Thursday, October 11

Computer Science PhD's vital for a country's computing base and future

The Head of Microsoft India has pointed to something that is vital for any economy, forget India. He talks about the fact that India is producing only 35 computer science PhD's in an year, compared to 1000 PhD's in the USA. I quote:

“It’s an incredibly urgent and important issue,” Ravi Venkatesan told the
Financial Times. “It affects the pipeline of future talent because the teaching
institutions aren’t getting enough qualified faculty and, of course, if you
really want to do cutting edge innovation in computer science, you’re restricted
by the pool of talent out there.”

The World Bank estimates that the country produces a total of 7,000 PhDs a
year across the entire spectrum of science, engineering and technology. “India’s
higher education system needs to produce more scientists, engineers and other
masters and PhD graduates with skills matched to the needs of the innovation
economy,” the bank said in a recent report.

But this is true in almost every country. I attended a presentation by my son's potential High School Principal yesterday. There were some students there as well. And while it is quite far away from a PhD level, I was quite pleased to hear that a majority of students at the High School are going to go for science, mathematics, physics or ICT. But let this be a lesson for all of us, if you do not produce sufficient PhD's, you are choking off the ability to train your students in the future.

All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!

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