My son is currently at the University of Michigan working toward a B.S. in Computer Science. He told me last weekend that Bill Gates is visiting college campuses to talk to students and faculty about technology and how vital computer science is today and will be in the future. So I naturally encouraged him to attend. Unfortunately my son is in class during the session. He told me how several of his fellow Computer Science students could not attend because they are in their computer classes. How shortsighted is that? If I were a professor and Bill Gates was stopping by my school, the first thing I would do is pull strings, get the tickets, and then make it mandatory for all the students to be in the session. Boneheads.
On the positive side: it is good to see Bill Gates and Microsoft in general doing the smart thing by opening a dialog and trying to understand why fewer and fewer people are opting to pursue a career in technology. I hope this is just not a couple of people listening, but that there will be some positive action items generated. We will see.
