Russian universities two in first three and three in top ten; which includes Izhevsk, which to the best of my knowledge has the honor of producing my excellent receptionist and little else.
A Russian friend working in the Valley forwarded me this report. He has a PhD in something complicated and a 7-year old son. He is worried that the public-education that he is giving him will qualify him to be a lawyer, consultant or investment banker but certainly nothing that requires 2x2 being equal to 4 at all times.
I'm damned if I can import the chart and keep the formatting so you will have to find the standings here. The top 13 included 5 Universities from Russia, 5 from China (not bad on a comparative per head of population basis,) and 5 from Europe. The first US university/ies came 17th=. By which time a bunch more Russian, Belorussian and Chinese Universities had also joined the list. It is true that the average standard of education across Russia is falling rapidly. In a comparative report sponsored by the OECD has the average level of mathematics in Russia and the US at the same level. The statistic seems to me to be out, but as a trend it's difficult to argue with. Yet at the top end the trend is clear. Russia and the CIS is the world's leading powerhouse in mathematics. That strength is beginning to show up in complicated programming problems and has been recognized by (inter alia and/or principally) Intel, Motorola and Boeing. And I mention them because they were the principal players in Tuesday's poorly attended session on high technology at the Russian Economic Forum. The panel was led by Sergei Kravchenko of Boeing who stated in his opening comments that VV Putin wanted Russia to catch-up with India's $12bn in exported IT services. Russia's export services in 2004 amounted to a paltry $0.5mn. Ex-Komsol leaders like Kravchenko are unlikely to publicly disagree with Our Great Leader.
The comparison is misleading. Not that Russia's export services are paltry, they are, but that India is Russia's competitor. It seems unlikely that an Indian design team will be responsible for 1/3 of the Boeing 7e7 or 777, or build Motorola's phone software development which is being developed by a great company in Nizhny Novgorod. Nor would Intel go to Indian scientists to sort out RF issues with the Centrino chip, after their Israeli development team ran in to issues. But even that maybe missing the point. No one refers to the quantity of export services from Israel. Instead Israel's high tech success is measured in companies that raise venture financing and go public on NASDAQ. This is where Russia should be competing. Where the comparison is meaningful is that competition to provide intellectual services is global. Nearly all of Russia's competitors provide inducements of one kind or another to build outsourcing centers. Russia cannot assume that its intellectual abilities alone will create demand for its scientists.
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14 April 2005
American Universities Fall Way Behind in Programming...
Russian universities two in first three and three in top ten; which includes Izhevsk, which to the best of my knowledge has the honor of producing my excellent receptionist and little else.
A Russian friend working in the Valley forwarded me this report. He has a PhD in something complicated and a 7-year old son. He is worried that the public-education that he is giving him will qualify him to be a lawyer, consultant or investment banker but certainly nothing that requires 2x2 being equal to 4 at all times.
I'm damned if I can import the chart and keep the formatting so you will have to find the standings here. The top 13 included 5 Universities from Russia, 5 from China (not bad on a comparative per head of population basis,) and 5 from Europe. The first US university/ies came 17th=. By which time a bunch more Russian, Belorussian and Chinese Universities had also joined the list. It is true that the average standard of education across Russia is falling rapidly. In a comparative report sponsored by the OECD has the average level of mathematics in Russia and the US at the same level. The statistic seems to me to be out, but as a trend it's difficult to argue with. Yet at the top end the trend is clear. Russia and the CIS is the world's leading powerhouse in mathematics. That strength is beginning to show up in complicated programming problems and has been recognized by (inter alia and/or principally) Intel, Motorola and Boeing. And I mention them because they were the principal players in Tuesday's poorly attended session on high technology at the Russian Economic Forum. The panel was led by Sergei Kravchenko of Boeing who stated in his opening comments that VV Putin wanted Russia to catch-up with India's $12bn in exported IT services. Russia's export services in 2004 amounted to a paltry $0.5mn. Ex-Komsol leaders like Kravchenko are unlikely to publicly disagree with Our Great Leader.
The comparison is misleading. Not that Russia's export services are paltry, they are, but that India is Russia's competitor. It seems unlikely that an Indian design team will be responsible for 1/3 of the Boeing 7e7 or 777, or build Motorola's phone software development which is being developed by a great company in Nizhny Novgorod. Nor would Intel go to Indian scientists to sort out RF issues with the Centrino chip, after their Israeli development team ran in to issues. But even that maybe missing the point. No one refers to the quantity of export services from Israel. Instead Israel's high tech success is measured in companies that raise venture financing and go public on NASDAQ. This is where Russia should be competing. Where the comparison is meaningful is that competition to provide intellectual services is global. Nearly all of Russia's competitors provide inducements of one kind or another to build outsourcing centers. Russia cannot assume that its intellectual abilities alone will create demand for its scientists.
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