SINGAPORE CITY: Need for cloud architecture design skills is growing the fastest

SINGAPORE CITY: Our webinar last week was around
a study that AWS and AlphaBeta, an economic strategy firm based in Singapore
and Australia, did. The study sought to understand the future digital skill
needs in six countries in the Asia Pacific, including India.

It found that cloud architecture
design, software operations support, web/software/game development, large-scale
data modelling, and cyber security & cyber forensics would be the fastest
growing digital skill needs over the next five years.

Rahul Sharma, president of public
sector at AWS India, and Fraser Thompson, co-founder of AlphaBeta, spoke about
the study, and answered a number of questions from our audience. We give below
some extracts.

Thompson: Everyone will have to
acquire digital skills. And there’s a huge opportunity for India to increase
its digital skill base, given that the country has the smallest share of
digitally skilled workers across all six Apac economies, at 12%. But the
country has the highest share of such workers applying advanced digital skills,
at 71%, because of its strong ICT sector.

Digital skills will be acquired not as a university degree, but as part of
daily work, in a modular framework. Roughly 80% of our learning has been happening
before the age of 21. That will have to flip in the future. 80% will have to
happen after that.

Sharma: Cloud architecture design is ranked No. 1, in terms of growth (CAGR)
over the next five years in India, at 34%. That cloud is No. 1 will not be a
surprise to anyone, but the growth rate would be. Cloud is going to be
pervasive, across everything you do, how you do ML on cloud, IoT on cloud. How
you configure networking on the cloud is completely different from the way you
do a virtual private network.

Would web development tech be of any value in the future? If not, what is the
alternative for web developers?

Thompson: We need to look at
opportunities emerging from the huge migration to online models by businesses
that currently have offline models. It’s one of the big impacts of Covid. Web
development is going to be a crucial part of that. That’s an area that is
advancing very quickly. We will see growth in the basic digital skills, and
increasingly we will see web development that makes things more interactive and
core to the businesses, more integrated into the operations. That will be a
very interesting evolution.

What kind of skills do you need to make web development more integrated with
operations?

Thompson: To get that kind of integration with operations, we need to look at
things like project management, digital problem solving, cybersecurity. It’s a
combination of vertical and horizontal competencies.

Sharma: Because of the availability of a number of providers that can give you
the basic requirements when you have to move to the web, the focus is on design
aesthetics and user interface. And that’s a big jump to the cloud. Once on the
cloud, you have to look at the security aspect, at how you can create scalable
web design on the backend with the right APIs.

I’m working in mechanical R&D and I’m planning to change my career to
cloud. Would that entail a complete switch or would I be better off employing
cloud skills in my existing role?

Sharma: Everybody will need to learn and be comfortable with cloud. How do you
create the latest models on fluid dynamics and experience them? You can do that
in the cloud. There are pre-existing models which you can apply and learn from.
Given the future is going to be micro-skills, there needs to be a base in a
discipline and a base in tech, and you should take things up based on your
interests.

Thompson: In one research, 90% of students coming out of 3,500 engineering
colleges were considered to have inadequate programming skills. It’s a huge gap.
India is not alone in that; it’s across many countries. The needs of the
industry are changing quicker than what training institutes are providing.

What skills do you require for
large-scale data modeling?

Thompson: You have at the basic
level, basic analyst tools. It’s not only about technology and coding, but
synthesising the insights. The ones who can do coding, their salaries are
becoming commoditised very quickly. The work that can combine with digital problem
solving, can synthesise and draw insights, that is incredibly valuable. If
you’re considering data modeling, don’t just think about the coding aspect,
think about how you will train yourself on problem-solving in the synthesis of
what will draw practical insights that will set you up for the future.

What are the key skills that
BPM/IT employees have to learn about cloud computing to be future-ready?

Sharma: The undifferentiated
heavy lifting in cloud is going away. You need to move towards higher skills
and applications of skills. You need to know how to communicate with
stakeholders and gain insights. The ability to work on diverse systems and bringing
all of that together – the resilience and adaptability – that only comes
through experience. You should experience different kinds of tech.