Is it really Seismic shift in tech world?

These type of stories simply remind me of India's caste system and caste based politics. I don't know why media has to hype such irrelevant facts which are based purely on someone's origin or birth rather than how we perform in the real world.

To my best of the knowledge, in tech world or in any other business world, only one thing matters.. performance.. which is same as value for money.. It is ridiculous to say that one particular group of people are being kicked out the workforce.. how can that happen when the top of same tech world is still controlled by that same particular group?? It is pure business and in pure business, only one thing matters.. performance..

Instead of cribbing about such things, media should highlight stories which should generate interest in so called STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Maths) subjects during early age of child's development. The facts mentioned in the article themselves tell us where to invest if we want so called balance in tech world..

As far as hispanics and black are concerned.. what percentage of high school students actually finish these STEM subjects with flying grades. Now we can start saying that there is discrimination or drive to push out at high school level as well? Come on..

All these things should have been thought way back in 80s or 90s when we decided to off shore our so called menial or low paying jobs.. As a business strategy we decided to do high tech or high value added work in US.. Government totally encouraged off shoring of manufacturing and other low value services jobs.. However, we totally forgot about mentoring or preparing our students for these remaining high tech or high value jobs.. which needed much more intensive studies and focus on STEM subjects. So when these jobs were exponentially getting created there were hardly any engineers to fill in them.

Combined with H1b and internal US engineering focus, slowly, over a period of time, ratio of non-whites kept on decreasing.. but that doesn't mean that there is any kind of discrimination against anyone. I still see many non-asian top class engineers/developers.. It is all about interest or I should say generating kids interest into this beautiful area of high tech world.. there are lot of work going on in this area and slowly, sooner or later parents and kids will start focussing back on this area and should result in great talent seeping back into this high tech world..

There is no need to create or highlight these group based statistics.. instead of this, we need to work on root of this problem..

DOUBLE-DIGIT EMPLOYMENT GAINS

Seismic shift in tech world

Asians skilled in science andmath nowamajority in Bay Area’s workplaces

By Dan Nakaso

dnakaso@mercurynews.com 

Asian-Americans make up half of the Bay Area’s technology workforce, and their double-digit employment gains came from jobs lost among white tech workers, according to an analysis by this newspaper of Census Bureau data released Thursday.

The dramatic shift in the changing composition of the high-tech workforce represents a new generation of homegrown and imported workers drilled in science, technology, engineering and math studies. But the shift in workplace demographics — at least among tech companies — fails to reflect the gains of California’s Hispanic and Latino population, which lost ground in tech jobs along with African- Americans.

“It’s the new world — a world in which whites are not the majority,” said Jan English-Lueck, associate dean of the college Cultures Project. “Other people are being displaced.” 

The percentage of Asian tech workers grew from 39 percent in 2000 to just more than 50 percent in 2010 in Santa Clara, San Mateo, Alameda, Contra Costa and San Francisco counties combined, according to Census Bureau statistics. 

At the same time, white workers saw their more than 50 percent majority of tech jobs in 2000 fall to nearly 41 percent, according to the numbers released Thursday. 

African-American and Hispanic tech workers each saw slight decreases: Positions held by African-American tech workers fell from 2.8 percent to 2.3 percent; those held by Hispanic workers dropped from 4.6 percent to 4.2 percent. 

The Census Bureau changed the way it categorized some computer and related jobs in 2000, so the Mercury News analysis of the latest data was based on tracking the changes in categories that appeared both in 2000 and 2010. 

Yolanda Lewis, president and CEO of the Oakland- based Black Economic Council, sees trouble in the increased importation of Asian tech workers. 

Tech companies, Lewis said, “do not want to employ Americans. They import labor from overseas, pushing for H-1B visas. Check the job boards. They basically say, ‘H-1B Visa. Americans need not apply.’ For years, women, blacks and Latinos have been kept out of the tech job market. Now white men are being forced to train their replacements.” 

Lewis has organized protests against tech companies, demanding more transparency into their work forces because, she said, “You can be next in the unemployment line.” 

Several high-profile tech companies contacted by this newspaper did not respond to requests for comment. 

“Diversity actually increases the profitability of these companies,” Lewis said. “In California, the minority is now the majority. How do you market your products and services to people you don’t understand? How can your business survive? These companies still don’t get it.” 

The tech employment picture hardly represents the growing number of Hispanics and Latinos who make up 27 percent of Santa Clara County, English-Lueck said. 

But it does reflect the young and growing number of Asian-Americans “who were raised with a very strong STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) background” and are going into high tech. 

Asian-American software developers, in particular, saw huge gains all around the Bay Area: from nearly 45 percent of those workers in 2000 to more than 53 percent in Alameda County; and from nearly 50 percent to nearly 60 percent in both San Mateo and Santa Clara counties, the center of Silicon Valley. 

Ryan Shelby, a 28-yearold African-American doctoral candidate in mechanical engineering at UC Berkeley, said young African- American and Hispanic students are often raised in communities that don’t stress science and math curriculums that are likely to guide them into tech jobs. 

Shelby grew up on a farm in Letohatchee, Ala., where his love for engineering started by working on his father’s tractor. 

“I’ve been beating my head over this,” Shelby said. “There’s a lack of mentorship early on for a lot of these young students, who don’t have these facilities and teachers to expose them to math, science and technology early on.” 

So Shelby supports greater outreach to women and underrepresented minorities at UC Berkeley’s College of Engineering, which now has an associate dean of “Equity and Inclusion.” 

While 34 percent of African- American and Hispanic students start out in engineering across the country, only 13 percent leave with degrees, he said. 

Meredith Leu grew up studying STEM courses surrounded by other Asian-American students and graduated with honors from Mission San Jose High School in Fremont. 

Now, as a 19-year-old junior at SJSU studying computer science, Leu said many non-Asians don’t appreciate “the Asian culture, where there is a deep work ethic that America hasn’t really bought into yet.” 

“Do I worry about a backlash?” Leu asked in response to a question. “It’s not so much a backlash against Asians, but … there needs to be a balance. I’m just trying to find it.” Mercury News Library Director Leigh Poitinger contributed to this story. Contact Dan Nakaso at 408-271-3648. Follow him at Twitter.com/dannakaso. 




PATRICK TEHAN/STAFF 

Meredith Leu, who studied science and math at Mission San Jose High, works in the Computer Science Club in MacQuarrie Hall at San Jose State. 

Another US jobs safe heaven going down?

I thought that this was happening long time back. I don't think this is new. However, interesting thing is how they are blaming new Obama care for acceleration in this area.. Apparently, as per new law insurers have to limit administrative costs below certain percentage of overall healthcare costs. Which makes sense.. but there is administrative work.. somehow it has to be done.. there is no magic into it.. unless you think outsourcing it to cheaper places.

I was thinking that this are was pretty much safe for US due to data privacy laws, but I am sure these guys must have figured out way to keep patient data safe some how ;-) For that matter, that data isn't that safe even in US. Actually, it could be more safer as they implement these outsourcing processes..

As long as I keep on getting better and cheaper care I don't mind whom I am talking to or who is giving me that care. Let the Capitalism take care of it. It is another lesson for US, to pour in more money into science and maths education and making college education more cheaper and affordable. Somehow, the scare against science and maths needs to go away from kids.. Despite one of the best education system, kids are not able to take advantage of it and many kids still drop out after high school to pick up basic service jobs. Currently there are plenty of jobs and it seems that for a young person they can make good enough money for that person to survive. However, these type of basic admin and service jobs will continue to get reduced.. Young kids and generation has to move into better high intellectual jobs. They better understand now vs.. when it will be too late..

Whatever, they are talking about getting manufacturing jobs back in US is just minor aberration at the best.. First of all, they are very few.. second, they are coming back only when there is no unions or essentially salaries are really very low as compared to what used to be. Capitalism will find its way to save money and generate more efficiencies and productivities. It is up to you how you benefit out of this capitalist system..


Big shift in health care jobs overseas

Many companies outsourcing work to Philippines, India

By Don Lee

Los Angeles Times

WASHINGTON — After years of shipping data-processing, accounting and other back-office work abroad, some health care companies are starting to shift clinical services and decision-making on medical care overseas, primarily to India and the Philippines. Some of the jobs being sent abroad include so-called pre-service nursing, where nurses at insurance firms, for example, help assess patient needs and determine treatment methods.

Outsourcing such tasks goes beyond earlier steps by health care firms to farm out reading of X-rays and other diagnostic tests to health professionals overseas. Those previous efforts were often done out of necessity, to meet overnight demands, for instance.

But the latest outsourcing, which have contributed to the loss of hundreds of domestic health jobs, is done for financial reasons. And the outsourcing of nursing functions, in particular, may be the most novel — and possibly the most risky — of the jobs being shifted. At the forefront of the trend is WellPoint, one of the nation’s largest health insurers and owner of Anthem Blue Cross, California’s biggest for-profit medical insurer.

In 2010, WellPoint formed a separate business unit, Radiant Services, aimed at advancing outsourcing and other cost-saving strategies. WellPoint has eliminated hundreds of jobs in the U.S. over the past 18 months as it has moved jobs overseas, a company spokeswoman acknowledged.

The spokeswoman, Kristin Binns, said WellPoint’s shifting of clinical jobs overseas was a small part of the outsourcing and being done through Radiant because it has the technical expertise and can ensure compliancewith laws. Nursing organizations, however, were cautious. “It’s obviously a very disturbing trend,” said Chuck Idelson, a spokesman for the California Nurses Association. “There are serious questions if you’re talking about utilization reviews ... and making recommendations on procedures.” Nursing experts said there also may be licensing issues as states generally require certification for those practicing and dispensing health information. 

Current and former Radiant executives declined to comment or weren’t available. It’s not clear how many other U.S. health care firms have contracted with Radiant or other outsourcing specialists, but industry experts said companies were increasingly looking at more health care tasks that could be outsourced globally as they face greater cost pressures and sweeping changes in how they do business. Aetna has an arrangement with EXL Service, a U.S.-based company with operations in Manila, to provide “targeted caremanagement support,” spokeswoman Cynthia Michener said. Health Net, which is laying off dozens of information technology and accounting workers whose jobs are being sent to India, said its outsourcing has generally been confined to administrative and IT functions. UnitedHealth Group, the nation’s largest health insurer, didn’t respond to inquiries. Outsourcing jobs out of the country has become a hot issue in the presidential campaign: President Obama is pounding Republican challenger Mitt Romney for his private equity firm’s involvement with companies that sent jobs abroad. Although such outsourcing has been going on for years, American manufacturers in recent years have brought some jobs back to the U.S. as labor costs have risen in China and elsewhere. 

Some experts argued that sending jobs abroad could help U.S. companies by enabling them to tap global talent and efficiencies, making them more profitable. When U.S. companies are stronger, the thinking goes, it creates more opportunities for American workers. Also, shifting operations to lower-wage countries can help consumers by holding down prices. 

Labor costs 

Outsourcing jobs to places such as the Philippines can save U.S. health care firms 30 percent in labor costs, according to experts. But the practice remains controversial, especially with the U.S. unemployment rate hovering above 8 percent. Patient advocates worry about crucial decisions involving a patient’s care being in the hands of foreign insurance adjusters. Analysts said there was another concern as well: patient privacy. Even something as straightforward as medical transcription can raise questions, said Uwe Reinhardt, a health care economist at Princeton University. Over the last year, Iowa Health System and hospitals in Utah and Washington state have joined other medical centers that have outsourced the transcribing of doctors’ notes and other records. 

“Suppose I’m an AIDS patient,” Reinhardt said. “That person in India would know — and ‘the information’ could be valuable to someone. ... For the U.S., there’s nothing more personal than health care.” Dr. Kaveh Safavi, head of the North American health practice for Accenture, a major consulting and outsourcing firm that has partnered with Well-Point’s Radiant, said nearly all countries have laws for protecting patient privacy. 

And to safeguard patients’ records, he said, health care companies store and maintain their records locally. 

As for outsourcing services that are more clinical in nature, he said, “People are looking at all the tasks that can safely and responsibly be moved. It’s still an emerging market. We’re still trying to understand the market’s tolerance for it.” 

In general, hospitals are moving more slowly than health insurers to send jobs overseas. But with financial pressures intensifying and the uptake of electronic record- keeping accelerating, analysts and industry people see more consolidation and outsourcing ahead. 

Virtual call center 

“Whenyouhavepeople’s medical, billing and other records kept electronically, then it opens it up to establishing a call center virtually anywhere,” said Steve Trossman, a Los Angeles spokesman for the Service Employees International Union, which represents hospital workers. “There is no longer a reason for it to be physically in the same place as the paper records.” 

Moreover, the health care reform law could prod insurers to move more jobs to cheaper-wage countries. The new law requires companies to spend 80 percent to 85 percent of premiums on medical care, limiting the amount available for administrative expenses. 

Few have been as aggressive as WellPoint, which made a profit of $2.65 billion last year on revenue of $60.7 billion. WellPoint’s total employment at the end of last year was 37,700, down from 40,500 two years earlier. 

In one of its recent efforts, WellPoint laid off pre-service nurses in Colorado and Nevada so the work could be done in Manila, according to a Labor Department filing by a WellPoint human resource manager in Denver. Well-Point spokeswoman Binns said none of the decisions that involve denial of procedures or treatment for patients are made overseas. 

Overall, Binns said, fewer than 2.5 percent of the 37,000 employees, or at most 925 workers, had lost jobs in the last 18 months as a result of work sent overseas. Only about 50 of those positions involved clinical management of care, she said. 

WellPoint’s “sourcing strategies have enabled us to make our services more effective, accessible and affordable to our customers, while allowing us to expand our programs and maintain our service levels,” she said. 

Shannon Cunningham of Columbus, Ohio, who processed medical claims for WellPoint, was laid off last month after a colleague went to the Philippines to train people to do her job. 

Cunningham, 43, said she received eight weeks of severance pay. She and others working in medical claims earned $30,000 to $40,000 a year with health benefits, she said. 

“I know other countries need work,” said Cunningham, a company employee for three years. But “I just felt like it wasn’t fair. We’re having a rough time too.” 




MICHAEL J. DOOLITTLE/BLOOMBERG NEWS 

Health insurer Aetna has a deal with EXL Service, a U.S.-based company with operations in Manila, to provide “targeted care-management support.” 

Power of Internet - Free and Quality Education

These examples demonstrated real power of internet.. amazingly great classes and courses available from top schools and universities of world available for free.. If you only care about knowledge and don't care about piece of paper (degree) then you can literally do PhD.. You just need to have desire and passion and decent internet connection. off-course you need time as well (which is most common excuse for grown ups like  me ;-) )

UC Berkeley joining or I should say expanding the free courses available online. I think lot of courses from lot of great universities are already available online on different platforms and locations. I know MIT, Stanford and many other great schools have superb presence online. Now a days, with iTunesU kicking in more and more courses in its portfolio.. This is great for someone studying in remote engineering colleges in India where Professor and other resources availability could be challenge (that is the best decent political correct term I can think off). In-fact those type of kids can easily attend in group setting along with their Professor or lecturers.. This can simply revolutionize quality of education across the globe..

Good Job!!! Keep it up!!

UC BERKELEY

Courses by Cal going online

Some UC faculty are worried about diluting prestige

By Matt Krupnick

mkrupnick@bayareanewsgroup.com 

With some professors grumbling over the University of California’s expanding online presence, UC Berkeley is joining two of its top competitors to bring free college courses to the masses.

The university will offer two free online classes this fall as part of the edX collaboration, which also includes Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. UC Berkeley employees were told about the partnership Monday.

The edX venture is Berkeley’s latest foray into the MOOC, or massive open online course, arena. The school already offers classes with Coursera, another free program that also includes Stanford, Princeton and the University of Michigan. Together the two ventures have some 950,000 students.

Some educators have complained that free online classes could hurt UC Berkeley’s reputation. Participants are working hard to keep that from happening, said Armando Fox, a UC Berkeley computer science professor who has helped teach a Coursera class and will do the same with edX.

“We would not have agreed to do an online course if we did not think we could maintain that standard of quality,” he said. More than 100,000 students from around the world have enrolled in his Coursera classes, he said. 

The edX experiment comes as the 10-campus UC system works to expand its own online program. The university recently began offering a handful of credit classes online to UC students and will bring non-UC students into the mix this year at up to $2,100 a class. 

Faculty leaders have cautioned the university against moving too quickly with the online courses. The UC Academic Senate has said it worries about the quality and finances of the UC Online project. 

In contrast, some of those most concerned about UC’s plans say they support free projects like Coursera and edX. 

“I’m not at all opposed to the open-sourced courses,” said Wendy Brown, a UC Berkeley political-science professor who has criticized the university’s approach to online education. “The experiments need to happen to develop these technologies.” 

The different models — UC’s own versus edX and Coursera — provide disparate benefits to students. 

UC’s online program is meant to expand the reach of UC classes, and students gain college credits for completing the courses. The stakes, professors say, are higher when the UC brand on a class is so prominent. 

But Coursera and edX offer only certificates, so the risk to an individual school is not as high. The programs offer free education to people who might otherwise be shut out from elite universities, said John Wilton, a UC Berkeley vice chancellor who has helped develop the school’s online partnerships. 

“There’s a public-good component to this, which I think is very appealing to the universities involved,” Wilton said. Universities have an obligation to improve online education, he said. “It’s not like we cannot do this. We have to do this.” The free courses do have detractors, however. UC campuses should concentrate more on their own students, particularly in the midst of a budget crisis, before leaping into such partnerships, said Christopher Edley, the UC Berkeley law dean who has helped guide the university system’s online development. 

“I worry that jumping into what our private peer institutions are doing feels a little like me-tooism rather than a vision,” he said. “Our mission has to do more with figuring out how to serve the thousands of California students who won’t fit on a UC campus. 

“It risks being a distraction from the somewhat urgent need to figure this stuff out.” 

Contact Matt Krupnick at 510-208-6488. 

This only affirms my faith further in true religion - Science, Knowledge & Self-Introspection

These type of news further confirms my faith in knowledge "God" or even more importantly, it confirms my faith about "God is their in every one.. you just need to ask your own God right set of questions" or "there is no better or bigger God than one in yourself"

All these so called "Men of God" are pure agent of money making machinery.. which sadly is fueled by lack of thinking and self introspection by ourselves.. If we think and introspect our self properly, we will be able to find all answers.. there is no better judge than yourself about your own actions.. just need to use it properly..

Unfortunately, due to our ignorance or even more importantly, our "Fear" and "Greed" drives these type of institutions in every part of the world.. every corner of religion.. every corner of every nation.. amazing.. isn't it??  We all know that this is purely a fraud.. still we keep on fueling this fraud!!!

Don't know if it will ever stop.. I hope that people will realize some day that this all !@#$%^

don't know the complete story or saga behind the scenes.. but in my view the poor butler was actually better person than any of these figure heads.. he was serving humanity better than most of his other bosses..


Pope’s butler arrested in breach

Man detained after leak of confidential Va t ic a n d o c u m e n t s

By Rachel Donadio

New York Times

ROME — A mysterious source named Maria. A room furnished with a single chair, where sensitive Vatican documents are turned over to an investigative journalist at regular meetings. The arrest of the pope’s butler. Perhaps the greatest breach in centuries in the wall of secrecy that surrounds the Vatican.

An on-again, off-again scandal that the Italian press has called VatiLeaks burst into the open Friday with the arrest by Vatican gendarmes of a man, identified in news reports as Paolo Gabriele, the pope’s butler, who the Vatican said was in possession of confidential documents and was suspected of leaking private letters, some of which were addressed to Pope Benedict XVI. The arrest follows by a day the ouster of the president of the Vatican Bank, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, amid conflicts over how to bring the secretive institution in line with international transparency standards and days after the publication of a sensational book, “Your Holiness: The Secret Papers of Benedict XVI,” in which the journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi, aided by “Maria,” discloses a huge cache of private Vatican correspondence, many with allegations of mismanagement at the Vatican bank and cases of corruption and cronyism.
The letters, which have made their way into the Italian news media in recent months, draw a portrait of an ancient institution in chaotic disarray behind its high, stately walls, where various factions vie for power, influence and financial control in the twilight years of Benedict’s papacy.

“Of course there are problems, big problems,” said Andrea Tornielli, a Vatican expert for the Italian daily La Stampa and its website, Vatican Insider. “What is happening now shows that there’s a crisis.”

It was not clear whether the bank president’s ouster and the arrest of the man found with confidential documents were directly related, although Nuzzi’s book includes various memos from Gotti Tedeschi about the Vatican bank.

The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, declined to identify the person who was arrested, saying only that he was not a priest or member of a religious order and that he had been detained for further investigation.

But Italian news media reported that he was Gabriele, 40, and a butler in the papal household. Some publications even showed images of him holding a white umbrella above the pope and pouring him wine at dinner.

The twist that “the butler did it” was fully worthy of a whodunit that began earlier this year when documents began appearing in the Italian press. In one, a Sicilian cardinal, writing in German in order to be more stealthy, said he had heard in China about a bizarre plot to kill the pope. At the time, Lombardi called the accounts “delirious and incomprehensible.”

In another letter from 2011 that appeared in the Italian press this year and is also published in Nuzzi’s book, Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, then the deputy governor of Vatican City, wrote directly to Benedict. In it, he argued that transferring him to another post would impede his efforts to fight “corruption and abuse” in various Vatican offices, sending the wrong signal about his efforts to rein in cronyism in the awarding of contracts for construction work at the Vatican.

---

ALESSANDRO BIANCHI/REUTERS

The Pope's butler, Paolo Gabriele, bottom, was arrested Friday in connection with an investigation into leaks of confidential documents.

Idaho Education Revolt - Teachers Vs Technology

In my view, news like these ones are one of the best example of how poor state of education is becoming.. I can't understand opposition to technology in teaching. They need to understand very clearly that technology is there is to complement them not compete with them. Leveraging technology, teachers should spend more productive time with students..

This clearly seems to be self interest of these teachers/Unions.. Change is only constant and they need to embrace it. sooner or later changes will come.. Instead of fighting with changes you better fight to adapt these changes.. First of all, I assume that all the teachers have above average IQ.. If that is the case, then they should be able to understand these Technologies and the changes coming with it. Let us say somethings are really complicated and they need assistance.. in that case they should fight to get those resources..

Instead of saying that "I fought for my country.. now I am fighting for my kids", these guys should really fight and embrace changes and technology coming with it..

Here are the details of news.. feel free to comment and let me know your views..

Idaho education revolt — teachers vs. technology

Shift to computers could change role of classroom educators

By Matt Richtel

New York Times

POST FALLS, Idaho — Ann Rosenbaum, a former military police officer in the Marines, does not shrink from a fight, having even survived a close encounter with a car bomb in Iraq. Her latest conflict is quite different: She is now a high schoolteacher, and she and many of her peers in Idaho are resisting a statewide plan that dictates how computers should be used in classrooms. Last year, the state legislature overwhelmingly passed a law that requires all high school students to take some online classes to graduate, and that the students and their teachers be given laptops or tablets. The idea was to establish Idaho’s schools as a high-tech vanguard. To help pay for these programs, the state may have to shift tens of millions of dollars away from salaries for teachers and administrators. And the plan envisions a fundamental change in the role of teachers, making them less a lecturer at the front of the room and more of a guide helping students through lessons delivered on computers. This change is part of a broader shift that is creating tension — a tension that is especially visible in Idaho but is playing out across the country. Some teachers, even though they may embrace classroom technology, think policymakers are thrusting computers into classrooms without their input or proper training. Some say they are opposed to shifting money to online classes and other teaching methods whose benefits remain unproven.

“Teachers don’t object to the use of technology,” said Sabrina Laine, vice president of the American Institutes for Research, which has studied the views of the nation’s teachers using grants from organizations like the Gates and Ford foundations. “They object to being given a resource with strings attached and without the needed support to use it effectively to improve student learning.”

In Idaho, teachers have been in open revolt. They marched on the capital last spring, when the legislation was under consideration. They complain that lawmakers listened less to them than to heavy lobbying by technology companies, including Apple and Intel.

Teacher and parent groups gathered 75,000 verified signatures, more than was needed, to put a referendum on the ballot in November that could overturn the law.

“This technology is being thrown on us. It’s being thrown on parents and thrown on kids,” said Rosenbaum, 32, who has written letters to the governor and schools superintendent.

In her letters she tells them she is a Republican and a Marine, because, she says, it has become fashionable around the country to dismiss complaining teachers as union-happy liberals.

“I fought for my country,” she said. “Now, I’m fighting for my kids.”

Gov. C.L. Otter, known as Butch, and Tom Luna, the schools superintendent, who have championed the plan, said teachers had been misled by their union into believing the changes were a step toward replacing them with computers.

Some teachers also have expressed concern that teaching positions could be eliminated and their raises reduced to help offset the cost of the technology.

Luna acknowledged that many teachers in the state were conservative Republicans like him — making Idaho’s politics less blackand- white than in states like Wisconsin and New Jersey, where union-backed teachers have been at odds with politicians.

Luna said he understood that technological change could be scary, particularly because teachers would need to adapt to new ways of working.

“I fought for my country. Now, I’m fighting for my kids.”

— Ann Rosenbaum

Happy Birthday Mr. President

Today is 50th Birthday of one of my favorite President's of United States of America.. I really like you Mr. Obama.. Mr. President, I hope you are getting some break and enjoying your day. 

I think you are way too nice for this nations politics.. I really feel that you need to be slightly more aggressive and tougher on issues.. We need to attack basic and fundamental problems this country is facing... We need to be clear and loud in our messaging that there is no short cut to success.. This country is built by hard work and genius forefathers.. We are enjoying today because of the hard work done in past and should continue the legacy rather than get into habit of enjoying and escaping from hard work. 

Debt Ceiling issue is reminder to us that current path is not sustainable.. We have to act fast and ready to take painful decisions.. We need to change our habits of spending beyond our means.. actually way beyond our means.. I was really hoping to see some tough action from your side.. however, I think Republicans took literal hostage of you this time.. and they had reasons for it.. in December 2010, the way you negotiated with them and literally gave them whatever they needed.. That showed them that you are really flexible and they continued to try limits of flexibility this time..  

This century is all about Intellectual Property and we should continue to focus on improving and ensuring that our education system is catching up.. All the kids are getting education and are not afraid of science, maths and other creative education streams.. We have great infrastructure available to us providing great quality of life and extremely solid higher education system (though slightly expensive..).. Any kid who really wants to get great quality education can get it.. We just need motivation for it.. We need to leverage our university systems and make sure that everyone gets great education and contributes to society and more importantly our planet earth.. 

Why US should double it's Education Budget

Everyone in US needs to understand that if after fifty or even twenty years from now, they want to see US still as developed country they need to focus on one thing.. Education.. Do whatever it takes to do but fix education system. Reform it or just throw all the money on it but make sure that there is great education available to all of the kids from K-12 to College level. Innovation and Intellectual Property is going to be key to progress of every nation. If US can't keep it up with rest of the emerging economies on this area, then they should be ready to accept that very soon they will also become emerging economy.

I was thinking about impact of transformational technologies on jobs profiles.. I thought, I will list down some broad transformational technological changes are having on our daily lives and in turn what is happening to job market due to them.. Some of them are listed here:

1) Netflix/Apple-iTunes on Video Rental shops like Blockbuster/Hollywood
2) Amazon kind of online sales on  general Retail
3) Facebook on general social gathering
4) Google Search on Call Center or say Directory Services
5) Cisco Telepresence on Travel
6) Smart Meters on PG&E Meter Readers

Except for few of the above like Facebook, which actually facilitates meeting of friends and relatives more often and thus increasing service requirements and thus jobs.. rest all categories, ultimately result in net job loss. Essentially most of the technological revolutions are based on one sound principle.. they simply want to increase productivity and remove middle-man and thus cut costs.

Now, all of the categories, do create jobs and cut jobs somewhere. Let us take a look at who is winner and who is looser. Most of the jobs lost are in retail and service sector. Most of the job gains are in programming, architecture.. basically high-mid end technological jobs. What kind of profile these jobs are related to? Education!! Education!! that is what matters most. With latest growth in bio-tech side, even undergraduate degree is not enough..

Unless, US does to bring passion for science and Maths among students, they can't imagine themselves being super power any more.. It is some more borrowed time we will be relatively developing economy or emerging economy as we talk about many other nations....




Netflix Vs Hollywood/Blockbuster

Can manufacturing ever come back to US

I was reading one article written by Andy Grove in Bloomberg on manufacturing jobs in US as suggested by my good old friend Amit.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-07-01/how-to-make-an-american-job-before-it-s-too-late-andy-grove.html

It is very sincere effort and in all probability he is right about it. It was biggest mistake by US policy makers in 80s to let manufacturing slip out of US. That shouldn't have never been allowed in first place. Without good manufacturing base in high tech US is mostly dependent on rest of the world for most of the basic needs for goods. However, fact is that most of the manufacturing has already gone out and whatever is remaining, is going out continuously.. Unless federal or state governments subsidize local industry or penalize import, manufacturing in US is not going to come back..

Question is, whether it is worth bringing back. Honestly it is dirty work and no body wants to do it here. If we were really good and passionate about manufacturing we would have survived cheap workforce syndrome of Mexico, China, far east.. Honestly, I feel, once Henry Ford started assembly line system for manufacturing it made it pretty boring and this boredom was responsible for poor manufacturing performance out here in US.  Otherwise why didn't we improvise on our manufacturing, way Japanese did it and even with higher cost basis for labor we could have kept it here. Basically, I feel that assembly line kind of manufacturing is/was very much opposite to Free and Creative spirit of Americans. It was/is pretty mundane with same task keep on doing like robots. That is what Japanese did, automated it and worked hard on building Robots. We didn't...

Our Policy makers thought that we will have enough jobs designing and engineering robots (or machines for assembly lines). Which was true in beginning. But they forgot to see future.. Once you have basic manufacturing revolution, you start developing adjacent technologies and slowly creep into other design, engineering, testing and other fun stuff. Where as once you don't have it (like in US), you start loosing touch with this so called fun stuff which you had hoped that it will continue generating employment. Now, even companies who make these kind of machinery for manufacturing (I guess, AMAT kind of companies) also started moving work to these countries so they can be closer to their customers and market.

Other fundamental breakdown with this policy happened when US policy makers failed to reform education along with this shift in manufacturing. They thought that US will be doing high value R&D and other managerial kind of jobs and let these manufacturing and call center go out. When these mid category jobs were going and there was surge in high end jobs there were no local man power to support There were not enough students coming out of college to take up these high tech jobs and that forced US companies to go out and even off shore these jobs in India and many other developing economies. Slowly this set up took effect and these US companies got addicted to lower cost of doing R&D in offshore. So US ultimately started loosing these high tech jobs as well.

So what now? The only hope is with Bio Tech or similar areas.. Unless republican's don't mess it up.. I guess. There has to be some next Quantum leap which will spur growth and hopefully we will be ready for it and won't miss the boat. US policy makers need to make sure that there is enough emphasis on education in K-12 and subsequent University system so we can't miss this opportunity. Also, this time if we are able to get this kind of Quantum leap we should be able to keep complete eco-system of R&D, Design, Engineering, Manufacturing and QA in house. Even if it means that we provide some kind of subsidy to local entrepreneurs.

Otherwise, very soon my kids may be in line to get Indian/Chinese green Cards so that they can work there.