IT Outsourcing: A Challenge from Rural USA
Thursday, September 30th, 2010
Information Technology assignments such as applications development and integration, software testing and data reporting are proving expensive for U.S. companies to do in-house. To reduce costs, these jobs were being moved more and more to lower cost countries like India. Such outsourcing of work has led to loss of jobs in the U.S.
A new initiative has been taken by an entrepreneur in Missouri, USA, to halt this trend. The initiative involves going to rural areas where there are no existing IT-trained staff, locating unemployed workers and putting them through a four-month program designed to make the trainees into software developers.
Trainees to undergo the programs are selected carefully. Local Missouri Career Centers do preliminary screening of the candidates. This is followed by behavioral interviewing and a Computer Programming Aptitude Test by the recruiter. Only those who reach a threshold, about one in eight, are accepted for training.
The entrepreneur describes the training program as “gut-wrenching hard work” and not everybody can get through it. What this means is that in each rural area, only a few persons get selected. To achieve volumes, it will be necessary to extend the program to cover ever wider regions.
While the rates charged by the new initiative are still a bit more than offshore firms, the higher charges are compensated by the risks off shoring involves, according to the entrepreneur. Off shoring typically involves communication gaps, time zone differences and quality issues arising from high attrition rates.
Read the story at The Economic Times of India.
Tags: information technology, IT outsourcing
Posted in business, information technology, skills training, training | 3 Comments »
Computer Science Education Week in the U.S.
Tuesday, September 28th, 2010
The week from December 5 to 11, 2010 is to be the Computer Science Education Week (CSEdWeek) according to resolution H.Res. 1560 passed by the U.S. House of Representatives. As outlined at the CSEdWeek website, computing has come to touch everyone’s daily life. It also drives innovation and economic growth, provides rewarding job opportunities and equips students with 21st century skills.
A number of resources are listed at the CSEdWeek website. These include:
* A link to the Computing Careers website that explains the opportunities in the field and how to get trained to tap these
* A model curriculum for K-12 Computer Science that can help students develop computational thinking skills, e.g. how to prevent a computer from sending out spam mail
* A kit for use by educators to create awareness about and interest in a computing career. The kit consists of posters, information and digital media
Computing education needs to be rigorous to produce skilled persons who can apply the immense power of computing to practical problems. Such education should impart thinking skills in addition to technical skills to create a generation that can cope with the challenges in an ever changing field.
Visit the CSEdWeek website.
Tags: computing education, csedweek, information technology
Posted in education, information technology, training | No Comments »
Nanoeducator to Train Students in Nanotechnology
Thursday, July 1st, 2010
The potential of nanotechnology in solving some of the greatest problems we face, including sustainable and non-polluting energy, is becoming increasingly evident. At the same time it is extremely difficult to work with matter at nanoscale (a nanometer is one-billionth of a meter). The risks of working with materials at this scale (which can permeate the human skin, for example) is also a major factor.
Education on all these aspects is essential if nanotechnology is to fulfill its promise.
Nanoeducator is a device that was developed by two Russian foundations, Foundation of Assistance to Development of Small Forms of the Enterprises in Scientific and Technical Sphere and Foundation of education and science (Alferov’s foundation).
The device includes a basic scanning microscope (SPM) and other incidentals, including a text book that teaches how to use SPM microscopy and nanolithography fundamentals. It comes with scientific training software that works under Mac OS or Windows XP. The student oriented device can be used for applications in biology, materials science, data storage devices, micro and nano structures and inspection of parts made with MEMS technology.
The device can be used in AFM, AFM lithography and STM modes. The software can be used for STM manipulation and image processing/analysis.
Read more at NT-MDT page.
Tags: education, nanotechnology, training device
Posted in education, nanotechnology, training | No Comments »
Master of Science Program in Computer Science and Journalism
Tuesday, April 20th, 2010
The Columbia University School of Journalism is launching a dual masters program in journalism and computer science, in association with the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science at the New York university. The proposal is now awaiting the approval of the country’s Department of Education.
The program will involve two semesters of coursework in journalism and three in computer science.
The university spokesperson pointed out that with the unprecedented access to news now possible, the present should be the golden age of journalism. More people have access to news and they have access to more sources.
The spokespeson felt that most news organizations have not fully embraced the digital revolution. The proposed course is intended to train journalists who also have computer-related technical skills such as data mining and computational imaging, for example.
Graduates from the course will have “both the editorial and technological skills to produce new applications and online tools that could help redefine journalism in a fast-changing digital media environment.”
This is believed to be “he first truly integrated program of its kind,” according to a univesity spokesperson. The news report adds that the Columbia University School of Journalism, established in 1912, became the first graduate school of journalism in America in 1935.
Read the news release at redOrbit.
Tags: education, information technology, journalism and computing, masters program in journalism
Posted in education, information technology, training | No Comments »
Retraining IT Technicians to Help the Elderly use Telehealth Technology
Thursday, April 1st, 2010
The Health and Wealth Care Initiative for Vermont and New Hampshire is seeking a $1.75 million grant, which it will match with $750,000, under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to retrain IT workers. These will be people who are familiar with older computer systems, who will now be trained to work with “cloud computing” where applications and data reside on the Internet instead of on local computers.
The retrained IT workers will then act as mentors to elderly people helping them use telehealth systems. Telehealth systems link patients to their healthcare providers over the Internet. Digital devices can transmit patient data to the healthcare provider and patients receive guidance and treatment remotely.
The retrained IT workers will help the aged to use devices like the Apple iPad that combines a phone and computer. Elderly patients living in rural areas can benefit greatly from the new initiative, its proponents argue. It will also create new employment opportunities to IT workes whose skills might be outdated.
One incidental benefit claimed for the initiative is that patients are more honest in answering health questions over the computer as against face-to-face consultations with their physicians.
Read the news at fosters.com
Tags: cloud computing, elderly, information technology, retraining, telehealth systems
Posted in cloud computing, healthcare, information technology, training | No Comments »
The Missouri University Computer Science Department Meets “Customer” Needs
Sunday, March 14th, 2010
Successful businesses are distinguished by their customer orientation. They deliver products with just the right features, features demanded by users. The smartphone application development by the computer science department of Missouri University is a great illustration of how this can be done.
The customers in this case are members of Missouri Students Association. The association places a request for a smartphone application suite with certain specific functionalities, including communications services, dining services, a campus map and campus tour applications. Though a sports application was also requested, the university is not developing it as the sports department prefers to use its outlets to deliver news.
Groups of students at the computer science department are developing the different applications, which will then be consolidated. Again, customer orientation is evident as students are being provided development experience in a real-life environment.
The applications will include specific features that provide real value to students, such as menus, nutrition information and food ingredients at different dining halls in the dining services application. Though starting with iPhone, the applications will be developed to work across as many devices as possible, such as Blackberry, Windows smart phone and the iPad.
Data for the applications is being assembled from concerned sources, such as Dining Services and MU News Bureau.
Altogether, a great example of how to go about product development. See more details at the maneater
Tags: customer orientation, smartphone apps
Posted in business, education delivery, information technology, smartphone applications, technology commercialization, training | No Comments »
Scientific Software and Traditional IT Environment
Thursday, March 4th, 2010
Information technology is supporting everything, from product design through office administration to scientific research. For example, biotechnology researchers can now work with genetic modeling and chemical composition software.
It is in this context that biotechnology firms are seeking to employ more and more IT professionals. The traditional computer scenario is anything but uniform. There are many different protocols, operating sytems, proprietory and open source formats and more. Migrating from one system to another system can often prove beyond the capabilities of a user who is not an IT professional.
Science researchers are scientists, not IT professionals. They are quite likely to become perplexed when software designed for one environment does not work as expected in a different environment. The situation is aggravated because developers of scientific software do not often consider cross-platform limitations of their products.
Open source software that do not need a license to use is beneficial in many ways. However, they can also bring problems because they can be altered by the open source community of developers. And scientists with limited IT expertise can find it a challenge to move data from one open source program to another created in a different environment.
Educational institutions are now beginning to offer programs that equip trainees with the skill to meet the requirements of biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries, such as cross platform data evaluation systems.
Read the blog post about specialized IT programs.
Tags: biotechnology, data migration, information technology, IT protocols, open source software, scientific research, specialized IT training
Posted in information technology, training | No Comments »
Advancing Use of Healthcare Information Technology and Employment
Sunday, February 14th, 2010
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis announced on February 12 a total of nearly $1 billion in Recovery Act awards to help health care providers use health information technology (IT) and train workers for the health care jobs of the future.
The health department award of over $750 million is aimed at building capacity for widespread and meaninful use of IT in healthcare. It will assist healthcare providers to adopt and use electronic health records (EHR) in a meaningful way to improve the quality and efficiency of healthcare for Americans. The goal of the awards is to help over 100,000 hospitals and primary care physicians by 2014.
$386 million of the grant will help states to facilitate Health Information Exchange (HIE) and $375 million will go to non-profit organizations for developing regional extension centers (RECs) to aid health professionals implement and use health information technology.
The Department of Labor grant of over over $225 million will help train 15,000 people in healthcare, IT and other high-growth-potential job skills. Grant recipients have already identified roughly 10,000 job openings over the next two years in areas like nursing, pharmacy technology and information technology and the grants will fund training programs to equip people to tap such openings.
While training will be offered at local community colleges, employment services will be available through DOL’s career centers.
Read the full news release at: Recovery Act Announcement
Tags: electronic health records, health care jobs, health information exchange, health information technology, healthcare IT, IT jobs
Posted in healthcare, information technology, training | No Comments »
