Between the Poles

UN geospatial initiative focuses on sustainable development

At the Geospatial World Forum (GWF) in Amsterdam last year, Paul Cheung of the United Nations Initiative on Global Geospatial Information Management (GGIM) voiced the concern about their role that many national mapping agencies and other government organizations with responsibility for geospatial information have had since the advent of Google Map/Earth, private data companies like Digital Globe, Geoeye, TeleAtlas and Navteq, crowd-sourced geospatial data like OpenStreetMap, and open data policies adopted by many governments around the world.

The objective of the UN GGIM initiative is to help government fit into the new world of Google Map/Earth and the rest of the private geospatial industry.  Based on the assumption that neither the private sector nor government can do it all, the GGIM has a process in place to define the role of government in managing national geospatial information.  It has asked geospatial practitioners around the world to provide guidance on where they see the geospatial industry headed and their views on the roles of government and the private sector.

The Second High Level Forum on Global Geospatial Information Management (GGIM) was convened in Doha, Qatar in February, 2013 by the Secretariat of the United Nations Committee of Experts on Global Geospatial Information Management (UN-GGIM), together with the Government of Qatar.

The Forum bought together 350 participants from 60 Member States, international organizations, the private sector, and UN entities.  The discussions centered on building national geospatial information systems, an examination of the technological trends impacting the future of geospatial information management, the challenges experienced and the solutions used to develop geospatial reference data sets, the need to use geospatial information to address sustainable development issues, and UN-GGIM's leadership role in ensuring global geodetic frameworks.

The final declaration of the Forum, the Doha Declaration Advancing Global Geospatial Information Management listed important focus areas for GGIM activities.

• a sustained operational global geodetic reference frame and infrastructure to support the increasing demand for positioning and monitoring applications
• the greater use of geospatial information in sustainable development by supporting the the Global Map for Sustainable Development (GM4SD) with an initial focus on managing risks of natural disasters to urban populations
• an agreed set of authoritative core global reference datasets to support global sustainable development activities
• a stable, credible, and reliable national geospatial information infrastructure in each country built on internationally recognized standards
• more training programs related to geospatial information management at all levels
• regional collaboration in the promotion and development of geospatial information management

Massive open on-line courses potentially transforming education

I have blogged frequently on the workforce challenges facing the utility industry resulting from accelerating retirement among engineers and skilled workers and by the technology transformation  associated with the smart grid.  Community colleges in partnership with utiltiies have been the quickest to respond to this challenge.  But universities, encouraged by program like the IEEE PES Scholarship Plus program, are responding as well, though they are also facing an aging workforce problem.  Now something has appeared on the horizon in education that may provide a way of ramping up more rapidly to the challenge of training the next generation of engineers and skilled workers.

From October 10th to December 18th 2011 Stanford offered a free, on-line course, "Introduction to Artificial Intelligence", open to anyone, that  attracted 160'000 students.   The course was taught by Sebastian Thrun and Peter Norvig based on Stanford's introductory Artificial Intelligence course.  Thrun led the development of the Google self-driving car.  Norvig worked at NASA and is the co-author of a widely used college textbook on artifical intelligence.  The term applied to this type of on-line education is massive open on-line courses (MOOCs).

There were a number of precursors.  The one explicitly referenced by the Stanford instructors is the Khan Academy that offers videos to instruct anyone in a wide range of topics including arithmetic, algebra, geometry, trigonometry, calculus, probability and statistics, differential equations, Cosmology and astronomy, organic chemistry, finance and capital markets, microeconomics, macroeconomics, computer science, healthcare and medicine, drawing, programming Basics, animation, history,  american Civics, and art history.

The open online course that I have watched over and over again is Open Yale's Roman Architecture given by Professor Diana E.E. Kleiner of Yale University and available for free on iTunes.

In August 2012, the online education company Coursera began offering free college courses.  According to the New York Times, by January 2013, it had attracted a million users, growing at a rate outpacing even Facebook and Twitter.  There are at least three other startups (Udemy, Udacity, edX) attempting to do the same thing.

The MOOC approach is getting some acceptance among traditional universites and colleges.  The American Council on Education, which represents the presidents of 1800 U.S. accredited, degree-granting institutions, which include two- and four-year colleges, private and public universities, and nonprofit and for-profit entities. has recommended that colleges could grant credit for some of the free classes from Coursera.

Help build electrical grid 2.0

In the next decade, the U.S. electricity grid will change more then it has in the last 100 years.  Aging infrastructure, distributed generation integrating renewable energy sources, smart grid and net zero energy buildings will dramatically change the way power is generated, transmitted, distributed and used.  To many in the industry there is real concern about the availability of highly-skilled, quality engineers to design, build and operate grid 2.0.  The IEEE PES has estimated that between 2011 and 2015, the power and energy industry will experience as much as a 50% turnover in engineers.

To help encourage more young engineers to enter electric power engineering, the IEEE PES created the PES Scholarship Plus Initiative™.  Potential engineers are encourage to apply for a PES Scholarship as early as the first year of college.  To be eligible you must:

• be considering a career in electric power and energy engineering
• working toward an electrical engineering bachelor's degree.
• be a full-time student in the coming academic year at a U.S. university or college
• willing to take at least three power engineering courses for a total of nine or more credits
• be a U.S. citizen or permanent resident
• be enrolled full-time at a university/college or community college with an ABET-accredited, 4-year electrical engineering program.

The scholarship provides up to three years of financial support, US$2,000 the first year, US$2,000 the second year, and US$3,000 the third year.  Even more importantly, the program provides career experience through internships and co-op work, so that when you graduate you will have the tremendous advantage of already having hands-on experience.

National science teaching standards includes for the first time the science of human-driven climate change

The first major update to national science teaching standards in 15 years includes for the first time the science of human-driven climate change.  The standards are based on a National Academy of Sciences report and supported by Achieve, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the National Science Teachers Association and the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

Manufacturing jobs of the future

I blogged previously about an interesting analysis of job creation by the "App Economy" has been conducted for TechNet by Dr.Michael Mandel of South Mountain Economics LLC.  The Technet analysis suggests that there were 155,000 tech jobs in the App Economy as of December 2011 including developer and tech support jobs at both dedicated app developers and at large companies who create apps for them or for others.  This implies that there are roughly 311,000 jobs in App Economy firms, including tech jobs, which require app-related skills, and the corresponding non-tech jobs.  With spillover included, the total number of jobs created in the App Economy is estimated at 466,000 jobs since the iPhone was introduced in 2007.

There is an interesting article in the Washington Post that makes the case that this kind of transformation is going to happen to many manufacturing jobs.  In the future the types of jobs that need to be filled will be different from the jobs that are being filled by workers in the emerging economies of the world. These new jobs in industries that we have not yet even conceived of will require fewer workers with very different skills.  The one thing that is certain  is that we will require a workforce with much different skills and education than what was required for the manufacturing jobs of the last 50 years.  Malaysia is an example of a country that understands this better than most.

New materials, processes and integration

Carl Bass of Autodesk sees three key developments that will define these new manufacturing jobs: new materials, new processes, and complex integration of automated systems.

New types of materials such as carbon nanotubes, ceramic-matrix nanocomposites, and new carbon fibers are being used to create products that are stronger, lighter, more energy efficient and more durable. These materials require new manufacuring processes and more highly skilled employees to manage the more complex manufacturing processes.

In conventional manufacturing, artifacts are produced by "subtractive" manufacturing processes using equipment such as lathes, drills, and milling machines that cut shapes from solid blocks of materials such as steel or wood.  These processes result in a lot of waste material.  In a new method called “additive manufacturing,” parts are produced like you would make a snow ball, building the object up by adding layers of material.  The best example is 3D printing. The process doesn’t produce waste material in the way that "subtractive" manufacturing processes do.  This new manufacturing environment will need 3D designers and operators who can operate and maintain sophisticated computer-based equipment.

Factories will have to become smarter in much the same way that the electric grid is becoming smarter and this means that we will need people will different skills. As in the electric power industry, there will be  greater use of simulation to analyze how manufacturing systems respond to changes such as introducing a new material or changing a feature of a product. Manufacturing engineers will need to become more adept at dealing with virtual control systems, simulation and other such technologies.

Canada C-Suite Survey: Most companies reporting difficulty finding engineers and skilled trades

The Gandalf Group conducts a quarterly C-Suite survey of corporate executives across Canada sponsored by KPMG.  151 C-level executives were interviewed between February 10th and 27th, 2012.

Labour challenges

The survey found that most of the companies are reporting difficulty in finding qualified employees and that for a segment of companies it’s a very acute concern. About a third report the labour shortage is preventing their company from growing.  Even more said they increasingly have to look outside of Canada to fill specific jobs. Engineers, those with technical skills or trades people and some IT professionals are top mentions of positions or skills that are difficult to find.

48% of respondents said that they expected the Canadian economy to have a greater percentage of skilled workers than today.

70% aggreed that labour shortages stand to get much worse for companies because of baby boomers' retirement.

Budget priorities

The survey questions about the Federal budget demonstrate how central labour market questions are to the repondents. 

The number one priority is increased investment in skills training.  Even among the minority who want aggressive deficit reduction, about one in three identified increased investments in skills training as a high priority.  Western Canadian executives tended to add fast-tracking applications from skilled immigrants as something the government must make a priority.

Class of 2011 engineering graduates lead in starting salaries

The National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) conducts an annual survey of starting salaries of U.S. college graduates by compiling data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U.S. Census Bureau, and a master data set developed by Job Search Intelligence.

The Salary Survey for 2012 for the college class of 2011 found that the average starting salary is $41,701,  2.3 percent higher than the Class of 2010 average. In addition the survey found that average salaries have increased across all the sectors that the survey monitors.

engineering graduates had the highest average starting salary $61,872 which perhaps reflects the increasing shortage that is facing many sectors of engineering, especially utilities, as experienced engineers retire at an increasing rate.

Autodesk University Virtual November 29-30

Next week is Autodesk University in Las Vegas, which I am looking forward to especially for the utility-related courses and labs.  But if you can't be there is person, 200 classes in English, Spanish, and Portuguese are available on-line November 29-30 on Autodesk University Virtual. More than 150 more classes go live on November 29.  After the event, AU Virtual classes will continue to be available on the AU website.

AU Virtual is free to everyone.  You can register here.

Preparing for increasing urbanizatian in Malaysia

Malaysia expects that 70% of its inhabitants will be living in urban environments by 2020.  Last year Malaysia released its 10th Malaysia Plan (10MP), which focuses on developing infrastructure to improve productivity and making the private sector the engine of development.  The target is to make Malaysia a high income economy through productivity growth. One of the reasons the government wants to encourage urbanization is international empirical evidence that cities have three times the productivity of rural areas.  MP10 identifies 12 National Key Economic Areas  (NKEA), most of which are sectoral, but one of which is Malaysia's largest urban centre Greater Kuala Lumpur.

The Malaysian economy has been very successful in the past, but primarily because it has been a low cost economy.  The Malaysian electrical and electronics industry, which is known worldwide for inexpensive digital components, is responsible for 26.1% of manufacturing output and
more than 40% of total manufacturing labour.

According to MP10, the Malaysian economy needs to improve productivity, by upskilling the existing work force to facilitate industries to move up the value chain, enabling specialization and economies of scale, and increasing public investment in innovation, particularly R&D and venture capital funding especially through shared risk public-private partnerships.  The government has created a RM 20 billion (US$ 6 billion) Facilitation Fund that it hopes will attract RM 200 billion (US$60 billion) in private capital.  ICT is a major area of focus for improving productiivity.  ICT accounted for 9.8% of GDP in 2009 and is targeted to increase to 10.2% by 2015.

The MP10 focusses on development of infrastructure specifically housing, transportation, energy, water resources and sustainability.  Major initiatives include increasing broadband penetration, upgrading transportation networks, ensuring a secure and reliable energy supply including increasing renewable energy, developing a long-term strategy for water resource management and restructuring the water services industry, protecting rivers from pollution, adaptation to protect Malaysia from the risks of climate change, and reducing Malaysia’s carbon footprint.  I blogged previously about Malaysia's recent introduction of a feed-in tariff program to encourage renewable energy and TNB's smart grid plans to support distributed generation.

The MP10 sees environmental management as an incipient industry with substantial growth potential in green technology which could spin off new categories of professionals and new areas of specialization for architectural and engineering services.

The plan identifies 52 high impact infrastructure projects worth RM 63 billion including

• Seven toll highways - RM 19 billion
• Two coal-fired power plants - RM 7 billion
• Malaysian Rubber Board land development  - RM 10 billion
• Electrified double track rail project – RM 8 billion
• Waste water treatment plant using green technology in Lembah Pantai
• Roads, electricity, water supply, and communication networks to rural areas
• Construction of 76,000 affordable houses

Gridweek: IEEE PES program offers scholarships and hands-on experience to power engineers students

I've blogged on multiple occasions, most recently here and here,  about the workforce challenges facing the utility industry in the world's advanced economies.  At today's Gridweek lunch session, Pat Ryan of the IEEE PES said that 50% of US power engineers will be eligible to retire in five years.  He referred to the 2009 IEEE PES Workforce Collaborative Report that made six recommendations for preparing the next generation of power engineers.  Two of the recommendations were

• double the number of power engineering undergraduates
• stimulate educational programs for power engineeering

Today he announced the IEEE PES Scholarship Plus initiative to respond to these recommendations. IEEE PES is offering a program that includes scholarships, hands-on experience during university, and mentoring for power engineering students.  This is an additive program designed to complement other scholarship programs.  In the first year the IEEE PES plans to offer 94 scholarships, but intends to ramp this up to 1500 scholarships a year.