Microsoft Marching For More Engineering Students

Microsoft has identified engineering students, as well as trained IT engineers, as commodities in short supply. And now the company is aiming for women and minorities -- not least to improve and diversify its products.

Microsoft Research invited the press to its Silicon Valley Roadshow in early May. We were promised cool new stuff from the lab. But the keynote speech by Roy Levin, Director of Microsoft Research, Silicon Valley, focused entirely on the lack of engineers and on the education pipeline as did the following panel discussion.

"We believe it is in the best interests of our industry, to have a continuing stream of high-quality, well-educated students in the sciences and technology. Software is a people-intensive business. Microsoft is committed to technical innovation, research is a primary arm of that, and we, therefore, want to continue to hire technically innovative people," Roy Levin said.

That this is a burning issue for Microsoft is proven by the company's presence in Washington, at the first-ever Innovation Town Hall, sponsored by the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT) and the National Science Foundation (NSF). Every speaker ? from the federal government, industry, think thanks, non-profits and academia ? cited the lack of diversity in IT as a major competitive and innovative problem for the U.S.

"Locking women out of information technology is like having one hand tied behind our competitive backs," Senator Barack Obama (D - IL) said.

The logic goes as follows:

Innovation is presently considered to be the key driver of the U.S. (actually any) economy. And for a company to survive it needs to repeatedly be able of taking new products -- Vistas, iPods, or Blackberries of the world -- to the market. Innovation is key, whether you're in Seattle, Silicon Valley or Washington D.C. But to be innovative a company needs people with the right training and thinking.

In his Innovation Town hall opening speech Rick Rashid, Senior Vice President and in charge of all Microsoft's research, commented that by 2012 the Department of Labor has estimated that there will be 1.5 million new jobs in IT.

"But as we stand here the number of students that are going into computer science are going down. One problem is that less than 20 percent of those who graduate in computer sciences are women and the numbers decline," Rashid said. "But this is also an opportunity. By engaging women and underrepresented minorities we can enroll a collection of smart people. Diversity is also an issue of what kind of products you want to build; it gives you a workforce that let you reach a broader field of consumers with products of higher quality."

Remains to be seen what this initiative will lead to. One thing is probably for sure; it won't be the last we here about shortage of computer engineers.

You can see web casts from the Innovation Town Hall here.