The number of women considering careers in information technology has dropped to its lowest level since the mid-1970s — and one local nonprofit organization intends to do something about it.
Based at the University of Colorado in Boulder, the National Center for Women and Information Technology (NCWIT) wants to know why women are losing interest in technology — and what can be done to bring them back.
Jay Vegso’s got an interesting post on the CRA Bulletin with a look at the latest NSF data on graduate science and engineering enrollments. The news for computer science isn’t particularly good — it’s the only discipline out of the 37 or so listed that showed a decrease in enrollments in 2003.
Read Jay’s post for more. Inside Higher Ed also has the scoop.
The Washington Post’s Politics Columnist (and resident contrarian) Robert Samuelson has an interesting Op-Ed in yesterday’s edition dealing with the fact that the U.S. is producing “a shrinking share of the world’s technological talent.” After noting that there’s a pay disparity between science and engineering PhDs and other “elites” like MBAs, doctors and lawyers that probably leads to the production disparity, Samuelson rightly points out that the simple fact that other countries are producing more S&E PhDs doesn’t mean that we necessarily lose.
Not every new Chinese or Indian engineer and scientist threatens an American, through outsourcing or some other channel. Actually, most don’t. As countries become richer, they need more scientists and engineers simply to make their societies work: to design bridges and buildings, to maintain communications systems, and to test products. This is a natural process. The U.S. share of the world’s technology workforce has declined for decades and will continue to do so. By itself, this is not dangerous.
The dangers arise when other countries use new technologies to erode America’s advantage in weaponry; that obviously is an issue with China. We are also threatened if other countries skew their economic policies to attract an unnatural share of strategic industries — electronics, biotechnology and aerospace, among others. That is an issue with China, some other Asian countries and Europe (Airbus).
What’s crucial is sustaining our technological vitality. Despite the pay, America seems to have ample scientists and engineers. But half or more of new scientific and engineering PhDs are immigrants; we need to remain open to foreign-born talent. We need to maintain spectacular rewards for companies that succeed in commercializing new products and technologies. The prospect of a big payoff compensates for mediocre pay and fuels ambition. Finally, we must scour the world for good ideas. No country ever had a monopoly on new knowledge, and none ever will.
Putting aside the fact that Samuelson apparently unwittingly puts his finger on the need for producing more US-born and naturalized S&E Phds — after all, given current agency practices, they are essentially the only ones able to do the defense-related research that will preserve “America’s advantage in weaponry” — he’s generally right on. The simple fact that other countries are producing S&E PhDs at rates higher than U.S. production isn’t the worry. The worry is when America’s global competition uses that newly-developed capacity for innovation and technological achievement to target sectors traditionally important to America’s strategic industries. IT is one such crucial sector.
As Samuelson points out, one way to insure the U.S. remains dominant, especially in a sector like IT, is to make sure the U.S. continues to attract the best minds in the world to come study and work here. Unfortunately, as we’ve notedfrequentlyoverthelastcouple of years, the environment for foreign students in the U.S. is not nearly as welcoming as it once was.
Another is to nuture and grow our own domestically-produced talent in the discipline. But the challenges here are also tall. The most recent issue of the Communications of the ACM contains a very interesting (and on point) piece (pdf) about whether the computing community in the U.S. needs to do a better job of evangelizing what’s truly exciting about the discipline to combat dropping enrollment rates and dropping interest in computing. The piece by Sanjeev Arora and Bernard Chazelle (thanks to Lance Fortnow for pointing it out on his excellent Computational Complexity blog), identifies the challenge:
Part of the problem is the lack of consensus in the public at large on what computer science actually is. The Advanced Placement test is mostly about Java, which hurts the field by reducing it to programming. High school students know that the wild, exotic beasts of physics (black holes, antimatter, Big Bang) all roam the land of a deep science. But who among them are even aware that the Internet and Google also arose from an underlying science? Their list of computing “Greats” probably begins with Bill Gates and ends with Steve Jobs.
…
We feel that computer science has a compelling story to tell, which goes far beyond spreadsheets, java applets, and the joy of mouse clicking (or evan Artificial Intelligence and robots). Universality, the duality between program and data, abstraction, recursion, tractability, virtualization, and fault tolerance are among its basic principles. No one would dispute that the very idea of computing is one of the greatest scientific and technological discoveries of the 20th century. Not only has it had huge societal and commercial impact but its conceptual significance is increasingly being felt in other sciences. Computer science is a new way of thinking.
A recent study by the Pew Internet Project demonstrates that American teenagers are tied to computing technology: 89 percent send or read e-mail; 84 percent visit websites about TV, music or sport stars; 81 percent play online games; 76 percent read online news; 75 percent send or receive instant messages. Yet that increasing use of technology doesn’t appear to make them any more interested in studying the science behind the technology. Maybe that’s not surprising — the fact that most teenagers probably have access to and use cars doesn’t appear to be swelling the ranks of automotive engineers. Maybe there’s a perception among bright teenagers that computing is a “solved” problem — or as John Marburger, the President’s science advisor put it at a hearing before the House Science Committee early in his tenure, maybe it’s a “mature” discipline now, perhaps not worthy of the priority placed on other more “breakthrough” areas of study like nanotechnology. I think Arora and Chazelle do a good job of debunking that perception, demonstrating that computing is thick with challenges and rich science “indispensible to the nation” to occupy bright minds for years to come.
But the perception persists. Computing has an image problem. Fortunately, the computing community isn’t standing still in trying to address it (though maybe it’s only just stood up). At the Computing Leadership Summit convened by CRA last February, a large and diverse group of stakeholders — including all the major computing societies, representatives from PITAC, NSF and the National Academies, and industry reps from Google, HP, IBM, Lucent, Microsoft, Sun, TechNet and others (complete list and summary here (pdf)) — committed to addressing two key issues facing computing: the current concerns of research funding support and computing’s “image” problem. Task forces have been formed, chairmen named (Edward Lazowska of U of Washington heads the research funding task force; Rick Rashid of Microsoft heads the “image” task force), and the work is underway. As the summary of the summit demonstrates, no ideas or possible avenues are off the table…. We’ll report more on the effort as it moves forward.
As Arora, Chazelle and Samuelson all point out, the challenges are tall, but the stakes for the country (never mind the discipline) are even higher.
Here’s the blurb Staring Down a Revolution: Questions for Sid Karin
Mark of THE CITY writes “Since helping to found the San Diego Supercomputer Center in the 1980s, Sid Karin has distinguished himself as a national expert on digital technology and its possibilities for scientific research.”
It will come as a surprise to no reader of this blog that gangs and organized crime have moved into cyberspace. And it will also come as no surprise that the media, legislative staff, and elected officials are usually a bit slow to grasp advances in technologies and their commensurate threats. (Let us not forget House Majority Leader Tom Delay’s invective aimed at Justice Kennedy for the heinous practice of “[doing] his own research on the Internet.” Which of the many “Internets” it was, Delay did not specify.)
The tech world has been abuzz for some time now over the role of organized crime and street gangs on the internet. Finally, after much pushing and prodding, it appears that the media may be paying attention.
Stealing and selling data has become so lucrative, analysts say, that corporate espionage, identity theft and software piracy have mushroomed as profit centers for criminal groups. Analysts say cyberextortion is the newest addition to the digital Mafia’s bag of tricks.
“Generally speaking, it’s pretty clear it’s on the upswing, but it’s hard to gauge how big of an upswing because in a lot of cases it seems companies are paying the money,” said Robert Richardson, editorial director of the Computer Security Institute, an organization in San Francisco that trains computer security professionals. “There’s definitely a group of virus writers and hackers in Russia and in the Eastern European bloc that the Russian mob has tapped into.”
[…]
Among 639 of the survey’s respondents, the average loss from unauthorized data access grew to $303,234 in 2004 from $51,545 in 2003; average losses from information theft rose to $355,552 from $168,529. The respondents suffered total losses in the two categories of about $62 million last year. While many cyberextortionists and cyberstalkers may be members of overseas crime groups, several recent prosecutions suggest that they can also be operating solo and hail from much less exotic climes – like the office building just down the street.
Additionally, a story in the March/April 2005 issue of Foreign Policy discusses the role of street gangs online and hints at their potential to bring gang-related financial dealings online. What starts as cybertagging will likely end up becoming something much worse as gangs increasingly become sophisticated business entities.
This is something that the community needs to proactively address in Congress and in the states. Cybercrime is being committed by organized enterprises here and abroad and it costs businesses annually millions, if not billions, in lost revenues, protection money paid, theft, and loss of reputation.
Gene Spafford passed on an article from VARBusiness which illustrates the technical media’s attention to PITAC even two months after its expiry. The article speaks glowingly of PITAC, which it describes as “a group of technology-industry luminaries and academics assembled to act as a council [sic] to the president, Congress, and the federal agencies that are involved in [NITRD].” Adjectives used in describing the committee and its work include “insightful,” “expert,” “valuable.” The article quotes Harris Miller, president of the ITAA, at some length:
“It’s really disappointing,” says Harris Miller, president of the Information Technology Association of America…. “What you had was a group of leading people in the IT arena who came together to provide advice and thoughts on critical topics, and they’d really done some interesting and thoughtful work. It’s unfortunate.”
Harris, whose background falls on the public-policy side, speculates that some of the group’s recommendations may not have been taken well by the administration. Although he doesn’t know exactly why the group was dissolved, he says that, “If you want honest advice, you have to realize it’s sometimes not going to be praiseworthy.” And while the group might someday be reinstated, Harris says he hasn’t picked up on any indication that it will happen soon. “Obviously, the cybersecurity report had some pretty strong language about some shortcomings,” Harris says. “But it wasn’t like others weren’t saying the same things.”
The bigger point here is this: while PITAC may be dormant, it is still getting extremely favorable attention from the tech and mainstream media. In addition, the media seem to be inclined to believe that a major reason for PITAC’s current hibernation is its frank and well-founded criticisms of current policy. This is encouraging and, with sustained pressure, may mean that PITAC will someday return to doing its “insightful,” “expert,” “valuable” work.
Interesting article today in the University of Texas’ The Daily Texan about efforts at the school to encourage the participation of women in computer science. The school runs a one-week summer camp for junior and senior high school girls to expose them to the world of computer science, which, as the article points out, is heavily dominated by men. From the article:
First Bytes is not a “fat camp,” as some boys who saw the welcome signs in Jester had originally thought of the one-week UT summer camp for junior and senior high school girls that focuses on getting its attendees interested in computer science, a field heavily dominated by men.
The girls spent their week listening to math- and science-themed technical lectures and participating in interactive events. Non-computer-science fun was also added to the mix, including yoga classes, bowling and watching movies. “It’s not just about studying and being in school, but about being well-rounded,” said program coordinator, Mary Esthel Middleton.
There are 1,175 computer science students at UT, only 147 of whom are women, according to statistics cited by the department.
The First Bytes program, currently in its third year, aims to help correct that problem, Middleton said. The purpose of First Bytes, she said, was to “dispel the myth that computer science is only for guys,” and to ensure the girls understand that math and science careers are beneficial, that they can and do apply to a wide range of fields, including medicine and business.
Kudos to corporate sponsors IBM and Microsoft for supporting efforts like this and the goal of increasing participation of women and minorities in computer science (including the efforts of groups like CRA’s Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research (CRA-W)). The most recent data suggests that the popularity of computer science as a major among freshmen women is at an all-time low, so there is obviously much work to be done.
If American students aren’t going to take up computer science, Indian students will. SiliconIndia.com and Hindu Business Line report, “Rising salaries and a growing software industry may have made IT one of the most sought-after careers for Indian students. An estimated 73,500 engineering graduates are expected to take up hi-tech jobs this fiscal [year].”
The article cites the Taulbee Survey’s finding that American CS enrollments have fallen by 19 percent, although this statistic was considered somewhat out of context. Nonetheless, the article gives a clear indication as to how the Indian technology press is covering workforce issues: America is losing IT workers and India is picking up the slack.
India is creating not just new computer scientists, but jobs as well:
“In software alone, 120,000 new jobs are likely to be created this year, against 110,000 in 2004-05, and 50,000 in 2001-02,” Sunil Mehta, Vice-President of Nasscom, said.
Nasscom expects 73,500-84,000 engineering graduates to go for IT jobs in the current financial year, compared to 56,000-64,000 in 2004-05. The balance will flow from the B.Sc stream with students opting for GNIIT courses, as well as students from other disciplines going in for diplomas. [Typos corrected. -DMR]
To put this in context, it appears that India and the United States will produce roughly the same number of computer science and engineering graduates in per capita terms next year. What’s particularly important to note is that India’s enrollment statistics are trending up, while America’s are stagnating or declining.
The DC Examiner ran an editorial today using the Math and Science Incentive Act of 2005 (CRA blog entry here) to focus on the lack of emphasis that primary, secondary, and university education place on teaching science and math. The editorial praises the Act, introduced by Frank Wolf (R-VA) in the House and John Warner (R-VA) in the Senate, which would forgive up to $10,000 in student loan interest for post-college work or teaching in mathematics, physical sciences, and engineering.
The piece notes, however, that this bill alone is insufficient:
Last week, the NSF’s congressionally-mandated Committee on Equal Opportunities in Science and Engineering reported measurable but uneven gains in underrepresented groups. However, as Committee Chairman Robert Lichter put it, “bold, innovative and long-term initiatives are still needed, especially at the institutional level.” Interest-free student loans are not quite in that league, but at least they’re a start.
Update posted June 29: The provisions of this bill have been rolled into the College Access and Opportunity Act, which was part of the higher education authorization. ACM has followed this issue in their blog.
In a report released this week, the Cyber Security Industry Alliance — a group consisting of information security software, hardware and service vendors — called on Congress and the Administration to ramp up support for fundamental research in cyber security R&D and increase the prominence of cyber security at key federal agencies. CSIA’s report, Federal Funding for Cyber Security R&D (pdf) reiterates the findings of the most recent Presidential IT Advisory Committee (PITAC) report (pdf) on the state of federal cyber security research, concluding that the overall investment in cyber security research is inadequate and too focused on the short-term. The CSIA report agrees with the PITAC report’s recommendation to increase funding for long-term research in cyber security, noting a number of key security technologies — firewalls, intrustion detection systems, fault tolerant networks, operating systems, cryptography and advanced authentication — that bear the stamp of federally-sponsored, long-term research.
The report differs from the PITAC report slightly in that it calls for the creation of a “designated entity” within DHS to coordinate the federal government’s cyber security R&D effort; whereas, PITAC recommended that function remain within the interagency working group activity of the Networking and IT R&D program. CSIA rightly points out that the IWG of NITRD has very little actual influence on priority-setting at the agencies. Instead, they recommend that the new Assistant Secretary for Cyber Security at DHS serve as “the logical choice to drive the prioritization of requirements for research and development.” My only concern with that recommendation is that DHS hasn’t yet bought into the idea that long-term research efforts should be a priority. DHS’s own budget for cyber security R&D remains a paltry $18 million for FY 05, out of an overall science and technology budget of just over a billion dollars. And of that $18 million, barely $2 million could realistically be described as “long-term” research efforts. (DHS’s lack of priority for cyber security R&D has been a frequenttopichere).
Otherwise, the CSIA report marches in lockstep with the PITAC report on cyber security R&D (pdf) issued back in March. We strongly endorsed that report and I’m pretty thrilled with the industry report issued this week.
Coincidentally, two former PITAC members (former because PITAC has been “disbanded” since June 1, 2005…) were on the Hill yesterday to participate in a briefing on cyber security R&D hosted by the Congressional Research and Development Caucus and put together by IEEE and IEEE-CS. Former PITAC Subcommittee on Cyber Security R&D Chair Tom Leighton (Chief Scientist and Co-Founder of Akamai) and former PITAC member Gene Spafford “Spaf” (Professor and Director of CERIAS at Purdue University) told the assembled congressional staffers, science community folks and assorted press about the problems we face in the cyber security arena and what PITAC recommended.
The briefing was the latest in a series of briefings on the PITAC report and follows a number of hearings on the scope of the cyber security challenge. In April, for example, Spaf and Leighton, along with former PITAC co-Chair Ed Lazowska, participated in a number of focused briefings for Hill staff on the PITAC report. The House Science Committee, as well as the House Homeland Security committee have both held numerous hearings on the subject over the last several years. Yet the extent of the problems we face — the risk posed by cyber attacks on critical infrastructure, the exposure internet users have to fraud and abuse because of security vulnerabilities, the cost to industry due to cyber extortion and malicious acts — still appears to shock to congressional staff. I’m not sure they really believe that companies have paid “protection” money to criminals who threatened to take down their web presence with massive distributed denial of service attacks. I’m not sure they really believe that “phishing” and “pharming” attacks are real threats to individual internet users. I’m not sure they understand that IT systems are in the control loop of just about every piece of critical infrastructure in the nation and are vulnerable. I think many believe that the impact of a concerted cyber attack would be limited to something like Amazon being unavailable for the day.
So despite the reports and briefings and hearings, we in the community haven’t done a great job breaking through the noise around homeland security and conveying the importance of cyber security, or by extension cyber security R&D. In part, I think this is because the homeland security debate is really dominated by the specter of a nuclear, biological or chemical (NBC) attack (perhaps rightly so). The idea that a cyber attack could exist on the same scale as any one of the big three isn’t so easily embraced by staff. Yet in terms of cost to industry and cost to government, the daily onslaught of cyber attacks must add up to dollar losses that exceed even some of the more dramatic NBC scenarios. But the investment in research to mitigate those losses, or prevent them entirely, pales in comparison to the investments in NBC research at DHS.
In any case, the continued efforts of folks like Spaf and Leighton, and industry partners like the members of CSIA and ITAA, are helping to educate members of Congress and their staff to the challenges in the area. And, for better or worse, the growing frequency of breeches of customer data held by credit card companies, banks, universities and others is forcing Congress to climb the learning curve….
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MSNBC Highlights NCWIT and Computing’s Image Problem
/In: CRA, Policy, R&D in the Press /by Peter HarshaA nice follow-up to last week’s post on the “science gap” and some of the ways the computing community is dealing with its “image problem” can be found today over
at MSNBC in a piece focusing on the new National Center for Women in IT (CRA and CRA-W form one “hub” of NCWIT — other hubs include the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology, ACM, The Colorado Coalition for Gender and IT, Georgia Tech, The Girl Scouts of the USA, and The University of California). The piece is called Fewer women find their way into tech and here’s a tease:
Read the whole thing.
NSF: CS Only Discipline to See Decline in Enrollments in 2003
/In: People /by Peter HarshaJay Vegso’s got an interesting post on the CRA Bulletin with a look at the latest NSF data on graduate science and engineering enrollments. The news for computer science isn’t particularly good — it’s the only discipline out of the 37 or so listed that showed a decrease in enrollments in 2003.
Read Jay’s post for more.
Inside Higher Ed also has the scoop.
Thoughts on the “Science Gap” and the Appeal of Computing
/In: People, Policy, R&D in the Press /by Peter HarshaThe Washington Post’s Politics Columnist (and resident contrarian) Robert Samuelson has an interesting Op-Ed in yesterday’s edition dealing with the fact that the U.S. is producing “a shrinking share of the world’s technological talent.” After noting that there’s a pay disparity between science and engineering PhDs and other “elites” like MBAs, doctors and lawyers that probably leads to the production disparity, Samuelson rightly points out that the simple fact that other countries are producing more S&E PhDs doesn’t mean that we necessarily lose.
Putting aside the fact that Samuelson apparently unwittingly puts his finger on the need for producing more US-born and naturalized S&E Phds — after all, given current agency practices, they are essentially the only ones able to do the defense-related research that will preserve “America’s advantage in weaponry” — he’s generally right on. The simple fact that other countries are producing S&E PhDs at rates higher than U.S. production isn’t the worry. The worry is when America’s global competition uses that newly-developed capacity for innovation and technological achievement to target sectors traditionally important to America’s strategic industries. IT is one such crucial sector.
As Samuelson points out, one way to insure the U.S. remains dominant, especially in a sector like IT, is to make sure the U.S. continues to attract the best minds in the world to come study and work here. Unfortunately, as we’ve noted frequently over the last couple of years, the environment for foreign students in the U.S. is not nearly as welcoming as it once was.
Another is to nuture and grow our own domestically-produced talent in the discipline. But the challenges here are also tall. The most recent issue of the Communications of the ACM contains a very interesting (and on point) piece (pdf) about whether the computing community in the U.S. needs to do a better job of evangelizing what’s truly exciting about the discipline to combat dropping enrollment rates and dropping interest in computing. The piece by Sanjeev Arora and Bernard Chazelle (thanks to Lance Fortnow for pointing it out on his excellent Computational Complexity blog), identifies the challenge:
A recent study by the Pew Internet Project demonstrates that American teenagers are tied to computing technology: 89 percent send or read e-mail; 84 percent visit websites about TV, music or sport stars; 81 percent play online games; 76 percent read online news; 75 percent send or receive instant messages. Yet that increasing use of technology doesn’t appear to make them any more interested in studying the science behind the technology. Maybe that’s not surprising — the fact that most teenagers probably have access to and use cars doesn’t appear to be swelling the ranks of automotive engineers. Maybe there’s a perception among bright teenagers that computing is a “solved” problem — or as John Marburger, the President’s science advisor put it at a hearing before the House Science Committee early in his tenure, maybe it’s a “mature” discipline now, perhaps not worthy of the priority placed on other more “breakthrough” areas of study like nanotechnology. I think Arora and Chazelle do a good job of debunking that perception, demonstrating that computing is thick with challenges and rich science “indispensible to the nation” to occupy bright minds for years to come.
But the perception persists. Computing has an image problem. Fortunately, the computing community isn’t standing still in trying to address it (though maybe it’s only just stood up). At the Computing Leadership Summit convened by CRA last February, a large and diverse group of stakeholders — including all the major computing societies, representatives from PITAC, NSF and the National Academies, and industry reps from Google, HP, IBM, Lucent, Microsoft, Sun, TechNet and others (complete list and summary here (pdf)) — committed to addressing two key issues facing computing: the current concerns of research funding support and computing’s “image” problem. Task forces have been formed, chairmen named (Edward Lazowska of U of Washington heads the research funding task force; Rick Rashid of Microsoft heads the “image” task force), and the work is underway. As the summary of the summit demonstrates, no ideas or possible avenues are off the table…. We’ll report more on the effort as it moves forward.
As Arora, Chazelle and Samuelson all point out, the challenges are tall, but the stakes for the country (never mind the discipline) are even higher.
Sid Karin gets Slashdotted
/In: General /by AndyBernatHere’s the blurb
Staring Down a Revolution: Questions for Sid Karin
Mark of THE CITY writes “Since helping to found the San Diego Supercomputer Center in the 1980s, Sid Karin has distinguished himself as a national expert on digital technology and its possibilities for scientific research.”
…Or you sleep with the dropped packets
/In: Policy /by DanRothschildIt will come as a surprise to no reader of this blog that gangs and organized crime have moved into cyberspace. And it will also come as no surprise that the media, legislative staff, and elected officials are usually a bit slow to grasp advances in technologies and their commensurate threats. (Let us not forget House Majority Leader Tom Delay’s invective aimed at Justice Kennedy for the heinous practice of “[doing] his own research on the Internet.” Which of the many “Internets” it was, Delay did not specify.)
The tech world has been abuzz for some time now over the role of organized crime and street gangs on the internet. Finally, after much pushing and prodding, it appears that the media may be paying attention.
Today’s New York Times includes an article entitled “The Rise of the Digital Thugs.”
Additionally, a story in the March/April 2005 issue of Foreign Policy discusses the role of street gangs online and hints at their potential to bring gang-related financial dealings online. What starts as cybertagging will likely end up becoming something much worse as gangs increasingly become sophisticated business entities.
This is something that the community needs to proactively address in Congress and in the states. Cybercrime is being committed by organized enterprises here and abroad and it costs businesses annually millions, if not billions, in lost revenues, protection money paid, theft, and loss of reputation.
Bereft of Life, PITAC Rests in Peace… but still garners attention
/In: Policy /by DanRothschildGene Spafford passed on an article from VARBusiness which illustrates the technical media’s attention to PITAC even two months after its expiry. The article speaks glowingly of PITAC, which it describes as “a group of technology-industry luminaries and academics assembled to act as a council [sic] to the president, Congress, and the federal agencies that are involved in [NITRD].” Adjectives used in describing the committee and its work include “insightful,” “expert,” “valuable.” The article quotes Harris Miller, president of the ITAA, at some length:
The bigger point here is this: while PITAC may be dormant, it is still getting extremely favorable attention from the tech and mainstream media. In addition, the media seem to be inclined to believe that a major reason for PITAC’s current hibernation is its frank and well-founded criticisms of current policy. This is encouraging and, with sustained pressure, may mean that PITAC will someday return to doing its “insightful,” “expert,” “valuable” work.
University of Texas Hosts Computer Camp to Pique Girls Interest
/In: People /by Peter HarshaInteresting article today in the University of Texas’ The Daily Texan about efforts at the school to encourage the participation of women in computer science. The school runs a one-week summer camp for junior and senior high school girls to expose them to the world of computer science, which, as the article points out, is heavily dominated by men. From the article:
Kudos to corporate sponsors IBM and Microsoft for supporting efforts like this and the goal of increasing participation of women and minorities in computer science (including the efforts of groups like CRA’s Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research (CRA-W)). The most recent data suggests that the popularity of computer science as a major among freshmen women is at an all-time low, so there is obviously much work to be done.
India will produce 73,500 engineering grads in 2006
/In: Misc. /by DanRothschildIf American students aren’t going to take up computer science, Indian students will. SiliconIndia.com and Hindu Business Line report, “Rising salaries and a growing software industry may have made IT one of the most sought-after careers for Indian students. An estimated 73,500 engineering graduates are expected to take up hi-tech jobs this fiscal [year].”
The article cites the Taulbee Survey’s finding that American CS enrollments have fallen by 19 percent, although this statistic was considered somewhat out of context. Nonetheless, the article gives a clear indication as to how the Indian technology press is covering workforce issues: America is losing IT workers and India is picking up the slack.
India is creating not just new computer scientists, but jobs as well:
To put this in context, it appears that India and the United States will produce roughly the same number of computer science and engineering graduates in per capita terms next year. What’s particularly important to note is that India’s enrollment statistics are trending up, while America’s are stagnating or declining.
Examiner Editorial on Math and Science Incentive Act
/In: Policy /by DanRothschildThe DC Examiner ran an editorial today using the Math and Science Incentive Act of 2005 (CRA blog entry here) to focus on the lack of emphasis that primary, secondary, and university education place on teaching science and math. The editorial praises the Act, introduced by Frank Wolf (R-VA) in the House and John Warner (R-VA) in the Senate, which would forgive up to $10,000 in student loan interest for post-college work or teaching in mathematics, physical sciences, and engineering.
The piece notes, however, that this bill alone is insufficient:
Updates on the status of the bill will appear in the blog if and when it gains traction in committee (Education and the Workforce in the House and Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions in the Senate).
Update posted June 29: The provisions of this bill have been rolled into the College Access and Opportunity Act, which was part of the higher education authorization. ACM has followed this issue in their blog.
Industry Group Calls for Increased Cyber Security R&D; Congress Hears Message from Former PITAC Members
/In: Funding, Policy, Security /by Peter HarshaIn a report released this week, the Cyber Security Industry Alliance — a group consisting of information security software, hardware and service vendors — called on Congress and the Administration to ramp up support for fundamental research in cyber security R&D and increase the prominence of cyber security at key federal agencies. CSIA’s report, Federal Funding for Cyber Security R&D (pdf) reiterates the findings of the most recent Presidential IT Advisory Committee (PITAC) report (pdf) on the state of federal cyber security research, concluding that the overall investment in cyber security research is inadequate and too focused on the short-term. The CSIA report agrees with the PITAC report’s recommendation to increase funding for long-term research in cyber security, noting a number of key security technologies — firewalls, intrustion detection systems, fault tolerant networks, operating systems, cryptography and advanced authentication — that bear the stamp of federally-sponsored, long-term research.
The report differs from the PITAC report slightly in that it calls for the creation of a “designated entity” within DHS to coordinate the federal government’s cyber security R&D effort; whereas, PITAC recommended that function remain within the interagency working group activity of the Networking and IT R&D program. CSIA rightly points out that the IWG of NITRD has very little actual influence on priority-setting at the agencies. Instead, they recommend that the new Assistant Secretary for Cyber Security at DHS serve as “the logical choice to drive the prioritization of requirements for research and development.” My only concern with that recommendation is that DHS hasn’t yet bought into the idea that long-term research efforts should be a priority. DHS’s own budget for cyber security R&D remains a paltry $18 million for FY 05, out of an overall science and technology budget of just over a billion dollars. And of that $18 million, barely $2 million could realistically be described as “long-term” research efforts. (DHS’s lack of priority for cyber security R&D has been a frequent topic here).
Otherwise, the CSIA report marches in lockstep with the PITAC report on cyber security R&D (pdf) issued back in March. We strongly endorsed that report and I’m pretty thrilled with the industry report issued this week.
Coincidentally, two former PITAC members (former because PITAC has been “disbanded” since June 1, 2005…) were on the Hill yesterday to participate in a briefing on cyber security R&D hosted by the Congressional Research and Development Caucus and put together by IEEE and IEEE-CS. Former PITAC Subcommittee on Cyber Security R&D Chair Tom Leighton (Chief Scientist and Co-Founder of Akamai) and former PITAC member Gene Spafford “Spaf” (Professor and Director of CERIAS at Purdue University) told the assembled congressional staffers, science community folks and assorted press about the problems we face in the cyber security arena and what PITAC recommended.
The briefing was the latest in a series of briefings on the PITAC report and follows a number of hearings on the scope of the cyber security challenge. In April, for example, Spaf and Leighton, along with former PITAC co-Chair Ed Lazowska, participated in a number of focused briefings for Hill staff on the PITAC report. The House Science Committee, as well as the House Homeland Security committee have both held numerous hearings on the subject over the last several years. Yet the extent of the problems we face — the risk posed by cyber attacks on critical infrastructure, the exposure internet users have to fraud and abuse because of security vulnerabilities, the cost to industry due to cyber extortion and malicious acts — still appears to shock to congressional staff. I’m not sure they really believe that companies have paid “protection” money to criminals who threatened to take down their web presence with massive distributed denial of service attacks. I’m not sure they really believe that “phishing” and “pharming” attacks are real threats to individual internet users. I’m not sure they understand that IT systems are in the control loop of just about every piece of critical infrastructure in the nation and are vulnerable. I think many believe that the impact of a concerted cyber attack would be limited to something like Amazon being unavailable for the day.
So despite the reports and briefings and hearings, we in the community haven’t done a great job breaking through the noise around homeland security and conveying the importance of cyber security, or by extension cyber security R&D. In part, I think this is because the homeland security debate is really dominated by the specter of a nuclear, biological or chemical (NBC) attack (perhaps rightly so). The idea that a cyber attack could exist on the same scale as any one of the big three isn’t so easily embraced by staff. Yet in terms of cost to industry and cost to government, the daily onslaught of cyber attacks must add up to dollar losses that exceed even some of the more dramatic NBC scenarios. But the investment in research to mitigate those losses, or prevent them entirely, pales in comparison to the investments in NBC research at DHS.
In any case, the continued efforts of folks like Spaf and Leighton, and industry partners like the members of CSIA and ITAA, are helping to educate members of Congress and their staff to the challenges in the area. And, for better or worse, the growing frequency of breeches of customer data held by credit card companies, banks, universities and others is forcing Congress to climb the learning curve….