IP: "We don't have the raw talent we need to be on the cutting edge"

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

I would like to see discussion on this one djf


> Date: Sat, 21 Jul 2001 14:25:26 -0700
> To: dave () farber net
> From: Ari Ollikainen <Ari () TimpaniNet com>
> Subject: "We don't have the raw talent we need to be on the cutting edge"
> X-Loop-Detect: 1
>
>         Fodder for IP...this article (or Stan Williams) may be a bit
>         Chicken Littleish and perhaps a bit chauvinistic.
>
>         From my perspective as an immigrant kid who received his secondary
>         and higher education in the US and, as a result, enjoyed the
>         opportunity to work within the leading edge academic and
>         industrial R&D labs, I'm a bit dismayed with the idea that we're
>         now in a "talent crisis"... particularly because we're not
>         graduating enough students with computer-science degrees.
>
>         I'm also particularly perturbed by the revelation of the staffing
>         profile of the HP lab cited in the article. Especially since HP
>         is a proponent and supporter of increasing the number of foreigners
>         allowed to enter the US under H1B visas.
>
>         At least HP has **some** staffers over the age of 45 in that
>         particular lab...
>
>         Yet, given the state of our tech industry, more experienced
>         talent is being encouraged to take early retirement or being
>         laid off. And many of those who are laid off will find that
>         the barriers for re-employment are going to be unexpectedly
>         high.
>
> http://www.siliconvalley.com/docs/news/svtop/teched072201.htm
> Posted at 11:50 a.m. PDT Saturday, July 21, 2001
>
> Tech talent alarm sounded
>
> U.S. innovation needs jump-start
>
> BY TIA O'BRIEN
> Mercury News
>
> ``Everyone over the age of 45 in my lab was born in the United
> States. No one under the age of 45 in my lab is from the United
> States.''
>
> With that simple statement, technology pioneer Stan Williams, chief
> of Hewlett-Packard's top-secret nanotechnology laboratory, shocked a
> group of congressional Democrats into grasping the dimensions of
> Silicon Valley's talent crisis.
>
> Williams delivered his urgent message at the New Democrat Network's
> fifth annual retreat, which brings members of Congress west to learn
> more about Silicon Valley's needs. This time, the story told by some
> of high tech's original revolutionaries was sobering: America's
> innovation machine needs a high-voltage jump-start.
>
> ``We don't have the raw talent we need to be on the cutting edge,''
> economist Paul Romer warned members of Congress attending last
> weekend's San Francisco gathering. The Stanford University professor
> is the father of New Growth economics, the theory underlying many of
> the New Economy concepts.
>
> He drilled the politicians on the following grim facts:
>
> Foreign countries, not the United States, are increasingly producing
> the engineers and scientists driving high-tech innovations.
>
> This shortage not only threatens to further slow down the U.S.
> economy -- and our high-tech revolution -- but it could end the
> United States' 50-year reign as the world's technology leader.
>
> Romer's theory goes like this: In our new knowledge-driven economy,
> if we run short of highly skilled ``knowledge'' workers, we'll run
> short on great ideas needed to fuel revolutionary innovations.
>
> Some of Romer's fellow conference panelists argued that this already
> has happened -- and that's one reason the Internet boom ran out of
> juice. ``We ran into an innovation shortfall,'' claims John Doerr,
> the visionary venture capitalist who helped university student Marc
> Andreessen co-found Netscape and parlay his Web browser into a
> product that transformed the Internet into a mass communication tool.
>
> Romer is now urging Congress to use federal funds to encourage more
> students to pursue high-tech-related degrees. To drive home why
> federal help is so critical, he flashed an array of worrisome
> statistics before the Democrats, who listened with rapt attention:
>
> Since 1986, the number of U.S. students graduating with
> computer-science degrees has dropped from 45,000 to 24,000. England,
> followed by South Korea, is ahead of the United States in the
> percentage of their populations with science and engineering degrees.
>
> This leaves high-tech companies reliant on foreign innovators who are
> visiting the United States on temporary foreign-worker visas.
> Consider what's happening in Williams' HP laboratory -- where
> researchers are working on nanotechnology, which includes the next
> generation of microscopic computer devices that will be embedded in
> our clothes, homes, offices and cars.
>
> Just last week, HP announced a major breakthrough: the use of
> molecules as circuits for these microscopic chips. But when the visas
> expire for some of Williams' under-45 researchers, they may leave --
> taking their ideas with them.
>
>
>        Timpani Networks          Ari Ollikainen
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>        Bldg.9, Suite 901         Ari () TimpaniNet com
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