carlochess/Not_a_single_Colombian

## Not_a_single_Colombian
Not a single Colombian university teaches software engineering. Really. Not a single one.

by ALEX TORRENEGRA on DECEMBER 11, 2014

Software engineering and computer science have played a major role in the most recent innovations that have changed the way we live: rocketry, the Internet, mobile phones, search engines, massive air travel, etc. [1]. In fact, 92% of the largest U.S.-based software companies started since 2003 had a technical co-founder [2]. Any nation that hopes to remain competitive should have great software engineers. As strange as it may sound, there aren’t any universities in Colombia teaching software engineering or computer science. It’s impossible to attend a Colombian university to become a software engineer.

How did Colombia allow this to happen?

For decades, Colombian universities have taught something called “systems engineering.” Systems engineering is “an interdisciplinary field of engineering that focuses on how to design and manage complex engineering systems over their life cycles […] It overlaps technical and human-centered disciplines such as control engineering, industrial engineering, organizational studies, and project management.” [3] When computer science and software engineering became popular globally, several Colombian universities didn’t launch such undergrad programs. Instead, they opted to adapt their existing curricula to include more classes about software development and computers. It was easier for them to adapt their existing programs than it was to get government authorization to launch new undergrad programs. Fast forward to today- if you’re in Colombia and you want to go to college to study computer science or software engineering, you will have to settle for systems engineering.

Some universities have added the phrase “and computing” to the name of the degree obtained, thus making it “systems and computing engineering.” Nevertheless, it seems to be an afterthought. A lucky Colombian systems engineer gets to study around 70% of the classes that a software engineer gets to study. The other 30% is packed with finance, business, and management [4] [5] [6]. And this is bad. Although this is not a statistical-driven assertion, my perception after having interviewed hundreds of systems engineers in Colombia, is that most of them want to become project managers. Their ultimate professional goal is to manage other people. They don’t want to do any coding themselves. They even look down upon software engineers that “have to code.” In fact, they seem to ignore the fact that -at least in Silicon Valley- software developers earn more than project managers.

Colombian systems engineers know about software, hardware, design, network administration, and much more. Yet, few of them are capable of contributing to global open source projects. In fact, and very unfortunately, Colombia is one of the least active countries in GitHub [7] [8]. Colombia is educating a lot of generalists, but it’s not educating any experts. As we say in Colombia, “tenemos mucho cacique y poco indio,” meaning “we have many chiefs and few Indians.”

Obviously, Colombian companies needing software engineering have issues. Some companies don’t even know who to hire [9]. Others end up hiring engineers of all sorts, including electronic engineers, industrial engineers, and, of course, systems engineers. The few that want to compete at a global level, like Bunny Inc., have a hard time finding talent. In fact, we had to develop tests that allow us to identify great engineers that have gone above and beyond their university learnings. Unfortunately, and not surprisingly, those tests are quite lengthy.

What can be done to start having more software engineers in Colombia? I’ve tried contacting the engineering department of several Colombian universities. Unfortunately, they are unresponsive. Colombian universities don’t collaborate with the private sector the way it happens in other countries. Maybe it’s time to build a new computer science and software engineering school in Colombia? Maybe we should forget about universities and, instead, go for online education? I don’t have a clear answer, yet. What do you think? Hopefully, in a not-so-far future, Colombian technologists will stop dreaming about becoming other people’s bosses and start dreaming about becoming globally recognized experts. Only then will Colombia be able to innovate globally and fulfill its dream of becoming a technology entrepreneurial hub [10].

Edit: I updated the title of this post thanks to the feedback of several readers.

P.S. We have great career opportunities for kick ass [software] engineers. Learn more at http://bunnyinc.com/jobs.html.

P.P.S. Thanks to Francisco Padilla, David Montaño, Carlos Beltrán, Germán González, Mesi Rendón, Abelardo Duarte, Tara Tyler, and Omar Duque for providing ideas for, reading, and commenting on drafts of this article.

P.P.P.S. Thanks to Jorge Vargas, I learned about this related post that is definitely worth a read: Una Propuesta para Afrontar la Crisis de la Carrera de Ingeniería de Sistemas. And thanks to Camilo Aguilar, this  other one: Un desarrollador de 20 millones mensuales.

Source: http://blog.bunnyinc.com/colombia-doesnt-software-engineers-really-not-even-one/

## Reasons about the name
Ciencias de la Info. vs Ingenieria de Sistemas en Colombia


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-ButNEdqf0

## Remarkable_answers_to_blogEntry
 Lina M. Rojas-Barahona • 3 years ago

I strongly disagree. I am an experienced developer who started working in a Colombia software house. Right! Not only we have software companies in Colombia, but also they are already spread all over Latin American and Miami. My experience and that of my collegues graduated from La Universidad del Valle in Cali show the quality of Colombian universities, particularly, my systems engineering degree had been homologated in Europe, and I have been involved in software development projects in Europe for the academic sector. I have a PhD right now and 5 years of experience of research in computer science. I can tell you that the sample of engineers you consider for your study is NOT REPRESENTATIVE at all. So I invite you to inform yourself better. For instance, in Cali there are two important software companies: Open International ststems and parquesoft.

================================================

Mario Eduardo Sánchez Puccini • 3 years ago

No, no, no, no, and no ... and maybe a tiny bit of yes. You're mixing apples and oranges, pointing fingers in the wrong direction, and maybe hurting an entire industry because, today, Colombia's software industry is not what you expect or need. Here are a few facts and opinions.

1 - Names. "Ingeniería de Sistemas" is NOT "Systems engineering", and it has NEVER been. It's not "Software engineering" either. In Colombia, and most of Latam, it's called Systems Engineering because 40 years ago an MIT alumnus came to Colombia, participated in the creation of the program at Uniandes, and decided on that name. It's a single man's fault (if you want to call it a fault), but in those old times there were only programs on Electronics and computer science was a novelty. Other Universities followed the lead of Uniandes and used the same name for their own programs. For reference, the department of Computer Science at Berkeley was created (1968) only a few years before the department of Systems and Computing Engineering of the Universidad de los Andes was officially established (the program on Systems and Computing Engineering was opened on 1968). A name it's just a name in this case. In Chile, they're called Civil Engineers and that has nothing to do with the contents of the curriculums. Are there “Software Engineering” programs in Colombia? Well, I’ve never done the research but I’m pretty sure that what we call Systems and Computing Engineering is closer to Software Engineering than Computer Science, Information Systems, Information Technology, or Computer Engineering (those are just the 5 computer-related disciplines defined by ACM). I am not sure about the 70% coverage of software engineering topics that you mention in relation to our curriculum at Uniandes, but I admit that there are many courses on other subjects: that’s the way our University is organized, and it forces everyone (in every major) to share a part of their education with people with very different interests. Later I’ll discuss about some differences between programs, but the fact that our students have some knowledge of finance, business, and management it’s something valued by our students, our alumni and the employers of our alumni.
2 – A mismatch in the vision for a Colombian IT Industry. The current and most widespread vision for an IT Industry in Colombia, with worldwide impact, is not the same you may have (and for the record, it is also extremely different from the vision I have). The government sees the IT Industry as an opportunity to create many medium quality jobs in the short to medium term. That’s basically the Chinese, Indian, or Pakistan models, and it’s completely opposite to the USA or European models. In that vision, we’re soon going to have enormous spaces full of developers doing very specialized work, for companies from all over the world, with good quality but low levels of innovation. This model is locally called a software factory (the same term is used elsewhere for a different thing, but here it means basically what I just described). I don’t share that vision, but it’s a vision that has many potential benefits achievable in under a decade: you don’t need geniuses, MIT graduates to operate those factories; you just need a good number of technicians willing to work for low to medium wages, with good but very specific skills and knowledge. In my vision, we should go the opposite direction: small but really smart teams, creating new things and doing what no one else in the world can do. But as you surely know, this not only requires good developers but also an entire environment open to innovation and willing to pay for it and for its risks. Think about entrepreneurs, investors, and even the intellectual property laws.
3 – Availability of software engineers. Colombia is graduating around 5.500 systems engineers per year (or whatever they’re called in each university), and about 12.000 if you include the technical and technological level. That’s less than 5 years ago and, according to the Ministry of Communications and Information Technologies, they are not enough for the current and future needs of the country. MinTIC, Infosys and EAFIT calculated that there’s going to be a deficit of almost 70.000 in about four years. That means that we need to at least duplicate the capacity of our education system in order to fulfill just the demand that we know it’s coming in the near future. And that’s not going to happen, because we don’t have the human and financial resources to boost the production of IT workers. It’s a situation with a heavy scarcity of resources. That means that if you’re looking for real talent, you’ll have to do your homework and engage those that are valuable for your team. That’s a lot of work, of course, but that’s what everybody has to do.
4 – Chiefs and Indians. There are 217 different programs of Systems engineering and related subjects. And there are huge differences between them, both in quality and in their general approach to IT. Some are more oriented towards managerial aspects (IT administration); others are more oriented to architecture; others towards computer science; and others towards technical aspects. I’m not going to comment (publicly) on the quality of the programs, but I think I get why you have the feeling that you’re only getting the chiefs.
5 – Career path. There aren’t many (evident) interesting career paths in Colombia for bare software developers. What evidence and general knowledge shows is that software developers get stuck at a certain pay level unless they move to the dark side of management (here I am talking about pure management, project management, or anything else but writing code). That’s a fault of the entire IT ecosystem (I don’t think you pay your devs the same you pay your project managers). When they have a choice, students are not stupid at all: why should they take the long route (junior dev, senior dev, project manager, … ) when they can skip some steps by choosing a more managerial career path, and a better salary, from the beginning. On top of that, working for Google, IBM, Oracle, and similar companies is really cool and appealing, but such companies’ offices in Colombia typically look only for engineers with potential for doing commercial activities (that’s not 100% of the cases but just look at how many research and developments centers those companies have in the country).
6 – Salaries. Developers are not well paid. This is of course related to all the previous things and the vision for the Colombian IT industry, but it is such a strong factor that I have to single it out. The mean salary for IT related professionals is around 1400 USD. I’m sure most multinationals, like the ones I mentioned before, pay higher salaries. I am also sure that you pay your devs more than that. Why don’t you make it public to show all those pursuing a career path on IT management that there’s also hope even when all you’ll do is code? Also, let’s make sure that companies treat their devs fairly by making 8 to 5 schedules the norm. I’ve seen developers moving to management just because they want to have a life outside work (that should apply not only in Colombia, but in every country were developers have crazy work hours).
7 – Inverted formation pyramid. Studies suggest that technical workers should form the majority of the educated society, followed by technologists, then professionals, then masters, and finally doctors. That’s what happens in many well-developed countries and you can call it a scenario with many indians and few chiefs. In Colombia, it’s the other way around: engineers are the largest group, followed by technologist, and then technicians. There are many cultural and economical reasons for that, and it’s really difficult to change this in the near future since this applies to every field you can imagine and not just IT.
8 – Sharing and collaboration culture. I’m not surprised to hear that Colombians do not share on GitHub. The way I see it, GitHub is mostly a place to share your pet-project or collaborate with others on your free time. Colombians do not have much free time (look at the horrible work hours of most companies, the time that displacement requires, and in general to the low value that we put in our time). Also, we don’t have the culture of investing our scarce free time in intellectually advanced tasks. GitHub is just an example, but you can see signs of the same phenomena in theaters, concerts, churches, parents’ meetings at schools, libraries, etc.
9 – Entrepreneurship. There is a very weak culture about entrepreneurship (I’m sure you know that) but that applies to every possible field and not just IT. There are many actors implementing actions to try to turn this around, but cultural things are really difficult to turn around, especially when you’re fighting against 400 years of baggage. I think you moved from NYC to SFO because the culture on the former was not open enough to entrepreneurs. It shouldn’t be a surprise for anyone that Colombia is even farther that NYC.
10 – Unresponsive universities. I don’t know what has happened and who has not answered back. I don’t remember an email from you sitting on my inbox. Also, if you’ve just asked for graduates to employ, the bad news is that 100% of our undergrads had jobs even before they got their degrees. Some of them graduated in spite of been fully employed for over a year. What is more, some had salaries that were more than double what you’d pay in your company to a recent grad (which is actually on the higher part of the national pay scale). Lately, we have organized a couple of forums on the subject of scarcity of IT Talent in Colombia with the participation of companies (not Voice Bunny I believe), public and private universities, and government. There were very interesting discussions and some companies shared their approaches and techniques for finding, filtering, and keeping talent. It is not easy for any of them! Incidentally, evidence was also presented about the urgent need that many companies have for skilled, low-waged, technicians. If you want to contact universities, I’m more than open to help you with that.

I reckon that the situation is not easy for companies, but neither it is for workers themselves or for universities. Luckily, many people are working really hard to change things around. We have several hard problems to solve, which will take a generation to fix at best, but there are also problems that will be fixed in under ten years. It may not seem son, but I’m extremely optimistic. Just like Japan did 50 years ago, and Taiwan did about 30 years ago, I’m sure we’ll be able to go from no tech, to low innovation tech, to high innovation tech. This kind of processes takes time, vision, and grit to put the right incentives to move everyone in the right direction. But they cannot be rushed or else they risk sacrificing an entire generation.
Do we have Software Engineers in Colombia? Yes, many of them, and very good ones. They’re just not enough, they’re not cheap, and they’re already working for companies that have found them and are not willing to let them go very easily.
	Not a single Colombian university teaches software engineering. Really. Not a single one.

	by ALEX TORRENEGRA on DECEMBER 11, 2014

	Software engineering and computer science have played a major role in the most recent innovations that have changed the way we live: rocketry, the Internet, mobile phones, search engines, massive air travel, etc. [1]. In fact, 92% of the largest U.S.-based software companies started since 2003 had a technical co-founder [2]. Any nation that hopes to remain competitive should have great software engineers. As strange as it may sound, there aren’t any universities in Colombia teaching software engineering or computer science. It’s impossible to attend a Colombian university to become a software engineer.

	How did Colombia allow this to happen?

	For decades, Colombian universities have taught something called “systems engineering.” Systems engineering is “an interdisciplinary field of engineering that focuses on how to design and manage complex engineering systems over their life cycles […] It overlaps technical and human-centered disciplines such as control engineering, industrial engineering, organizational studies, and project management.” [3] When computer science and software engineering became popular globally, several Colombian universities didn’t launch such undergrad programs. Instead, they opted to adapt their existing curricula to include more classes about software development and computers. It was easier for them to adapt their existing programs than it was to get government authorization to launch new undergrad programs. Fast forward to today- if you’re in Colombia and you want to go to college to study computer science or software engineering, you will have to settle for systems engineering.

	Some universities have added the phrase “and computing” to the name of the degree obtained, thus making it “systems and computing engineering.” Nevertheless, it seems to be an afterthought. A lucky Colombian systems engineer gets to study around 70% of the classes that a software engineer gets to study. The other 30% is packed with finance, business, and management [4] [5] [6]. And this is bad. Although this is not a statistical-driven assertion, my perception after having interviewed hundreds of systems engineers in Colombia, is that most of them want to become project managers. Their ultimate professional goal is to manage other people. They don’t want to do any coding themselves. They even look down upon software engineers that “have to code.” In fact, they seem to ignore the fact that -at least in Silicon Valley- software developers earn more than project managers.

	Colombian systems engineers know about software, hardware, design, network administration, and much more. Yet, few of them are capable of contributing to global open source projects. In fact, and very unfortunately, Colombia is one of the least active countries in GitHub [7] [8]. Colombia is educating a lot of generalists, but it’s not educating any experts. As we say in Colombia, “tenemos mucho cacique y poco indio,” meaning “we have many chiefs and few Indians.”

	Obviously, Colombian companies needing software engineering have issues. Some companies don’t even know who to hire [9]. Others end up hiring engineers of all sorts, including electronic engineers, industrial engineers, and, of course, systems engineers. The few that want to compete at a global level, like Bunny Inc., have a hard time finding talent. In fact, we had to develop tests that allow us to identify great engineers that have gone above and beyond their university learnings. Unfortunately, and not surprisingly, those tests are quite lengthy.

	What can be done to start having more software engineers in Colombia? I’ve tried contacting the engineering department of several Colombian universities. Unfortunately, they are unresponsive. Colombian universities don’t collaborate with the private sector the way it happens in other countries. Maybe it’s time to build a new computer science and software engineering school in Colombia? Maybe we should forget about universities and, instead, go for online education? I don’t have a clear answer, yet. What do you think? Hopefully, in a not-so-far future, Colombian technologists will stop dreaming about becoming other people’s bosses and start dreaming about becoming globally recognized experts. Only then will Colombia be able to innovate globally and fulfill its dream of becoming a technology entrepreneurial hub [10].

	Edit: I updated the title of this post thanks to the feedback of several readers.

	P.S. We have great career opportunities for kick ass [software] engineers. Learn more at http://bunnyinc.com/jobs.html.

	P.P.S. Thanks to Francisco Padilla, David Montaño, Carlos Beltrán, Germán González, Mesi Rendón, Abelardo Duarte, Tara Tyler, and Omar Duque for providing ideas for, reading, and commenting on drafts of this article.

	P.P.P.S. Thanks to Jorge Vargas, I learned about this related post that is definitely worth a read: Una Propuesta para Afrontar la Crisis de la Carrera de Ingeniería de Sistemas. And thanks to Camilo Aguilar, this other one: Un desarrollador de 20 millones mensuales.

	Source: http://blog.bunnyinc.com/colombia-doesnt-software-engineers-really-not-even-one/
	Ciencias de la Info. vs Ingenieria de Sistemas en Colombia


	https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-ButNEdqf0
	Lina M. Rojas-Barahona • 3 years ago

	I strongly disagree. I am an experienced developer who started working in a Colombia software house. Right! Not only we have software companies in Colombia, but also they are already spread all over Latin American and Miami. My experience and that of my collegues graduated from La Universidad del Valle in Cali show the quality of Colombian universities, particularly, my systems engineering degree had been homologated in Europe, and I have been involved in software development projects in Europe for the academic sector. I have a PhD right now and 5 years of experience of research in computer science. I can tell you that the sample of engineers you consider for your study is NOT REPRESENTATIVE at all. So I invite you to inform yourself better. For instance, in Cali there are two important software companies: Open International ststems and parquesoft.

	================================================

	Mario Eduardo Sánchez Puccini • 3 years ago

	No, no, no, no, and no ... and maybe a tiny bit of yes. You're mixing apples and oranges, pointing fingers in the wrong direction, and maybe hurting an entire industry because, today, Colombia's software industry is not what you expect or need. Here are a few facts and opinions.

	1 - Names. "Ingeniería de Sistemas" is NOT "Systems engineering", and it has NEVER been. It's not "Software engineering" either. In Colombia, and most of Latam, it's called Systems Engineering because 40 years ago an MIT alumnus came to Colombia, participated in the creation of the program at Uniandes, and decided on that name. It's a single man's fault (if you want to call it a fault), but in those old times there were only programs on Electronics and computer science was a novelty. Other Universities followed the lead of Uniandes and used the same name for their own programs. For reference, the department of Computer Science at Berkeley was created (1968) only a few years before the department of Systems and Computing Engineering of the Universidad de los Andes was officially established (the program on Systems and Computing Engineering was opened on 1968). A name it's just a name in this case. In Chile, they're called Civil Engineers and that has nothing to do with the contents of the curriculums. Are there “Software Engineering” programs in Colombia? Well, I’ve never done the research but I’m pretty sure that what we call Systems and Computing Engineering is closer to Software Engineering than Computer Science, Information Systems, Information Technology, or Computer Engineering (those are just the 5 computer-related disciplines defined by ACM). I am not sure about the 70% coverage of software engineering topics that you mention in relation to our curriculum at Uniandes, but I admit that there are many courses on other subjects: that’s the way our University is organized, and it forces everyone (in every major) to share a part of their education with people with very different interests. Later I’ll discuss about some differences between programs, but the fact that our students have some knowledge of finance, business, and management it’s something valued by our students, our alumni and the employers of our alumni.
	2 – A mismatch in the vision for a Colombian IT Industry. The current and most widespread vision for an IT Industry in Colombia, with worldwide impact, is not the same you may have (and for the record, it is also extremely different from the vision I have). The government sees the IT Industry as an opportunity to create many medium quality jobs in the short to medium term. That’s basically the Chinese, Indian, or Pakistan models, and it’s completely opposite to the USA or European models. In that vision, we’re soon going to have enormous spaces full of developers doing very specialized work, for companies from all over the world, with good quality but low levels of innovation. This model is locally called a software factory (the same term is used elsewhere for a different thing, but here it means basically what I just described). I don’t share that vision, but it’s a vision that has many potential benefits achievable in under a decade: you don’t need geniuses, MIT graduates to operate those factories; you just need a good number of technicians willing to work for low to medium wages, with good but very specific skills and knowledge. In my vision, we should go the opposite direction: small but really smart teams, creating new things and doing what no one else in the world can do. But as you surely know, this not only requires good developers but also an entire environment open to innovation and willing to pay for it and for its risks. Think about entrepreneurs, investors, and even the intellectual property laws.
	3 – Availability of software engineers. Colombia is graduating around 5.500 systems engineers per year (or whatever they’re called in each university), and about 12.000 if you include the technical and technological level. That’s less than 5 years ago and, according to the Ministry of Communications and Information Technologies, they are not enough for the current and future needs of the country. MinTIC, Infosys and EAFIT calculated that there’s going to be a deficit of almost 70.000 in about four years. That means that we need to at least duplicate the capacity of our education system in order to fulfill just the demand that we know it’s coming in the near future. And that’s not going to happen, because we don’t have the human and financial resources to boost the production of IT workers. It’s a situation with a heavy scarcity of resources. That means that if you’re looking for real talent, you’ll have to do your homework and engage those that are valuable for your team. That’s a lot of work, of course, but that’s what everybody has to do.
	4 – Chiefs and Indians. There are 217 different programs of Systems engineering and related subjects. And there are huge differences between them, both in quality and in their general approach to IT. Some are more oriented towards managerial aspects (IT administration); others are more oriented to architecture; others towards computer science; and others towards technical aspects. I’m not going to comment (publicly) on the quality of the programs, but I think I get why you have the feeling that you’re only getting the chiefs.
	5 – Career path. There aren’t many (evident) interesting career paths in Colombia for bare software developers. What evidence and general knowledge shows is that software developers get stuck at a certain pay level unless they move to the dark side of management (here I am talking about pure management, project management, or anything else but writing code). That’s a fault of the entire IT ecosystem (I don’t think you pay your devs the same you pay your project managers). When they have a choice, students are not stupid at all: why should they take the long route (junior dev, senior dev, project manager, … ) when they can skip some steps by choosing a more managerial career path, and a better salary, from the beginning. On top of that, working for Google, IBM, Oracle, and similar companies is really cool and appealing, but such companies’ offices in Colombia typically look only for engineers with potential for doing commercial activities (that’s not 100% of the cases but just look at how many research and developments centers those companies have in the country).
	6 – Salaries. Developers are not well paid. This is of course related to all the previous things and the vision for the Colombian IT industry, but it is such a strong factor that I have to single it out. The mean salary for IT related professionals is around 1400 USD. I’m sure most multinationals, like the ones I mentioned before, pay higher salaries. I am also sure that you pay your devs more than that. Why don’t you make it public to show all those pursuing a career path on IT management that there’s also hope even when all you’ll do is code? Also, let’s make sure that companies treat their devs fairly by making 8 to 5 schedules the norm. I’ve seen developers moving to management just because they want to have a life outside work (that should apply not only in Colombia, but in every country were developers have crazy work hours).
	7 – Inverted formation pyramid. Studies suggest that technical workers should form the majority of the educated society, followed by technologists, then professionals, then masters, and finally doctors. That’s what happens in many well-developed countries and you can call it a scenario with many indians and few chiefs. In Colombia, it’s the other way around: engineers are the largest group, followed by technologist, and then technicians. There are many cultural and economical reasons for that, and it’s really difficult to change this in the near future since this applies to every field you can imagine and not just IT.
	8 – Sharing and collaboration culture. I’m not surprised to hear that Colombians do not share on GitHub. The way I see it, GitHub is mostly a place to share your pet-project or collaborate with others on your free time. Colombians do not have much free time (look at the horrible work hours of most companies, the time that displacement requires, and in general to the low value that we put in our time). Also, we don’t have the culture of investing our scarce free time in intellectually advanced tasks. GitHub is just an example, but you can see signs of the same phenomena in theaters, concerts, churches, parents’ meetings at schools, libraries, etc.
	9 – Entrepreneurship. There is a very weak culture about entrepreneurship (I’m sure you know that) but that applies to every possible field and not just IT. There are many actors implementing actions to try to turn this around, but cultural things are really difficult to turn around, especially when you’re fighting against 400 years of baggage. I think you moved from NYC to SFO because the culture on the former was not open enough to entrepreneurs. It shouldn’t be a surprise for anyone that Colombia is even farther that NYC.
	10 – Unresponsive universities. I don’t know what has happened and who has not answered back. I don’t remember an email from you sitting on my inbox. Also, if you’ve just asked for graduates to employ, the bad news is that 100% of our undergrads had jobs even before they got their degrees. Some of them graduated in spite of been fully employed for over a year. What is more, some had salaries that were more than double what you’d pay in your company to a recent grad (which is actually on the higher part of the national pay scale). Lately, we have organized a couple of forums on the subject of scarcity of IT Talent in Colombia with the participation of companies (not Voice Bunny I believe), public and private universities, and government. There were very interesting discussions and some companies shared their approaches and techniques for finding, filtering, and keeping talent. It is not easy for any of them! Incidentally, evidence was also presented about the urgent need that many companies have for skilled, low-waged, technicians. If you want to contact universities, I’m more than open to help you with that.

	I reckon that the situation is not easy for companies, but neither it is for workers themselves or for universities. Luckily, many people are working really hard to change things around. We have several hard problems to solve, which will take a generation to fix at best, but there are also problems that will be fixed in under ten years. It may not seem son, but I’m extremely optimistic. Just like Japan did 50 years ago, and Taiwan did about 30 years ago, I’m sure we’ll be able to go from no tech, to low innovation tech, to high innovation tech. This kind of processes takes time, vision, and grit to put the right incentives to move everyone in the right direction. But they cannot be rushed or else they risk sacrificing an entire generation.
	Do we have Software Engineers in Colombia? Yes, many of them, and very good ones. They’re just not enough, they’re not cheap, and they’re already working for companies that have found them and are not willing to let them go very easily.