Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Taps PBS To Advance Its National Talent Strategy With 'Code Trip'
theodp writes: You don't have to be Mitt Romney to question PBS's announcement that it will air the Microsoft-funded 'reality' show Code Trip, in which Roadtrip Nation and Microsoft YouthSpark will send students across the U.S. for a "transformative journey into computer science." Of the partnership, Roadtrip Nation co-founder Mike Marriner said, "Roadtrip Nation is proud to partner with Microsoft's YouthSpark initiative not only to inform others of the many career routes one can take with a computer science background, but also to engage in the much-needed conversation of diversifying the tech field with more pluralistic perspectives." YouthSpark is part of Microsoft's National Talent Strategy (pdf), which the company describes as "a two-pronged approach that will couple long-term improvements in STEM education in the United States with targeted, short-term, high-skilled immigration reforms." The Official Microsoft Blog reports that filming of Code Trip began this week, with the three students traveling around the country to speak with leaders including Hadi Partovi, the co-founder of Code.org and 'major supporter' of FWD.us, who coincidentally once reported to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, and is the next door neighbor of Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith and a jogging partner of Steve Ballmer.
I would contend that there is a shortage, but it is mostly for senior level people who may have some niche experience, which is true of almost any field. But for your run of the mill jobs, you don't necessarily need this. Most people, by definition, are average.
Oh, and companies don't get a free pass, either. Many of them what a top 1% coder for bottom 50% wages if at all possible.
Lastly, if there was such a shortage, we'd see companies hiring people that didn't have their "required" experience, but had a couple operational brain cells that could be coached up. I saw this during the dot-com boom.
That's like a 5-10 year plan. The messaging here is that Microsoft wants engineers from the US and wants people to become computer programmers, and they're doing "everything they can" to stimulate it, so just let us hire all the H1Bs we want this quarter. The messaging presents the premise that "there aren't enough engineers" in the US, thus H1Bs are justified today. "Maybe in the future" this situation will change, but for now we "have to" have "targeted, short term high-skill immigration reforms."
Nadella and the people involved might just love computer science and want to share it with the world, these things do happen.
Why are we supposed to question it, exactly? Is it some question of MS influencing PBS programming? That couldn't be it, considering how dependent PBS is on corporate sponsorship.
Is it that the program itself sounds sorta fluffy and probably won't reach a wide audience, but it'll be a boondoggle that MS can use for tax evasion, while getting the Center for Public Broadcasting and several charitable foundations to pay for what essentially Microsoft's public relations? Maybe.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
How dare PBS save taxpayer money by airing something that another group paid for. We must punish them for this outrage by removing their funding!