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Thursday 10 February 2011 DIGITALIRELAND INSIGHT 3 Tech Jobs Potential leaders’ views Thoughts on the IT sector from leading tech figures


dr waseem akhtar, head of the Faculty of Computing Science, Griffith College Dublin


Microsoft Ireland’s headquarters in Sandyford Business Park, Dublin


haven’t recovered the numbers they need at a time when technology jobs grew in Ireland by 6pc this past year. Computer science college courses


experienced the highest drop-out rate, with 27pc of these students leaving within their first year, a recent Higher Education Authority (HEA) study found. Engineering was third in terms of drop- out rates, with 20pc of students leaving before second year. Science tied with the arts/humanities/business sector, with a 14pc drop-out rate. PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment), the OECD (Or- ganisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) group responsible for measuring maths and literacy per- formance by students worldwide, found Ireland significantly below the OECD average for maths, causing alarm among industry groups. Comparing countries’ and economies’


performances, Ireland achieved a PISA score of 487, below the OECD average of 496, and comparing poorly with econo- mies like China-Shanghai (600), Korea (546) and Finland (541). Insufficient ICT resources in Irish schools were blamed by PISA for the poor performance, proof if anything that the State must be step- ping up its investment in ICT in schools, not reducing it. As well as multinationals, Ireland


needs its own rich trove of successful en- trepreneurs and start-ups that, in their own right, will generate new jobs. One example of an Irish technology company taking the world by storm is Dublin- based Intuition which provides e-learn- ing to businesses around the world. The company has developed a cloud-based offering for its e-learning services that is accessed by over one millon people worldwide. Daragh Scaife, Intuition’s head of


Technology, said that Ireland needs to do more to ensure we have more tech- nology graduates. “I think Ireland has talked a lot about positioning itself as a knowledge economy, but we’re not see- ing the number of graduates we really need to see emerge from colleges. “As the country moves into a leading position, we need not only graduates but we need to have them doing research and further careers and building intel- lectual property. There’s a worldwide shortage of mobile developers and com- panies are doing as much as they can to fill those gaps. “What Irish policymakers and busi-


ness leaders need to realise is that tech- nology is still driven by the English language. We’re in a unique position of having a national badge of being a tech- nology country and we have the English language. We should be capitalising on that but unfortunately we’re not doing enough.” In the Irish market, many of the com-


panies recruiting skilled engineers and programmers tend to be hiring a cosmo-


politan mix of some Irish and interna- tional workers, according to Scaife. “The technology industry needs expe-


rienced and talented workers and they don’t have to all be computer engineers. As well as programming there are op- portunities for testing, programme analysis, people who can write good technical documents, product managers and ultimately people who can work in a team environment,” he said. In December financial services giant


Citi announced 250 new jobs in Dublin and Waterford. In Dublin Citi has an R&D centre that has created 180 jobs and plans to grow further in 2011. Citi’s Dave Fleming spelled out the


opportunities for ICT careers. “Globally technology and particularly software is growing at a faster pace year-on-year as technology embeds itself deeper and deeper into the global economy and into our daily lives. “There is hardly an industry that is untouched by innovations enabled by technology. For example the music in- dustry has changed forever, the movie business is rapidly moving online, com- munication has gone digital, and finance has been revolutionised. “The opportunities are endless within technology, each country requires more talent than any single market can supply. The global technology industry is cur- rently a US$1.6trn business and there is no sign of it shrinking. On the contrary growth will continue – 5.7pc in 2011 over 2010 – and most likely will increase in its velocity as the global economy slowly picks up over time. “All skills such as development man-


agement, program management, project management, analysis and QA are in demand, however the most acute de- mands are for talented developers (Java, .NET, web, mobile etc) who know how to develop commercial grade software with quality and fast! The conversion of the industry from traditional methods towards agile methods has accelerated the rate of delivery and productivity for those companies and teams which em- brace the new methods,” Fleming said. Vast opportunities exist in the grow-


ing area of ubiquitous computing, he added, which he believes encompasses cloud computing, mobile/untethered computing, social computing and the web in general amongst others. “Ubiquitous computing is about em- bedding computing into our daily lives, it is social, cross platform, cross device, cross OS by default. Today email is ubiq- uitous and social graph-based apps are also ubiquitous. What’s next? We at Citi think finance, payments, transactions!” So there it is. As a country we talk


about recession, emigration and politics. But we need to be turning our thoughts towards creating more productive in- dustries where graduates can have rea- sonable expectations of a rewarding, challenging, but innovative career.


Even in these testing times, the global ICT industry showed 3–4pc growth in 2010 and further growth is predicted for 2011. Many of the world’s best known brands have chosen Ireland as the hub of their European operations. As well as this, Irish innovation in the ICT sector is supported and funded by a number of government and semi-government entities. Although a well-educated and innovative workforce is a reality in Ireland, there is a significant skills shortage in the ICT sector. ICT companies are continuously complaining that they cannot find suitable graduates for their jobs. A recent survey suggests that employers in the high-tech manufacturing sector have identified a 49pc gap in technical skills. This represents a huge opportunity for suitable graduates for work in Ireland.


dave Fleming,


senior vice-president and R&D head of Technology, Citi


Globally technology, particularly software, is growing at a faster pace year-on-year as technology embeds itself deeper into the global economy and into our daily lives. There is hardly an industry un- touched by innovations enabled by technology. Ireland over the past decade has grow in significance and visibility in the global technology industry, given the rich vein of talent available and the high quality technology professionals being produced by the ecosystem of tech companies here. These attributes, along with the attractive corporate tax rate and R&D grant programmes, have attracted major players into Ireland, which has resulted in a significant number of employ- ment opportunities. The global technology industry is currently a $1.6trn dollar business and there is no sign of it shrinking.


sonya Curley, managing director, Harvey Nash


Ireland is one of the most important centres for high-tech business in the world. It accounts for more than a third of Ireland’s total exports – significant considering 85pc of all our goods are exports. The reason for the growth has been twofold; one very significant factor has been the success of many of our indigenous IT companies winning international business, leading to increase in our exports. Along with an increase in the appetite for the goods and services of our indigenous companies, there has been a significant increase in foreign direct investment (FDI). With eight out of the top 10 technology companies announcing growth plans for 2011, there has been a large increase in demand for the top talent across a range of activities in the ICT sector.


daragh scaife, head of Technology Operations, Intuition


The adoption of exciting new technologies, such as Intuition’s mobile knowledge management platform, is relentless and drives global demand. The quality of Irish-based software developers is very high, which drives the industry here. The ICT industry worldwide has been expanding all the way through the recession. With all the doom and gloom here, this is easily overlooked by commentators and the media. There has never been a better time to work in the indigenous Irish software sector. Employers are very flexible and offer much better long-term opportunities than large global concerns, where it can be hard to make a difference. Entrepreneurial opportunities abound and success and return can be much better, particularly for people at a stage in their career when they can afford to take risks.


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