Builders of Talent

From Meeting of the Minds - Building the Human Capital for Sustainable Cities: Filling the Talent for Smart Urban Systems:

"Building the Internet of Things economy is a bit like building a new city – it’s the people that make the difference. 

In the new digital landscape, business and cities will need to connect in new and different ways to drive intelligent transportation, and ensure critical infrastructure and public services are sustainable, safe and scalable for growing populations. A mechanism for connecting our educational institutions and leaners in the workforce into this ecosystem is critical. In fact, it’s ‘do or die’. None of these entities can continue to operate in a vacuum if cities and local talent are to reach their potential and compete in a digital economy.

Digital transformation and the Internet of Things will require businesses and the public sector to move from being buyers of talent, to builders of talent. Every organization will have to figure out how they will feed the talent pipeline in a digital economy, whether they are public or private sector. We recognized, along with many other smart companies and academic institutions, that no one organization can solve for this talent deficit alone. Just like the building the internet – building IoT solutions expertise and business capability to drive a new set of innovative solutions across many industries will require an immense reskilling of the existing workforce as well as building it into academic and private education systems.

Today’s talent shortfall is in the millions. We are not talking about small talent voids. In cybersecurity alone a million people are needed today to fill the jobs deficit in this industry – and we don’t have that. In order for infrastructure to connect securely, we need to have this kind of talent at that kind of scale today."