Death Valley For America's Software Development Talent?
Tom Friedman's best seller, "The World Is Flat", is an accounting
"of the great changes taking place in our time, as lightning-swift advances in technology and communications put people all over the globe in touch as never before - creating an explosion of wealth in India and China, and challenging the rest of us to run even faster just to stay in place."Friedman may need to write a sequel - "The U.S. is Below Sea Level". The next crop of world-class software developers is not shaping up to be from the United States. A quick review of the top ten high school students as ranked by TopCoder reveals not one American. The topcoder is Polish student Tomek Kulczynski. A Croatian is second. Four of the top ten are Chinese, two are Russian, and two are Ukrainian.
Where's the top ranked American? Number 39 (John Pardon, Durham Academy Upper School). Here is the ranking by country for the top 40:
- China 8
- Russia 6
- Poland 5
- Croatia 5
- Ukraine 4
- Bulgaria 3
- Viet Nam 3
- Romania, Canada, Iran, El Salvador, Greece and United States, 1 each
What's going on here in America? It looks like we are not putting a value on education. That's my conclusion. When will we wake up?
Pierre Cutler
The Sacramento Executive
