DARPA Chief Testifies That US May Soon Face Critical Nerd Shortage

Who in the hell thought it was a bright idea to cut DARPA's funding in half?

Wait - 00's? BUSH!

Here in PA, PSSA tests that are mandatory for kids now for assessment have forced the public schools the remove most science courses from the curriculum all together.

It pisses me off to no end. Kids now go to school to be able to pass a test, not learn anything of substance and value.

--GTO--

I don't think that "contests with iPod prizes, and career days" are going to be much help here. The scholarships idea is nice but how does DARPA think they'll do that without any money for it (considering the slashed budget).

I think that this is a looming problem not just for DARPA but throughout this nation in multiple sectors. The only real fix to this would be an overhaul of education...a radical one.

But I am NOT optimistic that this will come from government. We need a new game plan!

@SJak: he had to get the money to pay his friends on wall street and in the banks to crash the economy from somewhere.

im a teenager (interested in science and engineering) i find that more and more of my friends think that being an engineer would be easy and unimportant, that all you do is walk in draw a couple shapes and then the next week its a finished product. they dont understand that its hard work to design future technology PS i find ipods and scholarships good incentives but career days, not so much

put star trek back on TV; that'll generate some more nerds.

What day is it today?

To many CSI shows have come on and now everyone is into criminal investigation instead of science. Also not enough stuff has been going on at NASA to really inspire anyone. With no child left behind policies, the smarter people are being held back so the dumber people can think that they are just as smart. (It wasnt supposed to be that way, but with all policys people will eventually just do what is cheaper and less effort despite initial intentions)

(In my area at least) Teachers are afraid to discipline students because it jeopardizes there job. So students can show up to class late without consequence. 10 problems of math homework seems way to much and most students are refusing to do it. It doesnt matter because the teachers are instructed to give them as much makup days as possible, most teachers just find lousy excuses for extra credit.

DARPA if you want to inspire people, we need programs that will inspire. As a nation we need to put an emphases in back into science. Start making jobs that are scientific that every 5 year old wants to do. (I was reading something about a payload specialist whose job would be to deliver stuff to the ISS.) Seriously? how do i apply for that one?

Maby you can take some of that advanced scientific research that you do and turn it into something that kids can enjoy using. (Hoverboards anyone?? JK) But i do read about a lot of cool stuff created from darpa but Ive never seen any of it used in application)

Of all the career choices out there, I would think computers and science would be on the rise. Everything is heading that way, so that's what kids should study/focus on.

Let me guess, all of them want to be the next American Idol.

Hey rich people, instead of buying your next yacht or diamond studded iPhone ... how about sending some funds to DARPA?

Please tell me this was an April Fool's joke.

well good thing I plan on going into science and technologies

I call foul on the "Geeks can't get dates" reference. I could get a date if I wanted one. Maybe. Um...

Well, we couldn't keep it up indefinitely...but I'm sure as soon as the demand grows higher, domestic production of nerds will amp up once the salaries grow higher, especially for locally grown and cultivated nerds who are citizens and don't need to pass the scrutiny of a background check wondering if they're Chinese/Russian/Indian/Korean spies.

Not that locally grown ones aren't susceptible to espionage for the other guy, but it's less likely.

michael taylor No Child Left Behind, is a terrible system with many more flaws than that.

This is why we import nerds. We glorify athletes like Tiger Woods and tear down nerds like Bill Gates and we will go into debt to finance the stadiums and subscribe to ESPN. We are regressing in all technical fields yet nobody cares because this is a pop culture and we care more about our athletes and movie stars than why we can’t build a new space shuttle.

I hope this will help me enter MIT! As an international student, I need to get a VISA, Financial Aid, and everything and all this ONLY if I am accepted. I'm already getting electronic courses at my school and I love that. I'm gonna have a DEP (Professional Studies Diploma) 6 months before making my application and I will have another 6 months of Electronics/Computerized Systems collegial studies (College in Quebec isn't the same thing as in the US, we need to go 2 years in college to have a DEC diploma then go the university a few more years to get another diploma...). My English is near perfect (for a French student)(save for accent), but my grades aren't perfect. I mostly get into the eighties percent but I get a few time in the seventy and fewer times in the sixty. Our educational system sucks so much! If the US wants people like me to study and work in the US, they should look at who we're really and stop always looking at our grades! The system is made so you pass exams but don't learn anything useful. Seems it is the same thing in the US.
Especially, Quebec educational system, actually, is undergoing a ''reform'' that is destroying our grades and making students stop school.
I guess a lot of countries got these problems.

NAh, no way. Theres plenty of nerds around. The nerd population is high!

L0ou
5chan.org/34/reply/874

Sounds like its time to start giving serious incentives to go to school!

anonymous-surfing.us.tc

lately I have been learning an animation and game engine program called blender. Not only do I reward myself with cool visualizations that I can exploit to the rest of the world, but it also delves into the geometric and fundamentals of the sciences. If we really want to educate the geeks of tomorrow, then starting at the 4th grade art, music, and literature should be replaced with computer based industrial applications that literally get the kids foot in the door at a young age. I'm currently learning about using basic curves that translate to movement of a model or to the changing of colors and shadows in real time z-depth using vectors. Not only that, but my programing capabilities are growing just the same. I could fix up a good module from the top of my head. But another issue we should address in the near future is the blown up head syndromes. I can't stand a cocky kid!

Maybe if being a nerd paid people would do it again.

Outsourcing to India pretty much killed the nerd movement.

Have no fear DARPA! I will answer your call!

I do think that there is a lack of interest in Science and Engineering, My public high school has an accelerated program called STEM (Science Technology Engineering Mathematics). We have around 40 people of each class, 9-12 grade, in STEM. This means out of a class of around 550 people, for each grade, that is right around 7% of the population. I think that we are so engrossed in Technology today, that we expect some one else to be that 'nerd' and come up with the new technology. But the lack of interest may also come from the fact that many of our jobs opportunities are being shipped out of the country due to the strict environment protection laws being put in place for the companies that manufacture any, and all things. We, the nerds, are being forced in to a corner of either, going to India, or China, to work, or picking a profession that is in the military. I personally have a dream to work for NASA one day, but with the recent budget cuts for them, have put my dreams on hold, until we thin it is the "right" time to go back to the moon.

Aside from whatever testing might be offered at school, I still think the US gov't should provide aptitude tests @ any federal building accessible to the public. Better yet, why not provide this @ state & federal unemployment offices?

Just like an old garage, if you look around, you might find more than what you need to build something better than you wanted. Young minds are good but age sometimes offers a little more.

Hey im a senior in high school. I havent done my math home work for the whole year because my teacher doesent even take it up. I carry a 57 right now, but i dont care because I know I can bring it up any time I wanted, but I can not bring it up by listening to the teacher. I have to go to Purplemathe.com or whatever it is called to learn anything.

3 things make people ask why they should be nerdy.

1. The insentive. Will I get payed enough for my work? The answer in the U.S. is a definite NO

2. Do I have the motivation to be a nerd? Things like Star Trek and Star Wars were awesome when they came out, but movies of today seem to be slightly modified versions of these classics made for profit. Nerds are no longer really inspired.

3. WHY IS THAT IDIOT IN THE SAME CLASS AS ME?

As an extra note there are no "Nerdy Competitions". There are all kinds of sports for the athletes, automotive competetions, and band competetions, but no single arena for those who are good at math or sciences!

DARPA chief was speaking of the nation's elite army of futuristic technogeeks, which is so much higher a standard than "nerds". Anyone capable of becoming an elite futuristic technogeek will be the best and brightest. I think these types of people are looking for challenging and rewarding careers. Working with computers is likely one of the most boring careers, considering no sex, social contact, or adrenaline is involved: it's a bit like being the caretaker for a machine: and that goes for programmers and designers too. It will take twenty years for cool computer careers to emerge, and as usual it will be the strong socially competent types who get all the glory. For instance, a cool computer job would involve using a cool computer technology to make something socially interesting happen: like peace, love, justice. Those careers won't go to someone who spent a lifetime in front of a glowing screen, but rather someone who can compel people to follow or pay them. Bill Gates was not a great programmer, but a compelling businessman. Steve Jobs is a relative wonk, but he sure looks cool. People are starting to realize the truth, that geeks were never cool, they were just tools for someone else's success: like slaves were.

The mere fact that she (DARPA head) refers to us as geeks speaks volumes about our position in society. I mean I know people with just a high school diploma that think they are cooler than me, and coincidentally that they know more about computer than I. I have a B.S. in computer engineering and a juris doctorate in law: but that does not make me valuable. What makes someone valuable is their ability to generate income for a business. Sales people get paid three times what I make and I sometimes feel like they are borderline illiterate.

the irony is nerd/geek culture is growing, WITHOUT any growing interest in science and math. sigh, sadly I'm not surprised in any way....

Hey!

I was a straight-A glasses-wearing nerd in High School and College and dated blond cheerleaders and even two teen models, including a Junior Miss .

I found out something by experimentation: A lot of those girls went dateless on many weekends because everyone was too afraid to ask them out. Even the jocks.

For all you fellow nerds out there -- give it a try. You might be surprised.

Now get off your butts and get Math degrees.

The sad truth is that nerds in the DoD are under appreciated (often ignored), federal acquisition laws stifle creativity and research, and in many cases, a brainiac is of more value to an organization in a capacity other than a nerd. Funding is king these days and unless you can convince some sugar Daddy that you've got the best idea since sliced bread (next to impossible, because the decisions makers with the "check book" have no clue what you're talking about), your idea is going nowhere fast. And how do I know this? I've transitioned myself from the nerd class to the class that sits around all day getting paid big bucks to do practically nothing. Go figure. =/

This is not new news. The US corporations have been sending most of our Engineering and Computer Science work over seas for a decade, and it wasn't helped by the book "The World is Flat".

Thus, since all the jobs went abroad, US students stopped targeting those areas. It's not for a lack of smart individuals, there are plenty. They are just not going into these fields.

The author of the article ought to look into how many college campuses have decreased their programs due to a lack of students, and see how hard it is for a middle class person to get engineering and science scholarships. I have a son at one private school in CS, and another going into Biomedical Engineering. Both are concerned that their futures will be over seas at lower salaries. To get anywhere in the US, these students must have a master or PhD to compete here against imported people special H1B visas. Stop the VISAs, add more scholarship money for MIDDLE CLASS students, and fix the FAFSA. This will go a long way.

GusTheBus and Old_Nerd already said it, but for those that are hard of hearing here you go once again:

I have a Bachelors in CS and a Masters in IS from a top 15 school in the U.S. worked for IBM.

IBM went from a few thousand India employees in the early 2000s to almost 80,000 in recent years, and they're not alone.

You can get the same talent for 10-20% of what it would cost here.

I know you expect college kids to be smart enough to be a scientist or engineer, but dumb enough to not notice the exodus of U.S. jobs.

However, they do notice when their father, mother, uncle, aunt, or older sibling gets laid off and has their job shipped overseas.

Getting students into STEM disciplines was a challenge before outsourcing became vogue. Now, even that 7% that's in the queue will figure out that if they want job safety and a six figure salary, they can do it with a lot less training by becoming a nurse, police officer, firefighter, physician's assistant, or any other profession that cannot be done remotely, and more often than not is protected by a union.

Once a job can be done remotely, it's going overseas where labor and cost of living is 5-10X lower than it is in places like California (#50 out of 50 states for business friendliness).

Best of luck trying to convince kids to train for challenging disciplines that are easily outsourced.

Offshored and Unemployed

as one of the last to take the AP CS AB course and exam and a NYer, interest in computers, science and engineering may be down nationaly but in a small high school of 1400 kids with an exceptional(multiple consecutive state and/or county championships) sports program in: football(5yrs,3yrs undefeated), LAX, Basketball, Baseball, Soccer(4), Track(6yrs undefeated), swimming(14yrs),hockey, cheerleading(9 yrs(national)),dance line(9yrs, 3national champianships per year), ect you get the idea, one of the best sports schools in the nation(3 alumni in NFL, #1 hs point-guard in nation, 90% of athletes including track team get collage athletic scholarships), there are still over 120 students in computer programming courses alone, including a few girls(9).

There's no lack of interest in these fields for hsw, most of the "nerds" are also "all-american" athelets the interest is simply under reported or not well distributed. As a public school the only biasing factor is the high price of homes and living in the area (county with highest taxes in the nation, highest property tax in state, and highest $per student budget nearly $10K). I know 5 kids on full music scholarships everyone else gets achdemic or achidemic+athletic scholarships. Strong science program helped by the schools Planatarium and THE SCIENCE DEPT.s MULTI MILLION $ budget(2.1). AP courses are considered the easy courses the AP exam and state regents exams are both easier than the normal class room QUIZ's (try doing any calculus in your head and see how much it hurts) for physics calculaters are not allowed excpt for the final exams. also over 200 participate in intels contest every year, average of 8 semifinalests and 2finalists per year.
Nerdish culture alive & well with a large computer club(40+ members), chess club(35+ members), D&D club(25+ members) and students often playing GO(not as easy as it seems) or chinese chess in the cafateria when not studing mandarin and other apparently uncommen things for rich american teens to do.

Some schools have gangs, we have groups who hack for fun, because they can and it sometimes challenging.You know those kids who score perficts on the ACT&SAT&PSAT&AP exams that make people look bad, sorry but hsw is guilty of creating them. 30% of kids from hsw get Ivy league scholarships to multiple schools.

PS-sorry kids from your region couldn't get in, we took up all the spots.LOL

Cops here start at $100k per year, by year five they make over $120K, highest paid in the nation, also most selective. Use their own exam every other year, if you score below a 99% don't quit your day job most of the cops on the 10,000+ officer force scored perficts, NYS troopers score the equivelent of a 60 to a 75, their pay reflects this on a graph with a transition of y'=y+$15,000. NYPD score the equivelent of a 90 or above

@thor0997

QUIZBOWL, its what nerds who aren't good athletes do to compete and show their knowlage its even televised (idk y)

@QIII

I agree, go into it expecting to get shot down half the time, but still succede half the time,

whats wrong with a CS or Science degree?, more fun than math (I know math "can" be fun and considered a science)

sorry about spelling errors, good in many fields spelling isn't one of them.

Pilo9t Those people are probably going to be either shiped over seas or unemployed.

Remember that originally the way you posted your comment was made by people sitting in front of glowing screens. And originally the Internet was made for nuclear war.

I have a nerd for a son. IQ in 93% and I stopped arguing with him when he was 5 about science things. The problem for us is we do not have the money for the science classes or camps. The cost is insane!!! Schools science classes cover stuff he knew when he was in1st grade and he is in 8th grade. On the other hand the science in school is just right for my other child who has to be dragged to a science museum. So how do you keep Nerds intrested when the class in school are to low for them but just right for most people and the classes outside of school are insanly expensive. When we were in NC there was a non profit that was for low income kids to get extra science and math classes. My son loved spending Saturday mornings at those classes but we moved. Why doesn't DARPA spend money on making Math and Science enrichment classes accessible to all kids not just for those who have the cash.
Here is the NC non profit www.unc.edu/depts/msen/about/index.html

It's no wonder. Science and engineering fields pay nothing compared to past decades.

Unfortunately, aside form the humorous undertones of the article, the reality is this is a major problem looming on the immediate horizon. I think it is a pretty well known fact the Americans simply don't want to make anything anymore. We just want to be relegated to the golf course where we can call in manufacturing decisions, to factories in foreign countries, between our drives and putts. But there is some light beginning to shine at the end of the tunnel. There are some great organizations out there that are already directly combating this problem. I've been really pumped on this non-profit organization called LabTV that produces educational videos on some of today's most cutting edge science and tech topics! I'll post a web address to there site below. If you have a minute you should have a look. Maybe you have some young friends you could pass it along to. We need to act on this problem now before is becomes our countries next great epidemic.

www.ndep.us/LabTV

What we, the nerds who reside in the United States of America - and the rest of the world, need is more funding for science research and development AND more science classes - math geniuses, thou art not exempt - in our schools. We can begin by abolishing NCLB.

If there is a shortage of anything AND there is a need then the cost will rise for that thing. Well, there is no wage pressure upwards in the nerd job market. Programmer and engineers are NOT seeing wages increase. So there is no shortage.

What many corporations want from the US government is more interference in the US labor market, H-1B. Right now with H-1B the federal government imports foreigners into the US. This has driven down wages and created unemployment. I suspect DARPA is being asked to help corporations get their corporate welfare, get more H-1Bs.

But again, anytime the government or corporations say there is a "brain drain" or "nerd shortage" just ask them "why are wages not rising if there is a shortage?"

Wages are not rising because we are importing the dragon's share of our 'nerdy' talent.

Next thing you know, we'll be watering plants with Gatorade because "it's got electrolytes...". I immediately thought of the movie 'Idiocracy' when I read this. hehehe "it's got electrolytes...."

No to make tons of geeks you have to take away their dates so that they have more time to focus on geeky stuff then entice them into working for you with the dates.

This really isn’t a hard problem to solve. You see right about the time Sandra Bullock jumps on Bill Gates, a whole bunch of guys will trade the football for a school book. But the reality is Nerds don’t get laid, and the state of Viginia is what really makes the world go round. Not the market as some would try and propose.

Lets be honest about what the problem is. It's obvious that education and scholastic achievement are secondary to sports in grade school and high school. Rituals like "Homecoming" just reinforce this for the students. It is a significant source of funding for the schools. As long as the parents and teachers care more about sports, the kids will continue to look at educational achievement as something less important.

I completely disagree. The schools can tell kids no more then the parents can. Instead of the school try talking to MTV. Or media in general. Nerds use to be cool and get the girl (remember Ferris Bueller's day off or how about war games) anyway the point is an effort need to be made to get away from the impression that smart equals nerd. It's not rocket science. People just seem to forget what it was like when they were a kid. Not much has changed other then a few bells and whistles. (I hate the new music just like my parents hated mine.)

D2da Ork thats me!

Some problems are in DARPA’s interest to solve, because the militaries budget will compete with them. Type II diabetes, along with other chronic disease, and mobile energy consume an enormous amount of federal dollars. Diabetes alone consumes hundreds of billions of budget dollars each year. I think curing it is a big problem, but postponing it is an easer solution. Most gastric bypass patients lose the diabetes after surgery. Half the weight loss is do to stomach surgery, the other half is because the vegus nerves going to the stomach are cut. Cutting the stomach nerves is called a Vagotomy and results are a 30 percent weight loss in six months. If we can eliminate surgery from the formula we can indefinitely postpone type two diabetes for most people. There are at least two or three ways of doing this. My favorite proposal is to inject plasticized Botox into the vagus nerves using a robotic injection jig. These are usually used for brain cancer patients, but they could be adapted to use ultrasound with injected balloons for precise alignment. Of course, cosmetic weight loss would have tradeoffs of its own. A surgeon told me that getting the back nerve would be difficult.

The next is Cyber Knife Vagotomy. The Cyber Knife uses a large robot arm and injected gold for precise placement of radiation. Cooking the back vagus nerve only requires a small radiation exposure with an extremely low likelihood of cancer in the future, but no one has used the Cyber Knife for non cancer treatment that I know of. The cosmetic trade offs for this approach, would fuel funding for more MRI machines and Cyber Knifes resulting in a greater cancer survival rate.

The third method is a competitor to Cosmetic Botox using radio waves to deaden the nerves.

A diabetes patient pays thousand of dollars annually for treatment, and will likely end up in multiple surgeries, any way, because of complications of diabetes. All these methods could be expensive, but still be cheaper than chronic diabetes. We just saw the moon mission abandoned, and Healthcare expanded. DARPA save your budget target chronic disease.

Actually, the solution is obvious. Presently, the Pell grant is around $5,000, and one is allowed to make $3,900 on top of that. Total, around $9,000, is not enough to live on.

Suppose you add something for a math class. $100 for taking the class, plus $100 per grade point. Thus, an A in a 5-hour calculus class would net 20 GP, or $2,000, plus the initial $1,000, or $3,000. Together with the Pell grant, the student is getting $8,000.

Then do the same for a 3-hour science class, and the student might get another $2200. With an extra $5,200, his Pell grant might total over $10,000 (if he makes A's.) A C student might make an extra $2,600, or enough to stay in school.

We have too few students of any kind because too many still can't afford to attend. And taking job-seekers off the streets would improve our rate of employment, too.

Did you people NOT see the date? April First? There are facts in there, but this is an April fools joke!

DARPA has succeeded! Ha ha!

It may have been an april fool, but we don't NEED any nerds.

now we have morons looking for easily beaten twerps to do their homework for them. root or die, hogs.

the real problem is that geeks and nerds and people who try to turn such terms into badges of honor are social retards.
they are also not ever true intellectuals. What the government might NEED is true people of science and genius -- but perhaps todays Marie Curies, R. Buckminster Fullers -- ACTUAL genius-level people who could contribute to society instead of being useless nebbishy dolts who HIDE behind science because they can't deal with the real world --

perhaps the TRUE practical intellectuals of the current day simply are too smart to serve such a grafty and corrupt system.

i know of a lot of geeky Star Trek losers who are afraid of girls and who hate mainstream culture. But they are social retards.
They can't do the real science that would help the United States PRECISELY because of their psychological discomfitture.

In short, the nation that made George W. Bush president only earns the disrespect of actual geniuses.
I hope DARPA CHOKES on useless Bill Gates-type grade machines. Good. They are of no use to anyone anyway.

It's the stupidity of the post-Bush United States -- that still is yet to recover from Dubya's stultifyingly counterintellectual pervasiveness -- that they actually claim to "WANT" geeks.

They are geeks. They are useless. (Duh.)
Real intellectuals and geniuses probably just see through the grafty policies of the militarist and short sighted Bush-era United States policy machines and are too smart to want to take part.

that's the DIFFERENCE between geeks, nerds and ACTUAL SMART PEOPLE.

They are uncool. Which is why they are cursed as geeks. They are not cool or 'chic' -- a lie told repeatedly REMAINS a LIE.

When the United States Federal Government ceases to emanate stupidity -- like not trying British Petrol's officials for the crime against humanity they committed in the Gulf of Mexico -- true people of intelligence will no doubt come to their aid.

Until then, we just aren't stupid enough to take the bait. Geeks are stupid, which is why they spend their time getting lost in things that are NOT REAL, like comic books and science fiction.

They're stupid. They'll never invent ANYTHING -- as "geeks" pander desperately to be accepted by a culture that will NEVER accept them as they are. Such spinelessness is actually the antithesis to the true spirit of creativity that is invention.

Buckminster Fuller? Marie Curie? Scientists, people of understanding and intellect, but not geeks.

As it is, I simply am no longer watching pandering moron rachel maddow. not for one more pencil-necked week.

Hey SJak D.A.R.P.A. is part of the Department of Defense, and President Obama cut the Department of Defense's budget. Make sure you keep up to date.