[LINK] Young Aussies losing ground in digital economy

[Tom Worthington]

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/
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Adjunct Senior Lecturer, Research School of Computer Science,
Australian National University http://cs.anu.edu.au/courses/COMP7310/