Brij Singh's Random Musings

Knuth's lecture event in Stanford

Knuth is giving a lecture in Stanford on 17th of this month -

“I have always liked the concept of universities as they were in Ancient Greece, where folks who had something cool to say would just come and say it,” says Knuth. “It wasn’t about recognition; the impetus was the thought that you were resonating with ideas.” These archived tapes resonate with not only his thoughts, but with insights from students, audience members and other legends in mathematics and computer sciences.

Industry-student collaboration can thrive in this kind of open dialog environment.

VCs: Darwin rules tech jungle

Silicon Valley 4.0 (Its quite funny that our geekiness has spread so far that we started versioning silicon valley itself. How desperately we are for the patch version !!)

Usual yada yada of whats to come -

Technology for the home will likely become a huge growth market, Estrin said. Many of the companies that demonstrated products at the conference, such as home server manufacturer Mirra, hope to come up with products and services that will make it easier for consumers to access work and entertainment files.

Embedded computers and sensor networks that will link products and devices into pervasive networks

Moore said that his firm is focusing on several areas, including biological engineering

Judy Estrin's remark is interesting - "Entrepreneurs, she added, might in the next few years be better off trying to bring their ideas to fruition by working for large companies or selling their start-ups to them, rather than aiming for the historically more lucrative IPO."

No quick fix for Silicon Valley

The Silicon Valley Manufacturing Group sees slow job growth for next seven years:

Economic growth in the valley will lag the rest of the nation.

Silicon Valley had 1.49 million workers in 2000. It won't reach that level again until 2010.

The valley will have to focus on improving schools and reducing traffic and building affordable housing

state of the valley

Valley waiting for the next big thing. Anxiously

Region March 2001 August 2003 Jobs lost
San Jose* 1,048,400 868,300 180,100
San Francisco** 1,087,700 966,300 121,500
Total 2,136,200 1,834,600 301,600
* Santa Clara County
** San Francisco, San Mateo and Marin Counties
Source: California Employment Development Department

BeepeeOO

BeePeeOO

In 2002, the business process outsourcing sector employed 171,000 people in India and brought in $2.4 billion in revenue, based on estimates by the National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom).

Economy.com's forecast showed that offshore outsourcing will double that sector in India to 400,000 people in 2004 and triple the revenues to $6.1 billion. By 2008, the business process outsourcing (BPO) field will employ 1.2 million in India and haul in $23 billion in revenues.

How much of this is going to affect Silicon Valley ?