Career Transitions and Trajectories: A Case Study in Computing

From artificial intelligence to network security to hardware design, it is well-known that computing research drives many important technological and societal advancements. However, less is known about the long-term career paths of the people behind these innovations. What do their careers reveal about the evolution of computing research? Which institutions were and are the most important in this field, and for what reasons? Can insights into computing career trajectories help predict employer retention? In this paper we analyze several decades of post-PhD computing careers using a large new dataset rich with professional information, and propose a versatile career network model, R^3, that captures temporal career dynamics. With R^3 we track important organizations in computing research history, analyze career movement between industry, academia, and government, and build a powerful predictive model for individual career transitions. Our study, the first of its kind, is a starting point for understanding computing research careers, and may inform employer recruitment and retention mechanisms at a time when the demand for specialized computational expertise far exceeds supply.Comment: To appear in KDD 201

Patent Pending: How Immigrants Are Reinventing the American Economy

The future of the American economy rests on our ability to innovate and invent the new products that will define the global economy in the decades ahead. This report seeks to highlight one key aspect of this challenge that is often overlooked: the crucial role that foreign scientists, engineers, and other researchers play in inventing the products and dreaming up the ideas that will power the American economy in the future. As the magnet for the world's brightest minds, America has prospered greatly from the global innovators who have come here to do research and invent products. However, many of these innovators face daunting or insurmountable immigration hurdles that force them to leave the country and take their talents elsewhere. The problem is particularly acute at our research universities, where we train the top minds, only to send them abroad to compete against us.This report aims to quantify both the role that foreign-born inventors play in the innovation coming out of US universities, and the costs we incur by training the world's top minds and sending them away. University research is responsible for 53% of all basic research in America. Much of this research leads to patented inventions, new companies, and jobs for American workers

Latin American perspectives and the IT2017 curricular guidelines

The term information technology has many meanings for various stakeholders and continues to evolve. This discussion presents an overview of the developing curricular guidelines for rigorous, high quality, bachelor\u27s degree programs in information technology (IT), called IT2017. Panel participants will focus on Latin American academic and industry perspectives on IT undergraduate education. Discussion will seek to ascertain commonalities and differences between the current draft IT2017 report and perspectives from Latino/a professional and academic communities. It also addresses ways in which this endeavor contrasts with current practices in Latin America industry and academia

Silicon utopias: the making of a tech startuo ecosystem in Manchester (UK)

‘Silicon utopias’, the hope for a green, affluent and happy future through the creation of new tech-businesses, are today informing many urban development processes globally. In this contribution, I look at the recent remodeling of Manchester (Northern England) as an entrepreneurial city. In particular, I present a specific government investment scheme and its relation to the work of a group of local lobbyists who have been promoting a new tech startup community in the city since 2012. Stemming from this empirical example, I explore the interplay between local entrepreneurial dreams and the state’s promotion of startups. The paper concludes with the argument that an anthropologically informed concept of cynicism can contribute to a nuanced reading of silicon utopias and dystopias

Startups and Stanford University

Startups have become in less than 50 years a major component of innovation and economic growth. Silicon Valley has been the place where the startup phenomenon was the most obvious and Stanford University was a major component of that success. Companies such as Google, Yahoo, Sun Microsystems, Cisco, Hewlett Packard had very strong links with Stanford but even these vary famous success stories cannot fully describe the richness and diversity of the Stanford entrepreneurial activity. This report explores the dynamics of more than 5000 companies founded by Stanford University alumni and staff, through their value creation, their field of activities, their growth patterns and more. The report also explores some features of the founders of these companies such as their academic background or the number of years between their Stanford experience and their company creation

Transition UGent: a bottom-up initiative towards a more sustainable university

The vibrant think-tank ‘Transition UGent’ engaged over 250 academics, students and people from the university management in suggesting objectives and actions for the Sustainability Policy of Ghent University (Belgium). Founded in 2012, this bottom-up initiative succeeded to place sustainability high on the policy agenda of our university. Through discussions within 9 working groups and using the transition management method, Transition UGent developed system analyses, sustainability visions and transition paths on 9 fields of Ghent University: mobility, energy, food, waste, nature and green, water, art, education and research. At the moment, many visions and ideas find their way into concrete actions and policies. In our presentation we focused on the broad participative process, on the most remarkable structural results (e.g. a formal and ambitious Sustainability Vision and a student-led Sustainability Office) and on recent actions and experiments (e.g. a sustainability assessment on food supply in student restaurants, artistic COP21 activities, ambitious mobility plans, food leftovers projects, an education network on sustainability controversies, a transdisciplinary platform on Sustainable Cities). We concluded with some recommendations and reflections on this transition approach, on the important role of ‘policy entrepreneurs’ and student involvement, on lock-ins and bottlenecks, and on convincing skeptical leaders

Combining the production and the valorization of academic research: A qualitative investigation of enacted mechanisms.

The emergence of knowledge-based societies over the past decades has spurred research on the specific role of universities in innovation systems. The notion of academic entrepreneurship has gained acceptance among communities of researchers, practitioners and policy makers (Etzkowitz et al., 1998). At the same time, this acceptance seems impregnated by a constant alertness for the tensions that may arise. Concerns are uttered about shifts of the academic research agenda towards industry needs, resulting in fewer investments in basic research. Furthermore, the conflicting nature of the normative principles that guide academia and business has been warned for: competitive considerations and secrecy practices would stand in direct opposition to the principle of free dissemination of scientific knowledge (Dasgupta and David, 1987; Florida and Cohen, 1999; Geuna, 1999; Noble, 1977).Agency; Applicant; Assignee; Assignment; Business; Companies; Country; Data; EPO; Indicators; Information; Innovation; Institutional; Inventors; Methods; Order; Patent; Patent statistics; Patentee; Performance; Policy; Regions; Research; Researchers; Sector; Sector assignment; Technology; Time; University; USPTO; Innovation systems; Systems; Academic entrepreneurship; Community; Research agenda; Industry; Industries; Investments; Investment; Basic research; Principles; Dissemination; Knowledge;

Spartan Daily, April 16, 2015

Volume 144, Issue 31https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartandaily/2124/thumbnail.jp