Using Network Logic to Bring ICT Skills to Developing Countries

Friday 12 Oct 2007

Adam Kasenally, Adam Tolnay

Adam Kasenally
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Adam Tolnay
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Rather than crying over spilled milk or inquiring over the causes of failure, this short piece seeks to ask the question of how traditional bureaucratic approaches and state structures may be bypassed in an effort to provide skills to young people in developing countries rapidly and effectively. The proposal outlined is known by the name Rapid Skills Development Program (RSDP) and we use our beloved island of Mauritius to illustrate the case. We delineate our proposal in question and answer format.

What are skills and how can they be transferred to developing countries?
Our premise is that ICT skills are a commodity, and as such they can be transferred: by purchase, by grant through scholarships, by volunteers, or by trade. Given that the government in Mauritius, like many developing country governments, cannot afford to purchase skills on the world market from foreign training institutions, it should consider how it can leverage international efforts to bring IT skills to Mauritius, and how it can trade assets it has in abundance for assets it needs but doesn’t have. The two critical elements for the success of skills transfer are contact between people who possess valuable skills and people who need them so that they can trade assets and skills and leveraging international partnerships. The group most able to assist with creating contact and international partnerships is the highly educated and influential Mauritian Diaspora. The asset Mauritius can readily trade on favorable terms is its immense natural and cultural beauty. We have witnessed over the course of the last 14 years of running Learning Enterprises ( HYPERLINK “http://www.learningenterprises.org/” ), that volunteers are naturally attracted by Mauritius’ human and natural beauty. Mauritius, for Learning Enterprises, is a “premium” volunteer destination and is continually

oversubscribed by volunteers. A national volunteer program designed to teach important skills could be started at minimal cost. All that volunteers would ask for is shelter and food. Another example could be an online program supported by a private-public partnership in which Mauritian secondary school students tutor Canadian children struggling with French, in exchange for the Canadian children teaching Mauritian students exportable skills that they are good at.

How can existing networks be leveraged for skills transfer?
As Albert-Laszlo Barabasi, professor of mathematics at Notre Dame University, informs us in his magisterial book “Linked” that networks are everywhere. Diseases, fashions and businesses are primarily networks of interchange, and as such they follow certain laws. One overriding law is that skills tend to cluster in hubs or centers of excellence. Watch making in Switzerland, diamond cutting in Antwerp and software development in Singapore are examples of such skills, though it’s obvious that Singapore didn’t invent software, and diamonds are mined thousands of miles from Belgium. Setting out to become a hub is resource-inefficient because of enormous barriers to entry. Rather, by recognizing that hubs are places where that attract people with an overabundance of skills reside the best policy for acquiring skills is identify hubs and creating a framework in which skills can be traded with ease, almost as a matter of routine. For example, employees in Silicon Valley corporations could sign up for month-long tours of duty to teach IT skills in Mauritius, at minimal cost to the country. Likewise, Harvard Business School students working on BPO start-ups could be offered summer teaching opportunities at the University of Mauritius.

Another characteristic of social networks is that all have at their core thought leaders, people whose opinions are readily listened to and followed. This is why any strategy of tapping into hubs should itself be conceived of in network terms. A person who could bring 10 colleagues to Mauritius should be the target of recruitment efforts instead of the person who would mobilize a sole colleague.

What form of leadership needs to be put in place for rapid skills transfer to take place?
In his paper “Leadership in the Digital Age,” professor of Politics Ernest J. Wilson of the University of Maryland inquires into essential attributes for leaders in today’s technological world. He argues that in addition to the usual characteristics identified by Max Weber a century ago, leaders in today’s digital age need to have: the ability to build awareness about a cause, the skills to mobilize resources around it, the power to provide infrastructure to reinforce the process of getting to the goal, and the statesmanship to create a platform for the cause. These are hefty demands for today’s “wannabe” leaders, yet they are traits drawn from an investigation of individuals, organizations and governments that have succeeded in redrawing the boundaries of power in a myriad of fields over the past 20 years.

It is quite reasonable to expect leadership to come from the government. After all, isn’t this what ministers are paid to do? Empirical evidence, however, suggests that government-led strategies in IT development have met with failure more often than strategies driven by other sectors. Indeed, true digital leaders have emerged as individuals or individual corporate entities who then lobby governments to create platforms to further their causes. A case in point is software companies in China lobbying the government to reform the legal system with a view to protecting Chinese intellectual property. Until recently, the Chinese government had only heard such grumbling from US trade commissioners for the purposes of protecting American IP interests. Another case was associations of Indian software companies lobbying the city government of Bangalore to provide a reliable and stable power supply, a resource as critical to their well being as water is to a food business.

A key attribute of today’s Digital Leader is the ability to mobilize networks. These networks would transcend geographies, the leader’s own socio-linguistic circles, markets and economies. Thus leaders in China and India’s ICT industries have succeeded in mobilizing networks in all markets that they sell in, wish to sell in, and even have no plans to sell in. Companies such as Infosys and Lenovo are Indian and Chinese companies no longer, but are truly global in their operations. They will produce in Bangalore, market in Tokyo, recruit at Harvard Business School, and raise capital in Silicon Valley, order custom hardware from Shenzen and probably pay taxes in Bermuda. The organization of these major IT companies provides clear evidence that successful digital leaders are good at tightly integrating with networks globally to further their own cause, and not relying on regional trade networks alone. The global digital economy the only proper perspective for sourcing as well as marketing is a global one. Plugging in to the global network is a real challenge. In some ways the challenge is an old one. It requires old style blood and guts leadership. In other ways, the challenge is new and requires network leadership skills. An illustration of what needs to be done is the Rapid Skills Development Program (RSDP) applied to Mauritius.

The Rapid Skills Development Program (RDSP) aims to do the following: Empirical evidence, however, suggests that government-led strategies in IT development have met with failure more often than strategies driven by other sectors. Indeed, true digital leaders have emerged as individuals or individual corporate entities who then lobby governments to create platforms to further their causes. A case in point is software companies in China lobbying the government to reform the legal system with a view to protecting Chinese intellectual property. Until recently, the Chinese government had only heard such grumbling from US trade commissioners for the purposes of protecting American IP interests. Another case was associations of Indian software companies lobbying the city government of Bangalore to provide a reliable and stable power supply, a resource as critical to their well being as water is to a food business.

Transfer a core set of IT and ICT-based skills to young “O-Level” graduates using an elite group of volunteers, paid professionals, and professionals sponsored by their employing corporations
Connect the young people trained by the RSDP with apprenticeship opportunities abroad
Channel paid work projects to RSDP graduates once their apprenticeships are over, through the foreign professional’s network of contacts
Thus create a critical mass of skills on Mauritius that would serve to a seeds for new businesses
Organize graduates of RSDP into a Center of Excellence able to liaise with international corporations to bring ICT enabled work to Mauritius

Case Study for the RDSP:
The government of Mauritius hires Maurice Ungaro Consulting, which in turn partners with a software corporation, BearSoft Inc, in Santa Clara California to partake in the RDSP program on Mauritius.

BearSoft agrees to the following:
• Sending Maurice Ungaro a selection of candidates for interview
• Provide the selected candidates four weeks of sabbatical in order to conduct the RDSP
• Providing the participants’ airfares and nominal living expenses for four weeks

BearSoft employees Alice and Bob travel to Mauritius. Waiting for them are seven University of Mauritius University graduates who may have degrees in software development, but no real world exposure and no practical programming experience.

Over three weeks, Alice and Bob present a sample fictional project to the class, based on real world projects from their experience at BearSoft. The students use their own domain knowledge and network knowledge from Alice and Bob to complete the study project to specifications expected by a major US company.

During the final week, Alice and Bob present the group with a new project, asking them to apply the real-world principles they have learned. In this phase, Alice and Bob assess their students for possible apprenticeships and identify the “leaders” among the students, who will be the future coordinators of incoming work for the nascent development team. They teach the leaders the essentials of project management, cost control and resource allocation as well. During their time on the island, Alice and Bob live with Mauritian host families and enjoy their hospitality. On weekends they hike the volcanic craters of the island and spend time snorkeling the silver sands ringing the island.

On their return to Santa Clara, Alice and Bob treat their students as apprentices, sending them valuable learnings from their work on a regular basis. They also conduct a small amount of assessment, to measure whether their students are ready for “graduation” to the next step.

A month later, a client commissions BearSoft to produce a new application. A project plan is developed and the Mauritius-based students are allotted small, supervised tasks on the project. They are compensated as apprentices, at nominal rates.

As the amount of work grows for Alice and Bob, they have the latitude to offer more and more paid work to the Mauritius based students, based on divisions of labor in skills. The local “leader” assumes the responsibility of allocating work and is accountable to his US counterpart for smooth delivery of the projects.

A year later, the RDSP is over. Alice and Bob have introduced their students to several other customers, partners and associates who are impressed by the quality of the students’ work. The Mauritian students therefore have a pool of demand for their skills, and new sources of income from customers abroad.

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