CONTENTS
[1] Newsletter Highlights
[2] ACM Releases Major Report on the Globalization of Software
[3] USACM Releases Study on Voter Registration Databases
[4] Software Pioneer Peter Naur Wins ACM’s Turing Award
[5] USACM Executive Committee Gathers to Set Goals for the Year Ahead
[6] Cerf Cautions Congress on Internet Fast Lanes
[7] Upcoming Events
[8] About USACM
[An archive of all previous editions of Washington Update is available here.]
[1] NEWSLETTER HIGHLIGHTS
This was one of the busiest months in recent memory for ACM and USACM. Below are highlights of our top stories for February, but we especially encourage you to take a deeper look at two comprehensive reports that ACM sponsored: (1) an ACM task force report on the globalization and outsourcing of software and (2) a USACM report on statewide voter registration databases.
* ACM released its report examining the issues surrounding the migration of jobs within the computing and information technology field and industry.
* USACM committee looking into statewide voter registration databases issues its report containing guidance for state elections officials charged by HAVA with implementing these databases.
* Peter Naur, a pioneer in defining the Algol 60 programming language, wins ACM’s 2005 A.M. Turing Award.
* USACM’s Executive Committee holds its annual policy summit in Washington, D.C.
* Vint Cerf testifies before Senate committee on the need for “net neutrality” and about the dangers to innovation posed by potential Internet “fast lanes.”
[2] ACM RELEASES MAJOR REPORT ON THE GLOBALIZATION OF SOFTWARE
After more than year of study, ACM released its report examining issues surrounding the migration of jobs within the computing and information technology field. It found that, despite the media drumbeat on offshoring, the demand for IT jobs remains strong. However, that doesn’t mean countries can be complacent. The study also found that global competition is fierce and growing, offshoring and globalization will continue to be part of corporate strategies, and if countries want to compete in this marketplace they must adopt strategies that attract, educate, and retain the best IT talent. Here is an excerpt from the New York Times article about the study:
“The global competition has gotten tougher and we have to run
faster,” said Moshe Y. Vardi, co-chair of the study group and a
computer scientist at Rice University. “But the notion that
information technology jobs are disappearing is just nonsense.
The data don’t bear that out.”
Yet the view that job opportunities in computing are dwindling
fast is both common and potentially damaging to America’s
competitive prowess, according to David A. Patterson, president
of the Association for Computing Machinery.
He pointed to the declining interest in computer science as a
major among American college students, based on a survey last
year of the intentions of students entering college. The results
suggested that only 1 in 75 students would major in computer
science, compared with 1 in 30 in 2000.
“The perception among high school students and their parents
is that the game is over — that all computing jobs are going
overseas,” observed Mr. Patterson, who is a computer science
professor at the University of California, Berkeley. “It’s an
extraordinarily widely held misperception.”
The concern, he said, is that misplaced pessimism will deter
bright young people from pursuing careers in computing. That,
in turn, would erode the skills in a field that is crucial to
the nation’s economic competitiveness.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/23/technology/23outsource.html
In fact, it is this fierce global competition that is helping drive President Bush’s American Competitive Initiative and many Congressional initiatives.
This is the first study that looks at offshoring in the IT field from a global perspective, and was pulled together by a diverse group of computer scientists, social scientists, and labor economists from around the world.
The group dug into the following issues:
1. The economic theories and data that underpin our current understanding of the forces shaping globalization today and in the future. (Chapter 2)
2. Offshoring from the perspective of different countries-both developed and developing. (Chapter 3)
3. Offshoring from the perspective of different types of corporations.(Chapter 4)
4. The globalization of computing research.(Chapter 5)
5. The risks and exposure that offshoring engenders.(Chapter 6)
6. The implications for educational systems throughout the world. (Chapter 7)
7. The political responses to the opportunities and disruptions that accompany globalization. (Chapter 8 )
The group also makes the following findings and recommendations:
* Globalization of, and offshoring within, the software industry are deeply connected and both will continue to grow. Key enablers of this growth are information technology itself, the evolution of work and business processes, education, and national policies.
* Both anecdotal evidence and economic theory indicate that offshoring between developed and developing countries can, as a whole, benefit both, but competition is intensifying.
* While offshoring will increase, determining the specifics of this increase are difficult given the current quantity, quality, and objectivity of data available. Skepticism is warranted regarding claims about the number of jobs to be offshored and the projected growth of software industries in developing nations.
* Standardized jobs are more easily moved from developed to developing countries than are higher-skill jobs. These standardized jobs were the initial focus of offshoring. Today, global competition in higher-end skills, such as research, is increasing. These trends have implications for individuals, companies, and countries.
* Offshoring magnifies existing risks and creates new and often poorly understood or addressed threats to national security, business property and processes, and individuals’ privacy. While it is unlikely these risks will deter the growth of offshoring, businesses and nations should employ strategies to mitigate them.
* To stay competitive in a global IT environment and industry, countries must adopt policies that foster innovation. To this end, policies that improve a country’s ability to attract, educate, and retain the best IT talent are critical. Educational policy and investment is at the core.
Meanwhile, today the NY Times ran an editorial about the report and globalization:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/01/opinion/01wed3.html
For complete information, including links to the press release and the full text of the report, see
http://www.acm.org/usacm/weblog/index.php?p=355
[3] USACM RELEASES MAJOR STUDY ON VOTER REGISTRATION DATABASES
Citing the danger of voter fraud and disenfranchisement from poorly implemented databases, a committee of experts commissioned by USACM released a report today making almost 100 recommendations to state and local officials charged with creating and managing statewide voter registration databases (VRDs). The report is a comprehensive “soup-to-nuts” look at challenges elections officials face in making sure databases are accurate, private, usable, secure, and reliable. Complete information, including links to the full report and the ACM press release, is available from
The report responds to the mandate passed by Congress in the Help America Vote Act that all states create and manage statewide VRDs. The committee wanted to give objective technical advice to elections officials on the many challenges they will face in meeting this mandate. The report has been about a year in the making, and we’ve covered some of the work of this group on the weblog including comments they filed with the Election Assistance Commission about this issue:
http://www.acm.org/usacm/PDF/EAC_database_guidance_comments.pdf
Declan McCullagh also wrote an article about the report for CNET News.com:
http://news.com.com/2100-7348_3-6040781.html
Finally, the policy office personally wants to thank the study committee members for their hard work on this report. Each took time from his or her regular life to scope out the issues and then write a very detailed and comprehensive report.
[4] SOFTWARE PIONEER PETER NAUR WINS ACM’S TURING AWARD
ACM has named Peter Naur the winner of the 2005 A.M. Turing Award. The award is for Naur’s pioneering work on defining the Algol 60 programming language. Algol 60 is the model for many later programming languages, including those that are indispensable software engineering tools today. The Turing Award, considered the “Nobel Prize of Computing” was first awarded in 1966, and is named for British mathematician Alan M. Turing.
Dr. Naur was editor in 1960 of the hugely influential “Report on the Algorithmic Language Algol 60.” He is recognized for the report’s elegance, uniformity and coherence, and credited as an important contributor to the language’s power and simplicity. The report made pioneering use of what later became known as Backus-Naur Form (BNF) to define the syntax of programs. BNF is now the standard way to define a computer language. Naur is also cited for his contribution to compiler design and to the art and practice of computer programming.
ACM will present the Turing Award at the annual ACM Awards Banquet on May 20, 2006, at the Westin St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco, CA. For more information on Dr. Naur and the Turing Award, see ACM’s official press release at
http://campus.acm.org/public/pressroom/press_releases/2_2006/awards05.cfm
[5] USACM EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE GATHERS TO SET GOALS FOR THE YEAR AHEAD
Members of USACM’s Executive Committee (EC) met in Washington, D.C., this past weekend for their 2006 policy summit. The group meets annually in D.C. to set goals for the coming year, review USACM accomplishments during the past year, and discuss the current (and future) technology policy climate. This year the group focused on issues surrounding globalization, innovation, and the issues involved in the organization’s two recent major reports – discussed in more detail above. Indeed, the group received presentations from Moshe Vardi and Bill Aspray, two of the Globalization report’s editors, and from Barbara Simons and Harry Hochheiser, members of the study group that produced the voter registration database report.
In addition, EC members heard from David Goldston, chief of staff for the House Science Committee, about that committee’s policy agenda for 2006 and their perspectives on “competitiveness” legislation (e.g., PACE, NIA). Later in the meeting, the group also received a presentation by Peter Harsha, director of government affairs for the Computing Research Association, about the current funding outlook for information technology research and development.
[6] CERF CAUTIONS CONGRESS ON INTERNET FAST LANES
Members of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee met this month for a hearing into so-called “Net Neutrality,” the range of issues surrounding whether or not telecommunications companies should be prevented from providing (for a price) faster speeds or better access for some (perhaps at the expense of others) or whether Congress should step in with legislation to require that all traffic flowing over network pipes be treated in the same neutral fashion. Neutrality supporters fear that creating “fast” lanes on the Internet for those willing to pay the price could stifle innovation by limiting the access of new companies or by creating an unfair advantage for larger companies able to pay the higher price for better access (or for the telcos themselves in offering their own services). Critics of the net neutrality idea, on the other hand, argue that enforcing neutrality through legislation will only limit their ability to innovate, invest in new networks, and bring new services and capabilities to consumers.
Witnesses appearing before the committee included last year’s Turing Award winner Vinton Cerf, now at Google, Inc., and a long proponent of net neutrality
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2005/11/vint-cerf-speaks-out-on-net-neutrality.html
Other witnesses included Senator Ron Wyden (who signalled that he may soon be introducing a bill to legislate net neutrality), Jeffrey Citron (Vonage), Lawrence Lessig (Stanford Law), Gregory Sidak (Georgetown Law), and Gary Bachula (Internet2). The full witness list (with links to their written testimony) and a video archive of the hearing is also available from
http://commerce.senate.gov/hearings/witnesslist.cfm?id=1705
A recent Business Week article (from which Sen. Boxer read during her comments at the hearing) illustrates the thorny nature of this issue:
[…] Documents filed with the Federal Communications Commission
show that Verizon Communications is setting aside a wide lane on
its fiber-optic network for delivering its own television service.
According to Marvin Sirbu, an engineering professor at Carnegie
Mellon University who examined the documents, more than 80% of
Verizon’s current capacity is earmarked for carrying its service,
while all other traffic jostles in the remainder.
On the other hand:
[…] Verizon argues that it needs to take such measures to earn
a return on its network investments. The New York giant is seeing
steep declines in its traditional telephone market, so it is
spending an estimated $10 billion over seven years on new fiber
lines to diversify into the TV business […]
The complete article is available at
http://makeashorterlink.com/?C640327BC
Meanwhile, net neutrality was also a hot topic at the Congressional Internet Caucus’ “State of the Net” conference, which featured a luncheon talk from Cerf and a panel on neutrality that included representatives from Verizon, BellSouth, the World Wide Web Consortium, and the Consumer Federation of America. More information at
http://www.netcaucus.org/conference/2006/agenda.shtml
Clearly, net neutrality is an issue to watch this Spring -– one that may have ramifications for all Internet users, big and small.
[7] UPCOMING EVENTS
March 7: Meeting of the Department of Commerce Bureau of Industry and Security’s Regulations and Procedures Technical Advisory Committee, which will include (among other things) an update on the proposed rule on deemed export related regulatory requirements (RIN 0694-AD29), Washington, D.C.
http://tac.bis.doc.gov/2006/030706rptacmtg.htm
March 7: Department of Homeland Security Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee, Washington, D.C.
http://www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/interapp/editorial/editorial_0811.xml
March 8-10: International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP) National Summit, Washington, D.C.
http://www.privacyassociation.org/
March 15-16: Consumer Electronics Association’s Entertainment Technology Policy Summit, Washington, D.C.
http://www.ce.org/Events/event_info/schedule.asp?eventID=HDTV06
March 31-April 2: The National Summit for Community Wireless Networks, Lindenwood University, St. Charles, MO.
http://www.cuwireless.net/summit
[8] ABOUT USACM
USACM is the U.S. Public Policy Committee of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). ACM is an educational and scientific society uniting the world’s computing educators, researchers and professionals to inspire dialogue, share resources and address the field’s challenges. ACM strengthens the profession’s collective voice through strong leadership, promotion of the highest standards, and recognition of technical excellence. ACM supports the professional growth of its members by providing opportunities for life-long learning, career development, and professional networking. For more information about USACM and ACM, see
http://www.acm.org/usacm/about.html
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QUESTIONS/COMMENTS
Should you have questions, comments, or suggestions regarding this newsletter, public policy issues, or USACM activities, please contact the ACM’s Washington, D.C., Office of Public Policy by email at david.padgham@acm.org or by calling 202-659-9711.
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