In a Washington Post article subtitled “Could Silicon Valley become another Detroit” , Shane Robison, HP’s chief strategy and technology officer sees trouble coming for the tech industry. He and other HP top exectutives:
“are ringing an alarm bell about what they see as a looming disaster, not just for HP, but for the entire U.S. tech industry. They say that unless we boost government spending on science, technology, engineering and math — STEM, in industry jargon — we will be unable to keep up with countries such as China and India.”
Spending more on education for math and sciences could provide a big part of the solution. We must educate more math and science students in the U.S.
Stan Williams a Ph.D Chemist and expert in nanotechnology research at HP labs mentions that in their lab:
“only 18 of the 75 scientists were born in the United States, and 10 of those American-born researchers are over 50 years old; only six are under the age of 35. For now, HP can rely on foreign-born scientists, but “what happens when those people stop wanting to come here?”
As the economies of countries in Asia especially India and China grow, there will be more and more job opportunities for their science and engineering students to find work at home. If we can’t attract foreign talent and we don’t get more of our students educated in math and science, will much of America look like Detroit in 10 or 20 years?