Archive for February, 2011

To win the future, you have to start in middle school

Monday, February 28th, 2011

Last week, we were discussing with Santiago Ceria about some of the differences between the US and Argentina. We briefly touched on the subject of his recent blog post, the need in both countries to boost the number and quality of science and engineering professionals.

science fair

science fair

In the US, they are taking the matter very seriously. Just take a look at Obama’s recent State of the Union address. It’s available online and from the White House site. In that speech, Obama set a goal of preparing 100,000 new teachers in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math, over the next 10 years. Just the priorities defined by picking those four fields are revealing. This is a key step of the race to “win the future”, as Obama defines it.
I was also struck but another component of that same strategy when I attended the first “Science and Engineering Festival” (www.usasciencefestival.org), last year in Washington DC. Over two days, visitors of the festival had access to dozens of booths hosted by US Agencies (from NASA to the EPA or the Department of Energy), private corporations (from Lookheed Martin to the Science Channel), and Universities. It was a fascinating experience, where kids could interact and explore science on a fun and educational environment. There were maglev train prototypes, NASA spacesuits and rovers, energy efficient generators and much more. (more…)

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Is Agile the next step for the US Federal Government?

Tuesday, February 22nd, 2011

A few months ago I was referred to the recently published plan to reform the US Federal Information Technology Management. You can read it at:www.cio.gov I found it quite revealing of the needs for change not just in the US Government, but probably in many large organizations.
The study points out that in the last decade, and even after investing more than $600 billion, the US Federal Government is still facing quality and productivity issues. Research has shown that many projects have become obsolete even before being deployed. To some degree, this is not surprising. Big budgets exist because issues are large and complex and involve a myriad of entities and interests. On the other hand, business needs change fast, and technology, faster. So how do you tackle an issue involving many intricate interactions and huge amounts data, when those issues and the technology available to solve them change constantly?
Much of the strategy the plan proposes is related to reducing asset investment and redundancy, by relying on cloud services that can be accessed by many different agencies. Other plan components call for human resources skills improvement in program management and procuring. The component that called my attention had to do with software development. (more…)

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Listening to John Von Neumann

Thursday, February 3rd, 2011

John Von NeumannWhile at Carnegie Mellon in 92-93 I became very interested in the history of computing. Jim Tomayko, my advisor and good friend, was the editor of the IEEE Annals on the History of Computing, and recommended me Herman Goldstine’s book “The Computer, from Pascal to Von Neumann”. Goldstine, one of the key persons on the ENIAC Project together with Mauchly and Eckert, met by chance John Von Neumann on a train station in 1944 and told him about this incredibly fast calculating machine that he was working on. The rest of the story is well known; Von Neumann became extremely interested in the project and added key contributions to the development of digital computers that last until today.

Von Neumann is also known for his amazing intelligence. In his book, Goldstine dedicates a few pages to describe some of the things his incredible brain could do, including a total recall of books he had read and doing sophisticated calculations in his head. If you have a chance to read this book, don’t miss it. (more…)

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What makes Argentina an attractive hub for American companies

Wednesday, February 2nd, 2011

Argentina isn’t the first country that comes to mind when people think of IT, but Hexacta has been helping devise IT solutions for US clients since 1999. Housed in a chic loft in the heart of Palermo in Buenos Aires, Hexacta boasts an impressive list of clients such as Comcast, Microsoft and Shell.

So what makes Argentina such an attractive hub for American companies that want to call in some outside help?
Argentina’s geographic location offers an array of competitive advantages when compared. Not only is Buenos Aires in the same time zone as eastern US, but the focus on technical education and the proximity of several universities allows Hexacta access to some of the most highly qualified software engineers. IT and telecom infrastructure has been expanding rapidly and all network technologies are now digital with almost 15 million lines installed which translates to 45 lines/100 people, the largest operation in South America. Furthermore, the Argentinian government has established numerous incentives to spur the development of the software industry.

With all of these advantages, companies like Hexacta able to offer highly competitive prices that make Argentina an attractive choice for US companies considering IT outsourcing.

Kevin Sun, MBA Class of 2011
Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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