefit by creating higher paying jobs and generating new sources of revenue.  Developed countries like the US benefit since companies achieve better financial results reflecting the lower costs associated with the offshoring of some jobs.  Those companies can then invest the increased profits in new business opportunities to generate more new jobs and to become  generally more competitive in the fierce global marketplace in which we all live.