Pogue’s Posts
March 2, 2009, 3:57 pm
South of the Border, Down Mexico Way
A few months ago, I received a most unusual request: to come and speak at a technical conference in Monterrey, Mexico—a conference run entirely, and I mean entirely, by students.
I’d never heard of anything like this, but they claimed that previous speakers had included speakers like Steve Wozniak and Kevin Mitnick, and that this year’s speakers would include executives from Amazon, Electronic Arts and AMD. So I signed up.
It turned out to be an amazing experience. In all my years of speaking, I’ve never encountered a conference as organized and smooth as this one. Three students greeted me at the airport, speaking flawless English—two guys, wearing suits and ties, and a young lady, Erika, who introduced herself as my assistant for the three-day event. They grabbed my luggage and we drove to the hotel. I had already been sent a day-by-day agenda, filled with all the details of the trip, the conference, the schedule, the restaurants where the speakers would join the organizers for meals, contact information and so on.
(I was so floored by all the personal attention that when we arrived at the hotel, it almost didn’t surprise me to see a dozen cute 15-year-old girls in a line at the entrance, clutching flowers and holding cameras expectantly as our car pulled up. “No WAY!” I exclaimed, looking out the window.
“Oh, they’re not for you,” said Erika. “An Argentinian soap-opera star is also staying at this hotel.” Ah. Well. Still.)
The talk was the most fun I’ve had in years. The audience of 1,500 college kids from all over Mexico was electric and quick to laughter.
The university hosting this event (Tecnológico de Monterrey, or “the Tec,” as everyone calls it), is an absolutely gigantic operation, with 92,000 students at 33 campuses across Mexico. At the main campus where I was, there were 19,000 students. Its graduates wind up working at big-name tech firms all over the world; 200 work at Microsoft at this moment.
Monterrey is a wealthy city, and the kids attending this school have the maturity and intelligence you’d expect of Ivy Leaguers in the U.S. But the school also has a huge social mission. Like most Mexican colleges, Monterrey Tec requires its students to put in 240 hours of community service: teaching reading to poor kids, leading tours of science museums, running Boy Scout outings and so on—plus another 240 hours of either internships or additional community service.
The school also sets up “incubator” schools in poorer Mexican states, in hopes of cultivating the next generation of scientists and engineers.
Apparently, it works. According to de Tec’s engineering dean, David Garza, Mexico produces about 75,000 scientists and engineers each year—about the same number as the United States, which has three times the population.
He also pointed out that 6,700 Tec graduates have gone abroad after graduation: 54 percent to Europe, but only 28 percent to the U.S., probably because European institutions have so far been much more willing to participate in exchange programs and other collaborations.
Everybody knows that the U.S. has a serious scientist shortage; we’re falling behind other countries in science and engineering. The problem, and the solution, begins at the beginning. If we hope to catch up, maybe we should take a look at how other countries are doing it; the time for complacency is over.
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