Learning to serve the service industries

If Mike Nichols were to remake his film The Graduate today, he might well replace the catchword ˝plastics˝ with ˝services.˝ About 70 percent of ´s labor force is employed in services. Ditto . In and that figure is about 65 percent.

Historically, most scientific research has been in support of manufacturing. But that was then. Now economies are shifting, and industrial and academic research facilities need to shift with them. Before there can be research, however, there must be researchers, and most current curricula have yet to focus on services. IBM is playing a key role in changing that.

The company is supporting a new curriculum initiative in Services: Science, Management and Engineering (SSME) designed to prepare graduate students for careers in the emerging multidisciplinary field.

Working with the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS), IBM helped start work on a curriculum at UC Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz. A similar effort is under way at North Carolina State University .

˝Universities have an important role to play in conducting research that will innovate current services and create future ones, in addition to preparing graduates to meet the demands of today and tomorrow´s workforce,˝ said S. Shankar Sastry, the director of CITRIS and a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at UC Berkeley.

Source: IBM
www.ibm.com

2006-02-05 10:52

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