The IS&T
Advisory Committee includes, from left, Associate Dean Deepak Khazanchi, Craig
Stemple of Qwest, Philip R. Ruhlman of the Gallup Organization, Dean Hesham
Ali, George Royce of Mutual of Omaha, Joe Hutchings of First National Bank,
Lynne Baldwin of Baldwin, Hackett & Meeks Inc.; and Dave Poutre of the
MITRE Corp.
Tech Help Wanted:
Students Need Apply
Some of Omaha's largest employers say they
have information technology jobs and internships available but not enough
qualified people to fill them.
And they don't
understand why.
Hesham Ali, Dean of
the College of Information Science & Technology at The Peter Kiewit
Institute, says rumors regarding widespread cost-cutting measures like
outsourcing and offshoring may be to blame for cutting interest - and
enrollments - in computer science degree programs.
"Not just here at
UNO but at other universities," Ali says. "Potential students are worried that
there won't be jobs waiting for them, when in actuality, companies are worried
there won't be enough qualified graduates to fill the jobs that are available
and will support future growth."
Lynden Tennison,
senior vice president and CIO at Union Pacific Corporation, says he would love
to fill information technology (IT) division internships and job openings with
graduates from Omaha and the immediate region. If he could find them.
Headquartered in
Omaha, Union Pacific has been hiring between 60 and 80 people annually for its
approximately 1,400-person IT division, Tennison says. The openings are due to
company growth, natural attrition and retirements.
The railroad giant
also makes about 20 to 30 internship opportunities available each year. The
internships often lead to "very well-paying jobs," Tennison says.
That is why he and
other members of the College of IS&T Advisory Committee are finding it hard
to comprehend why interest in computer-related majors and enrollments aren't
increasing.
"It has become a
challenge for us to find qualified interns and graduates, particularly in
electrical engineering and computer science," Tennison says, "not just in
numbers but also when it comes to diversity, especially women,
African-Americans and Hispanics."
Dean Ali says reports
regarding outsourcing and offshoring of jobs don't tell the whole story.
Outsourcing is the delegation of work from within a particular company to an
external entity that specializes in that job or operation, often to reduce
costs. Offshoring is the delegation of work from a company within the United
States to a company in another country, usually one where either production or
labor costs are lower.
Microsoft Corp. for example, has invested
more than $1.5 billion in its facilities in India and hired thousands of Indian
workers. Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates said during a panel discussion at the
Library of Congress that it's not an effort to save money. "We're just not
seeing an available labor pool."
For some companies,
however, outsourcing and offshoring are neither profitable nor practical.
David Poutre is
senior principal engineer with the MITRE Corp., a not-for-profit company that
operates Federally Funded Research and Development Centers for the
government. Poutre works with the U.S.
Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM) headquartered at Offutt Air Force Base south of
Omaha in Bellevue.
"Outsourcing is a
national trend but it is a pendulum that is going to swing back," says Poutre,
who also serves on the College of IS&T Advisory Committee. "In the
Department of Defense arena, the nature of our work requires employees to be
screened and cleared by the government. You can't offshore work like that."
The number of
Department of Defense contractors with operations in the Omaha area is rising.
The Greater Omaha Chamber of Commerce estimates more than 50 defense
contractors do business here, among them Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin,
resulting in more than 2,500 defense-related jobs.
Tennison says Union
Pacific offshores the equivalent of 30 jobs, "and I never see that going above
25 to 30 percent of the workforce.
"A lot of our
development processes require gathering information today and developing code
tomorrow. Doing that successfully requires face time with people here in the
corporation, and that would be impossible from 5,000 miles away."
Outsourcing is not
always prudent, says George Royce, vice president of strategic technology
development at Mutual of Omaha.
"It's a fantasy that
you can outsource or offshore everything," says Royce, who also teaches information
systems classes at the College of IS&T. "You need key people in key places
right here at home."
Rather than count on
jobs to be offshored to their countries, some students have been traveling from
India and Asia to the United States because of the availability of jobs here.
These non-U.S.
residents are filling jobs that offer competitive salaries and the possibility
of promotion not found in their home countries.
For American
companies, however, hiring non-U.S. residents typically means higher costs,
such as legal fees paid to meet Immigration and Naturalization Service
requirements.
"We are paying these
fees because we're not finding enough qualified candidates locally," Tennison
says. "That opens a huge opportunity for UNO to bring in students who will come
out with solid degrees in electrical engineering, computer science and advanced
math ready to step into some of these jobs."
The demand for IT interns and graduates
locally "is significant,' says Lynne Baldwin, president of Baldwin Hackett &
Meeks Inc., a software applications development corporation in Omaha.
"There are jobs
available and we project a need for more people qualified in computer-related
fields," says Baldwin, another IS&T Advisory Committee member. "Students
would not be making a mistake if they choose to major in computer science or
computer engineering."
Mutual of Omaha
would "love to take advantage of a local pool of smart, talented interns and
graduates," Royce says.
"If you're
interested in computer science or computer engineering, UNO and PKI are
marvelous resources right here in Omaha," he says. "If you get into the
profession and are willing to learn new things, you've got a bright career
ahead."
Union Pacific's
Tennison agrees.
"UNO students and
graduates are valued members of our workforce and we expect great things from
them in the future," he says. "I'd just like to see more of them."
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Going global
Trip to India an
'Unforgettable experience' for faculty, students
Students and faculty
from UNO were among a group that traveled to India to experience the meaning of
globalization.
The trip, from March
6-18, was themed "Unity in Diversity." The seven faculty and 32 students, the
majority from UNO, were a cross section of the university system, representing
the departments of International Studies and Programs, Foreign Languages and
Literatures, Sociology and Anthropology and the UNO College of Information
Science and Technology (IS&T), as well as the fields of architectural
engineering, English, history, religion, communications, pre-medicine and
biology.
The group visited the cities of Bangalore, Delhi and Kolkata. They
toured the company sites of Infosys and Biocon, the Vinod Gupta School of
Management and the campus of the Indian Institute of Technology-Kharagpur. UNO
and IIT signed a sister university affiliation agreement in 2004.
Gupta, founder,
chairman and CEO of Omaha-headquartered infoUSA, Inc., is a 1967 graduate of
IIT Kharagpur, near Kolkata. He created the IIT Foundation and the school which
bears his name. InfoUSA President Rakesh Gupta (no relation to Vinod) also is
an IIT graduate and assisted in developing the IIT/UNO program. The students'
visit was sponsored by infoUSA.
It was the first
trip to India for Ilze Zigurs, professor of Management Information Systems at
IS&T.
"It was an
unforgettable experience," she says. "I have many professional colleagues and
friends who are from India and I had read and heard so much about the country,
so it was especially meaningful to experience it all firsthand."
Zigurs says the
group was fortunate to visit a variety of businesses and cities, "and we were
treated with such gracious hospitality everywhere we went. The access that we
had to different businesses and sites was a very special part of the
experience, and we owe a huge debt of gratitude to our hosts and all the people
who worked so hard to make all the remarkable arrangements."
She says the UNO
group saw why India is becoming a force in business and technology.
"Professionally, I learned firsthand and in a richer way about information
technology trends and practices and globalization, and what all this means to
people in their daily lives."
For more about the
trip, see http://unoindia.vox.com/.
Photo: UNO students and faculty pose outside
the pyramid-shaped media center at the Infosys company campus in Bangalore,
India.
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Future is now for UNO
Institute for Collaboration Science
In his keynote address to the Interop business
technology conference in May, Cisco Systems CEO John Chambers told the
audience, "Group innovation and collaboration . . . is the future."
The future is now at
the UNO Institute for Collaboration Science.
Collaboration science is the study of concepts affecting the
outcomes of joint efforts toward achieving mutual goals. Though it can be
summarized as teamwork, the precise examination of collaboration involves
complex issues that intrigue a variety of academic disciplines.
The UNO institute
was formed in July 2006 with a $300,000 gift from UNO alum and founder of
Quantum Alliance (QA3) Steve Wild, a $125,000 grant from the University of
Nebraska Foundation and $50,000 from the university's technology fee. Among the
founders are 12 faculty members representing all six colleges at UNO.
The Institute's
director is G.J. de Vreede, Ph.D., of the College of Information Science and
Technology. Robert Briggs, Ph.D., of the College of Business Administration
serves as director of academic affairs, while psychology Professor Roni
Reiter-Palmon is the research director.
De Vreede says the
institute has made great strides in its first year. "If you look at the wide
range of people and colleges involved, so far we're the only group I see in the
nation that is building such a large-scale, integrated effort."
In the fall of 2006
the institute was awarded a $120,000 contract from the U.S. Strategic Command
(USSTRATCOM) to develop long-range infrastructure strategies for the military
agency. That grant has been extended to fund phase two of the project, which is
titled "Raising the Collaborative Capacity of the Warfighter."
De Vreede reports
other first-year successes, including:
• Publication of 16
journal and 30 conference papers and seven book chapters;
• The redesign of
the Collaboration Lab at The Peter Kiewit Institute, the redesign and funding
for a collaboration space at the College of Business Administration and a
proposal to create a "collaborative commons" in the new College of Public
Affairs and Community Service (CPACS) building, formerly the Engineering
building;
• The launch of the
first study course, Principles of Collaboration, a class that quickly reached
the maximum of 24 students and that will be held again this fall. A class in
facilitation of collaborative problem solving with groupware also will be held.
Both are destined to become part of a curriculum for a concentration in
Collaboration Science;
• Inception of a
distinguished speaker series;
• Application for
more than $8.5 million in grants and proposals for research projects; and,
• The establishment
of 13 internships and assistant positions for students.
"We are also
actively reaching out to the community and assisting in a number of projects,"
de Vreede says. "News of our efforts has resulted in quite a bit of interest
from local businesses and organizations asking us to submit additional
proposals."
He says it is common
for an academic endeavor such as the Institute to take three years to fully
establish itself - one year where the seeds are planted, one year to nurture
the crop and the third year when the first results are harvested.
"Clearly, though we
are completing only our first year, we are already seeing some fruits of our
labors," he says. "So things are moving very rapidly."
More information
about the Institute is available at http://ics.ist.unomaha.edu.
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