BELL INITIATIVE: TECHNOLOGY AGENDA FOR THE USA

by Dr. Alexander Bell, NY, USA

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PREAMBLE


IDENTIFICATION AND SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PROBLEM

Technology in general and IT (Information Technology) in particular is a vital component of American (USA) culture and one of the major contributors to the American prosperity and leadership. In order to: certain Technological, Organizational and Legislative actions are recommended:  see the provisions outlined below

PROPOSED SOLUTIONS AND EFFORTS

1. IT FOUNDATION OF USA

To establish IT Foundation of USA (hereinafter - IT Foundation) with its major goal of protecting American IT Workers (US Citizens and Legal Permanent Residents) from unfair competition and its main activity concentrated (without limitation) on:
  1. Re-training American IT professionals
  2. Extension of the unemployment benefits for displaced American IT Workers
  3. Promoting and popularizing IT and Computer Sciences among school students

2. IT QUALIFICATION EXAM AND CERTIFICATE

  1. Establish IT Qualification exam and corresponding unified Certificate of IT Professional (hereinafter - IT Certificate). IT Qualification Exam should contain a set of statistically sound aggregated standardized Tests (like the ones existing for Medical Doctors or PE) to cover the essentials of modern IT. IT Qualification Exam should be updated periodically (for e.g. every 3…5 years) to reflect the emerging IT trends
  2. Technological and organizational infrastructure must be created to support IT Qualification activity, which includes the network of IT Certification Centers nationwide

3. US NATIONAL IT LABOR POOL

  1. Create a Database on US IT workers (US National IT Labor Pool); its resources must be accessible online free of charge for all US Citizens and Legal Permanent Residents
  2. Create the National IT Jobs Posting Electronic Board, possibly linked to the DOL Web Portal

4. MANDATORY CERTIFICATION OF FOREIGN IT WORKERS

  1. To amend the existing US Labor Law with the provision requiring the Mandatory Certification of all Non-Immigrant Technology Guest Worker as a pre-condition for granting them a Worker Visa (H-1B and related)
  2. Foreign individual who intended to work in the US as IT or Software Professional must pass the IT Qualification Exam with the highest score comparing to the Top List of available American IT workers
  3. Qualification Exam must be taken in-person by foreign individual and only through qualified authorities
  4. Existing worker Visa holders (Foreign IT workers with H-1B and likes) should be granted the grace period, during which they must be certified in order to be eligible to stay and continue their work in the USA
  5. In certain cases, when potential US Employer has strong need and intention to hire the Non-Certified Foreign IT Professional, the special type of Visa could be issued (proposed name H-1B-NC, which stands for “H-1B-NON-CERTIFIED”), based upon the condition that this Employer agree to pay an “exception fee” to the IT Foundation for each sponsored Employee seeking such Visa. The dollar Amount of such exception fee is TBD (tentatively is proposed to be equal to the average annual salary of US IT workers) and should be paid on the annual basis

5. MANDATORY IT JOB POSTING

To amend the US Labor Law with the provision, requiring a mandatory Job Posting by any US Employer prior to hiring Foreign IT Professionals


6. INFORMATION SECURITY AND NATIONAL SECURITY

Information Security (hereinafter - IT Security) is a vital part of the US National Security agenda. In order to better protect our vital IT Infrastructure several measures are highly recommended:
  1. To establish a Mandatory Security Certification procedure for any Software product developed (partially or completely) overseas and imported into the US
  2. IT Security Certification Counsel must be created, supported by US Governmental bodies, with main goal to enforce the provision (6.A)
  3. For any software products outlined in (6.A.) the Source Code transcript should be provided to the IT Security Certification Counsel (6.A.)
  4. Any Sensitive data about American Citizens and/or Business entities and/or Governmental bodies and their activities MAY NOT pass the border of the USA as a result of outsourcing, unless the recipient part abroad is certified as trustful zone (based on US clearance for employees plus data security certification for the foreign business entity)

7. US LABOR FORCE AND GLOBAL COMPETITIVENESS

It should be taken into consideration that current demographic situation in the world and its future trends does not favor the US IT Labor forces. Other countries have combined human capital by the order of magnitude higher than the population in the US, thus having potential competitive advantage over the US in the human factor area. To preserve our Technological leadership US should develop and implement the effective strategic solution to this problem, aimed to partially neutralize or even eliminate the negative effect of comparative human intelligence shortage in the years to come. These measures could include, but not limited to the following
  1. Increase the Human Intelligence efficiency in the creative IT branches through AI (Artificial Intelligence)-based Decision Support Systems ("Intelligence Amplifiers")
  2. Promote nationwide and provide Governmental support for the development of the wide spectra of Business Intelligence enhanced software solutions in order to reduce the dependency on the human factor in the Labor intensive areas through the automation of IT routine tasks and data processes unification
  3. Utilize the enormous power of Internet based National knowledge sharing and collaborative applications. Start the Government sponsored programs of creating Web-based National digital archives and Decision Support Systems in most crucial technological areas, e.g. Alternative Energy Research
  4. Provide Governmental support  for creating Nationwide Educational Web-Portals with virtual classrooms, online textbooks, "reality-oriented" standardized Tests
  5. Provide Governmental support for the paperless online document/data processing systems, firstly in Tax preparation and Health care areas

8. OUTSOURCING AND MASSIVE LAYOFF

US Hi-Tech Jobs Outsourcing to Foreign Countries and Massive Layoffs of American Technology Workers are tightly correlated. This dangerous trend already has rather negative impact on the structure of American Labor forces and could eventually jeopardize our National Security, technological, political, economical leadership and overall American Competitiveness. To reverse this dangerous Layoff/Outsourcing trend the following measures could be taken:
  1. The same idea of Mandatory IT Certification as outlined in Sub-Chapter (2) must apply to the Foreign Nationals working for American Companies abroad
  2. Software Piracy abroad presents a clear threat to the US IT Industry. It should be noticed, that such type of illegal activity is widely spread in that same countries, which are leading in terms of IT Jobs outsourcing. It appears to be not just a coincidence, but a strong correlation; certain corrective actions to reverse such tendency are due and further studies are recommended.
  3. Increase the Social Responsibility of Corporate Executives Most of publicly traded American Corporation, founded by the technological and entrepreneurial genius of the past and brought to their current prosperous stage by enormous amount of hard work and dedication of many generations of Americans should be considered a national treasure. It is in common public interest to preserve these vital socio-economic institutions and protect American Workers, employed by such corporation, against unfair foreign competition and/or incompetent or "power-abusive" senior management practices. Senior executives (CEO and other C-Level) of publicly traded US Corporation should carry certain social responsibilities. In part, it is proposed that CEO (and/or other C-Level Top executive) Pay of any publicly traded US Corporations must be adjusted based on the formula, which monetary penalized for the Layoffs and Outsourcing, for example:
        Adjusted_Base = Base_Salary * (100 - Fout– Foff),
    where Fout (outsourcing Factor) is a percentage of outsourced personal increase and Foff (layoff Factor) is a layoff percentage for the entire corporation, both calculated on the annual basis. More research is recommended in this area; these efforts could be added to the IT Foundation agenda.

9. INCREASE THE PRESTIGE OF US TECHNOLOGY WORKERS

  1. Popularize the Technology: to start new series of Televised or Web-transmitted Edutainment programs, aimed to increase the popularity and prestige of Technology knowledge and activities through contests, competitions, etc (IT to be used as a pilot project, followed by Energy and Biotech, for example). Public appreciation and monetary prizes should be important components of such programs, sending a clear message to our young people that Technology is stylish ("cool") and it really pays off, so it is worthy to try from both enthusiastic and pragmatic point of views. In order to attract the young talents such programs should address the reality of modern pop-culture, which has deep impact on the young generation; for example, the contest programs could lead to the creation of American "Intellectual Idols" (the title chosen by the analogy with popular TV program for demo purpose), or "Thinker of the Year" or "Brain of the State(Nation, Globe, Universe, etc)”
  2. To create a "Talent Pool" network. Highly talented young people found through the different programs should have the ability to communicate online through the dedicated network. It would be highly desirable if our Industrial leaders will personally participate in online forums and live meetings through this network, providing some sort of online mentoring to the young talents. At the same time, members of this network could communicate to other young people as forum leaders, sharing their knowledge and best practices with others.

NOTES

This Document extends the core idea of "MANDATORY CERTIFICATION OF NON-IMMIGRANT TECHNOLOGY WORKERS”, related to the highly controversial issue of H-1B Visa and likes. Interestingly, the idea was first introduced by Dr. Alexander Bell in Dec, 2003 as online comments to the article in CIO Magazine. Soon after its first introduction it was amended and transformed into the document popular known as "Bell Initiative". Shortly after its first appearance in a public domain it became a societal phenomenon, topping the Google(TM) search result list (screenshot taken on May 24th 2007). Since that the original ideas and proposed solutions were substantially extended to cover the variety of highly important socio-economical issues.

In a context of this Document the term "IT" is a terminological umbrella applied to all types of Information Technology, Software Engineering and Development, Computer Data/Signal Processing and Computer Sciences knowledge domain. While some provisions of this Initiative are IT specific, most of them are equally applicable to other US Hi-Tech industries as well.

Some of proposed efforts require Congressional actions and different form of Governmental support, including program funding. Author will highly welcome any kind of support for this Initiative from either US Governmental bodies or US Corporations, Foundations and other sponsorship.

For the direct communication please refer to the contact section of my official Web portal, where this Document is parked (see the Hyperlink at the upper-right corner).

I look forward to hearing from you. Many thanks for your kind attention.
Sincerely,

Dr. Alexander Bell,
NY, USA

Revision History:
a) "Bell Initiative" introduced in Dec 2003
b) revised and updated as of 11/14/2005
c) revised and updated as of 10/17/2006
d) revised and updated as of 5/23/2007
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This Document and its Author are protected by the Law of the United States of America, and in particular, its 1st Amendment. Though the Author has made significant efforts when working on this Document please be notified that the Document is provided on 'AS IS' basis without warranty of any kind. In no case the Author and/or his affiliates could be held liable for any damages related to this Document.

Copyright © 2003-2007 Alexander Bell. All rights reserved