Slides for my talk in University of Limerick

Here are the slides that I will use to accompany my talk hosted by the ISKS in the University of Limerick this afternoon.

Does Ireland need more engineers?

Many commentators have stated that we need to increase the number of young people in Ireland choosing to pursue careers involving science and technology, but I don't think it makes sense to force youngsters into a career they don't find interesting.

It is true that many young people choose not to continue studying science at 3rd level because the subject has not been very well taught to them at 2nd level (where they tend to study it whether they want to or not). Many schools are forced to hire science teachers whose primary degree was not in science because the science graduates tend to follow more rewarding careers elsewhere. Also a lack of resources forces many schools to teach the subject from books instead of allowing student to learn by doing enjoyable hands-on experiments. This is something which needs to change.

Most science experiments involve building gadgets which is something most youngsters enjoy. It is also possible to design safe experiments which involve considerable amounts of explosions and objects crashing into each other. These are further aspects which most young people tend to consider an increase in the fun factor. It seems obvious to me that anyone who experiences a good science education will obviously choose to follow a scientific career if possible.

However, I have recently come to a shocking conclusion - not all people poeple are like me!!! To my surprise some young people find accountancy, law and similar subjects to be more interesting than science!!!

When I initially realised this I was disappointed. However, on mature reflection I realise that it is good news that there are youngsters who have this attitude. It is inevitable that we will need some people to count the money and tell us if we need to tighten our belts or not. There will also be times when we need people to sort out our legal affairs. Is it not better to have these jobs done by people who genuinely enjoy what they are doing rather than by someone who is secretly pining for a more interesting job that involves science and technology.

People won't do a good job if they don't love what they do. I know that if the only career options available to me were in accountancy or law, I would probably manage to become competent enough in one of these disciplines to make a living. However, I would certainly not be as enthused by either of these areas of work as I am by my current career and I think this would be reflected in the quality of my work.

It is true that the invention of the internet and the radical advances in ICT technology over the last half century have really transformed the world. Because of these changes, everyone now needs to be familiar with the internet and how to use information technology if they are to realise their true potential. But this does not mean that everyone needs to work in the ICT sector.

This is analagous to what happened in the early part of the 20th century when the invention of the car transformed society in many wealthy countries. Almost everyone in these countries had to learn how to drive if they wanted to be successful, but not everyone was working in the automotive industry. Initially cars were very unreliable and so motorists were well advised to have a knowledge of how to do roadside repairs, but now cars have become so reliable that there is very little need of such expertise any more.

I think that computers have now advanced to the stage that there is no need for specialist knowledge of their inner workings in order to use them successfully.

A few years ago the poor state of camera technology and the multitude of complex incompatible standards meant that engineering students with a good understanding of the technology had an advantage over their colleagues in the humanities faculties with regard to posting videos to the internet. However, the landscape has now changed quite dramatically with the advent of cheap video recording equipment and sites like YouTube taking all of the complexity out of the process. Today the engineering students might be more familiar with the leading edge codecs, but videos attracting most attention on the internet are more likely to have been produced by humanities majors whose knowledge of video technology does not extend much beyond being able to correctly identify the record button on their camera.

I think that we do not need to force people into careers in the science and technology sector if this is not what they want. However, it is important that we should ensure that all students are familiar with how to leverage information technology for their field of work. For example, students of literature will inevitably need to use the internet to build an audience their work and it is important that they should understand how to do this. The publishing market is undergoing a a major transformation right now, so any good creative writing course should include topics such as "building on-line communities" and "understanding creative commons licensing"

Technology education also needs to be moved to an earlier point in the education cycle to reflect the fact that children are using the internet at a younger age than before. For example, most youngsters will be active on social networks before they leave primary education. For this reason most enlightened programs in Relationships and Sexuality should include a module on cyber-bullying.

Does your employer own the rights to your reputation?

During a recent IBM Academy of Technology conference a speaker gave a presentation about how IBM could/should make sure that it effectively harnessed the good reputations of its many employees who have built up good reputations on the internet. During the discussion that followed one employee brought up the question of whether or not IBM was entitled to profit from its employees' reputations.

IBM employees (in line with industry practice)sign an employment contract which clearly gives the company the rights to own the copyright and/or patent rights to everything we create while employed by IBM. The contract does not explicitly cover the topic of whether or not the company owns the rights to our reputations. However, despite the lack of a formal contract it is inevitable that you employer will effectively benefit from any positive reputation you build up as well as be harmed by the negative reputation that you might gain from doing something stupid.

In the software industry we do not normally distinguish between the ownership of the intellectual property rights to exploit a creative work and the ownership rights of the reputation which comes from being involved with its production. The copyright statement with a piece of software will normally state which company owns the copyright, but will make no mention of the individual employees who worked on the product. This is in sharp contrast with the music and film world who normally give careful attention to recording and publishing a list of everyone who is involved in each piece of work. The credits at the end of a movie will normally list everyone who was involved in creating it - not just people with major roles such as the actors, director etc., but also people with more minor roles such as looking as looking after the catering arrangements for the people working on the set.

The reason for this practice is because the people involved are constantly moving from job to job and as result they need a way to provide proof of their portfolio of work. For example if I applied for a job doing the make-up on a new movie and claimed credit for working on the Harry Potter movie, the prospective employer would probably check the credits at the end of the movie and if my name was not mentioned assume that I was telling lies.

Perhaps the software industry should follow their example and find a way to give credit to all of the people involved in creating products. There used to be a tradition of inserting a hidden easter egg into software products to allow the people involved in creating it have the thrill of seeing their names visible in the product. However, this practice was never formally endorsed by the companies funding the product and it seems to becoming much less common recently. However the practice of having a job for life is no longer common and software engineers would benefit from having a way to prove their portfolio of work.

A proposal for how to help transfer of Irish University R&D into local industry

The Irish government has generally been praised for its increased investment in R&D in recent years, most notably since the foundation of Science Foundation Ireland. However, a number of commentators have criticised the fact that relatively little of the technology developed by this research is now being used by Irish industry.

In general the researchers have explained the lack of commercial spin-offs by the long time that it takes for research to advance to a stage where a company can actually build a business based upon the newly developed technology. While I do accept this explanation I am still worried that there is no special incentive to encourage adoption of Irish University research by Irish companies.

In addition there may be unrealistic expectations from some universities about how much license revenue can be gained from licensing the patents that they get from their research projects. In the pharmaceutical business some people and organisations have made large fortunes from licensing patents to blockbuster drugs, but in the ICT sector it is more normal to make money from your intellectual property by partnering with the company exploiting it rather than by selling a license.

Since the research in Irish Universities is mainly funded by the Irish government with the aim of encouraging the health of the local high tech industry, why don't we consider offering a royalty free license to any technology developed by a government funded project to any company who intends to establish or grow a business in Ireland based upon using the technology. This would have the effect of helping businesses already established in Ireland as well as helping attract new multi-national companies to establish an Irish base.

While this might mean that the universities need to forego a potential revenue scheme, I don't think that the loss in revenue will substantially effect their budgets. In addition we could have some scheme whereby someone like the IDA could certify how many jobs had been created by means of these royalty free licenses and this could be used as one of the metrics used to justify the funding awarded to the university(ies) in question.

How will we know if we are making prgress towards building a Smart Economy

Everyone seems to be in agreement that we need to transition towards a Smart Economy in Ireland. Although there is some vagueness about what is meant by a Smart Economy , there does seem to be a consensus that when we achieve a Smart Economy we will observe the following facts:

1. Our economy will be vibrant (i.e. strong GDP growth and low unemployment).
   
2. Most of our workforce will be working in Jobs which require high skills and involve a high level of innovation.
3. Business leaders in other parts of the world will look to Ireland for new ideas and innovation.

Once we have these success factors agreed, the government should try to measure the impact of every initiative/investment taken to see if it helps us make progress towards achieving them.

The trouble with these success factors is that it difficult enough to measure the overall achievement and virtually impossible to judge the impact of any individual initiative. However, we should not allow the difficulty of accurate measurement to be used as an excuse to abandon all metrics.

What I would propose is that every investment proposal (e.g. to fund a new research group) should include a section where the proposers of the investment would include:

1. Their estimate for the economic impact of making this investment. I know this will be open to some interpretation, but perhaps the forthcoming economic forum in Farmleigh will give us ideas of a standardised way to do this estimation.
2. Some concrete metrics (e.g. Patents filed, scientific papers published, newly established companies etc.) that will give us an early indication that the hoped for economic impact is being eachieved.

It would be in the best interested of the people proposing a new investment to put in a realistic estimate for the economic impact achievable. If they underestimate the impact their proposal will not be likely to get funding, but if they overestimate the impact they risk making it very likely that their project will be cut off after the first review because they won't be able to meet the unrealistc targets they set for themselves.

The other advantage of this approach is that it emphasises the fact that the metrics are not an goal in themselves, but merely an indirect way of estimating whether or not the economic goals are being achieved. If you pick a single metric (e.g. number of patents filed) you will get people focussing on quantity over quality - this is one of the reasons why IBM felt the need to lanuch the Patent Value Initative.

Note: Is shoudl disclose that I work for IBM. While I am proud of the fact that my employer is the organisation has field the biggest number of patents per year for the last number of years, I must admit that I can't say I am proud of the quality and validity of all of the patents filed.