On 20/01/16 07:50, Bernard Robertson-Dunn wrote: > http://thenewdaily.com.au/life/2016/01/18/aussies-least-prepared-new-economy/ > > "Australians were least confident of their technical abilities and job > prospects in the innovation age ... by ... Infosys said. ..."
The Infosys report is "Amplifying Human Potential: Education and Skills for the Fourth Industrial Revolution": http://images.experienceinfosys.com/Web/Infosys/%7B6139fde3-3fa4-42aa-83db-ca38e78b51e6%7D_Infosys-Amplifying-Human-Potential.pdf This was a study attitudes, not skills. I suggest that Australians not wanting to code mobile apps for startups shows good common sense. Your chance of earning a living this way is minimal. It is the 21st century equivalent of sewing t-shirts in a sweat shop. It is useful to have a grounding in STEM and business skills. But working in a start-up is much like putting all your money on a roll of the dice (except you have ten times the chance of winning at dice). A job in a large company, with a regular pay-check is not to be turned down lightly. Last year ANU started offering IT students the option of a start-up for their group project. Students still have the option of doing a software development project for an existing company, or government agency, but they can instead opt to start their own business. This is called "ANU TechLauncher": https://cs.anu.edu.au/TechLauncher/ This works with the existing "Innovation ACT" business planning competition for Canberra's university students: http://www.innovationact.org/ A start-up project as part of education, I suggest, is a useful learning experience so the students can experience failure in a safe environment. This is a real world version of the fictional "Kobayashi Maru" test of Star Trek, where Starfleet Academy cadets are faced with a no-win situation. The chances of the student's start-up project succeeding are higher, but still only about 1 in 100. Having mentored winning Innovation ACT start-up teams for a few years and assessed TechLuancher students, what struck me was that the skills they learn are just as applicable in large organizations. If you are doing IT in a large organization then you need to know how to plan, cost and pitch a project (and fail most of the time). To that end I have starting producing mobile based e-learning to help with this: http://blog.highereducationwhisperer.com/2015/04/designing-innovation-course-part-3.html -- Tom Worthington FACS CP, TomW Communications Pty Ltd. t: 0419496150 The Higher Education Whisperer http://blog.highereducationwhisperer.com/ PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia http://www.tomw.net.au Liability limited by a scheme approved under Professional Standards Legislation Adjunct Senior Lecturer, Research School of Computer Science, Australian National University http://cs.anu.edu.au/courses/COMP7310/ _______________________________________________ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link