Why software engineering?

Why should we teach software engineering? In the United States, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor, ``computer software engineers are projected to be one of the fastest growing occupations over the 2004-14 period,'' and software engineers, with starting salaries currently ranging from $63,250 to $92,750 per year, are clearly in demand.¹ In the Asian region, there are a few important current trends:

• Governments and NGOs are funding large-scale initiatives in e-government and e-learning.


• Corporations of all sizes need increasingly complex enterprise-wide integrated software solutions.


• Software and software services firms in the U.S. and western Europe are offshoring a rapidly increasing amount of their work.

Currently the size of the skilled IT workforce in Asia is insufficient to meet the demands and opportunities that these trends pose. Particularly lacking are the skills required to design and implement large-scale software systems. Hiring managers report that it is easy to find Bachelor's-level graduates skilled at “programming in the small” with C++, Java, or .NET, but very few have the knowledge necessary for constructing large software systems for the enterprise. There is a feeling that only North American and European consultants have the necessary skills to build mission-critical enterprise software systems.

At the same time, 30% of the world's largest 1000 firms are currently offshoring work, and the offshore IT industry is expected to grow dramatically in the next decade.²The United States alone currently offshores software and software services contracts worth $10-$20 billion annually. The vast majority of offshore IT work is performed in India and China, but according to recent reports, the demand for skilled IT professionals in even in so populous a country as India with its giant educational system is already outpacing supply. Clearly, opportunities abound in south and southeast Asia for well-trained IT graduates.

Given these trends and challenges, a regional labor pool more skilled in large-scale software engineering would potentially reduce regional dependence on foreign software providers, help attract lucrative offshored projects from other countries, and increase the regional software industry's capacity to innovate without relying on foreign consultants. AIT plans to play a prominent role in building this workforce.