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Using Network Logic to Bring ICT Skills to Developing CountriesFriday 12 Oct 2007
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.
Case Study for the RDSP: BearSoft agrees to the following: 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. 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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