Digital Skills for Life
For girls and young women to thrive in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) careers, they need to acquire skills to become both ICT users and creators in the digital world.
I had witnessed in 1970s evolution of IT industry in India. Our guesthouse of IIT K used to have frequent visitors from abroad coming from MIT, Stanford and all other countries. IIT K had started Ph.D in Computer Science and Engineering program already handling projects. Professor Raja Raman known as father of Computer Science taught us and we students were already exposed to those entire emerging field.
In 1979 I started dialoguing with people in the ministry of industry, Nepal. Apple computers had just arrived and was a big news in the town. I recall Muni Shakya call us for a meeting. I remember in 1996 Mr Van Houten from Centre of Business International CBI from Rotterdam, Netherlands had visited the industry ministry. He had briefed ministry on how CBI had helped India in IT industry and CBI wanted similar initiatives in Nepal. I was one of the executive members of Computer Association of Nepal then trying to lobby the ministry for initiatives.
I had spoken to the ministry regarding human resources development in the IT field. In 1994 B.E in Electronic Engineering had started. IOE had only faculty members in electronic engineering field. I started perusing the ministry to start budgeting in academic sector to initiate IT industry in Nepal. I face hard time convincing the ministry because the awareness was lacking. Luckily I found that Mr. Padma Jyoti, who was the chairperson of Federation of Nepal Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FNCCI). I had easy time convincing because he was a graduate from IIT Kanpur and was aware of this new upcoming opportunity. I convinced him that FNCCI should also play a lead role for IT industry in Nepal and convinced them to start dialoguing with ministry of industry. I also wanted to show FNCCI the activities of Indian Ambassador in Hannover, Germany in international exhibition where there were one million visitors in 1996.
My student Mr. Buttu Chalise was the son of Secretary Mr. Bhola Nath Chalise then. Battu was in my class at IOE and through him, I managed to convince the secretary. I had an easier time convincing students of electronics department in 1994 to start positioning themselves in the area of IT sector. These students were really influencing factors for me. They were the supporting factors for me to convince the issue in the ministry of industry. These students also went to IIT Kanpur to understand the infrastructure and academic environment.
I also played active role in Computer Association of Nepal (CAN), worked as an executive member, and took the responsibility of developing software industry in Nepal. I delivered several speeches regarding the potential of this area to various stakeholders. The ministry of industry appointed Mr. Chiranjivi Nepal to look after this area. He had a simple background of economics degree and he had no knowledge about this industry. I had difficult time making him understand the importance of international exhibitions abroad in this sector.
In 1996 I went with Mr. Bijaya Krishna Shrestha, the president of CAN and Mr. Chiranjeevi Nepal to observe how Embassies of India were lobbying with potential clients of Europe, USA and other countries. They were communicating with the companies in India and the clients abroad, working out project contracts, helping in bringing them into negotiation tables to sign legal contracts during international exibitions. I even visited NASCOM in New Delhi and briefed ministry on how they were helping companies sign projects with international clients. In CBI Rotterdam, Netherlands, I had to give presentation on the technical competencies of Nepalese people. The parties demanded 100 computer engineers. We had no academic institutions in Nepal offering such degree. I had hard time convincing ministry for allocating budget for opening high standard academic institutions for this potential sector.
Ministry of Education took all these details. Due to the lack of resources and teachers to teach such courses and I had to remodel electronic engineering for positioning them into learning courses on software engineering related courses. No other academic institutions existed then. In 1991, I had already started software projects under ADB grant and other projects like Nepal telecom etc. I could good provide good exposure through my projects.
I went around presenting IT preparedness of these industries to various concerned stakeholders including business houses of Nepal and National planning Commission. My report which was submitted in National planning commission got published in international journal of Asian Productivity (APO) Japan. This paper gave NPC a clear picture of how private sectors could also contribute in this industry.
During the pandemic time, there was a surge of demand of IT people in the world and there was an urgent demand for positioning of reskilled people to cope up with the flood in the international job market in this sector worldwide. There were a lot of shortage of competent people in the world. Nepal should have positioned themselves grabbing this opportunity with the effort from Nepalese embassies worldwide. In the year 1997 I had even taken government representative Chiranjivi Nepal and Vijaya Krishna Shrestha , President of CAN to CeBIT, Hanover Germany in an international fair. I made them visit government representatives to IT parks of India too. I had requested them to educate all ambassadors of Nepal to follow the model of India then. In order to grab the international market Computer Association of Nepal (CAN) could have played a great role in this area. During my term as one of the executive members of CAN I had even delivered a couple of public speeches in various programs with concerned stakeholders including representatives from government and FNCCI informing that this is the sector which will feed Nepalese people demanding new government policies to produce to produce graduates in mass scale in this area to grab international opportunities.
All these opportunities are missed out due to passive functioning of stakeholders. The policy from the government should allow flexibility for even private sectors to produce by enrolling a large number of students in this area. The bottleneck could have been avoided through intervention by introducing new policies aligned with international and local demand by engaging private sectors also in scaling up the business. Private sectors were crying too for allowing them to enroll students on a larger scale. This sector given opportunities can bring true prosperity in the country.
The academic institutions are not regulated for quality production. There is an acute shortage of graduates with quality academic background. The policy has to be flexible enough to make the quality products grow in large volume. There should not be any restriction in terms of production to support opportunities on online platforms and engaging experts abroad and in the local market. Government should allocate a sufficient budget for providing sufficient infrastructure and reskilling the youth. There are so many areas to be improved in academic sectors. During Covid 19 pandemic period there was a sudden surge of demand for skilled manpower in the world. The government should be responsive by positioning all required resources to grab this opportunity. The opportunities in the world exist.
I have taught in the Institute of Engineering for 35 year and I was also Assistant dean responsible for looking after 14 engineering colleges under Tribhuvan University. I found all these college students competent. They had limited resources. I’m sure they would have performed even much better had the government or private sectors provided more resources. To address a volume requirement in the IT sector from local institutions as well as global institutions concerned stakeholder should have right policy for the human resource development guided by government agencies for more responsive actions in time with adequate budget in reskilling. in order to fit into the global requirement and local requirement Iis is very unfortunate that people in the national Planning Commission were not not responsive. The requirements come in big volume and engaging all this youth, reskilling them and all these steps have to
be very responsive. We’ve lost a big chunk of opportunity .
All the NGOs and INGOs interfacing with remote citizens and local governing bodies should by backed by adequate budget to incorporate packages on reskilling and transferring those skills to youth forces specifically in STEM area.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtIqjzQSYcE&t=1752s