Great .. looking forward to see the "Dominican Republic’s Scientific and Technological prowess" ..

More wheelbarrows ?

I'll like to see if any new solar, battery Technology will be represented that will benefit the Country.

Ahmedinajad may have his own booth .. to show off one of his 6000 uranium centrifuges .. and if we are really nice to him .. he might even have one of his scientists detonate their first little atomic bomb at the Tech Fair .. that would be even better than solar technology .. it's like having a personal little replica of the sun right in your own back yard .. don't forget your tinted glasses and lead suits .. I bet you the Cubans would be the first in line to buy one of those radiation crackers from him ..

What the Dominican Govt. should do is use these fairs to attract programmers IT professionals and the like to develop detailed and substantive IT curriculum that will produce programmers, IT specialist, JAVA, AJAX C++. RDMS, SQL, MYSQL,Oracle, Web Development, IT Security, CISCO, and Wireless technologies this will bolster Dominican know how. Hopefully creating competition with India and increasing demand for Dominican immigrants.

C#, Ruby on Rails, JavaScript, NetBeans, VBScript, XML, ASP, ASP.NET, WPF, Silverlight, AGILE, Linux, Python, Lua, REBOL, ARAX, APAX, .NET DLR, .NET CLR should futher contribute to the current total state of chaos in the Web Development universe ..

Well I wanted to keep it short. Didn't want to overwhelm anyone.

As Perl, PHP Python C, C++ C# would probably be good starting point for building a good foundation.

Rumors have it that Presidente Beer Company will unveil a new kind of beer delivery truck .. one that can run entirely on the Presidente beer you drank an hour ago .. while delivering beer at the local "colmado" the driver invites drinkers to take turns filling up the gas tank instead of visiting El Bano .. it could save Presidente Beer a lot in diesel fuel. Now that adds a whole new perspective on "drinking and driving".

What about DOS? For old guys like moi? Microsoft tried to hide it under XP .. "Command Prompt" they called it .. but it is still there under VISTA .. and there are no indications that it is about to go away anytime soon .. so gotta learn a little bit of DOS .. at least a few DEBUG scripts to access the CPU(S) without resorting to ASSEMBLY L or MACHINE L ..

What do you do when a pesky client dumps a cartload of old FORTRAN, PASCAL, APL, COBOL code and wants it running by lunch time tomorrow? Gotta learn those too .. or hire somebody to do it? farm it out to Bangalore? Czech Republic? Hungary? Poland? the Eastern European Bangalores .. or Brazil? the Latin American Bangalore ..

Well forgot about the Fortran and Cobalt issues, But these are very rare animals except in eastern block /European countries. Dos can be learned in tandem with Unix Administration in a single BSD flavor or UNIX, HPUX, Solaris, SCO Openserver, AIX, etc. As the world slowly moves and converges to open source UNIX/LINUX OS's or newer technologies COBALT FORTRAN will become extinct.

I think having a good foundation in one or two scripting language Pearl, PHP, a server environment, SCO AIX or HPUX or even a BSD, a Web development environment (pick one), a RDBMS or two, one Multimedia development suite Flash, Silverlight, And one or two well rounded programming languages, C# C++ will provide a solid foundation for growing and expanding an IT Curriculum.

You definitely need to know your basic languages if you are want to be in the business .. but there is much more .. a critical dimension that is often ignored in computer science .. check out what Christos Papadimitriou (UC Berkeley) has to say on that ..

http://www.ddj.com/architect/208807268

Insights and solutions to complex problems can come from "out of left field" .. ever gotten up at 3:00 AM and within 3 minutes resolved a pesky algorithm that took you 3 weeks of hard labor with no end in sight? .. dedication .. creativity .. you don't get that in a classroom setting .. either you got it or you don't ..

You're right that field experience is the most important. But you cannot expect someone to troubleshoot a complex network unless he has a firm understanding of all the network systems, topologies and different models that coexist.

So education comes first then field experience

And someone who understands the entire IT spectrum will perhaps be a better troubleshooter and problem solver if they know software, programming, Network and hardware.

He also agrees that individuals should be well rounded. This as I stated should be a goal of the Dominican Govt. Giving student the necessary tools to establish a good foundation from which they can build. Build an environment that will create a synergy of knowledge and technical resources. In the long term increase the intellectual net worth of Dominicans.

Education is an excellent point .. skilled human labor is one of the most critical factors in IT production .. which easily explains why so much of IT production is in locations with ample supplies of well educated people .. India and Eastern Europe .. Over the years .. the Dominican Republic and many other developing nations have experienced a major "brain drain" .. losing many of their scientists and technicians to Europe and the US .. that large pool of skilled labor must somehow be harnessed and brought back to grow our local IT industry ..

Yes that brain drain has occurred because the lack of resources avail. India has excelled in this area for two reasons. The lack of language barrier and the abundant of IT educational resources institutions available. DR needs to provide a real IT/engineering curriculum or Track that will be competitive and sustainable.

How do you bring them back?

By developing a program that will reward them with incentives as well as opportunities. By making avail the resources to accomplish the goals of the curriculum effectively. By establishing exchange internship programs. Allowing U.S. and foreign teachers, students to study, teach , learn and practice IT in Dom Rep just like some of the medical programs that exist in the DR.

Local opportunities is only part of the problem .. IT professionals working in the DR must deal with extremely skewed and bizarre wage structures .. they soon notice a political appointee in their department pulling in over 175,000 pesos ($5147) per month for doing nothing more than hanging around and looking pretty .. not to mention all the "subterranean" payments they receive that go unreported .. it will take a lot of work to convince a skilled IT professional that they should hang around making much less than their totally unskilled superiors .. right? We need a more sane system of wage and income distribution .. right?

Yes your are correct. The Government should revamp its pay-scale as well as pre-requisites for political offices and appointments, and remember the idea behind a public servant. If not then their is noway that the government can provide a well balanced career track or mechanism for its people. If all Dominicans continue to pursue politics for pecuniary reason then the DR will never get its feet off the ground. Which is the case as it is now.

Then there is the "electricity problem" .. IT needs plenty of electrons flowing in power lines at all times of the day .. if you have spent any time in the Dominican Republic .. you will notice that unless you have your own generator .. which will significantly increase your costs of production .. most of your time as an IT professional will be spent admiring the sun during the day .. and the stars at night .. waiting for the lights to come back on .. or rushing to finish something before the UPS blinks out .. so there are major infrastructural adjustments required to provide the stable platform required for IT development in the Dominican Republic .

Yes but this should spur even more incentive. By incorporating in the curriculum a program that will incorporate a sustainable alternative energy Solar, wind power system. This should provide even more incentives.

First develop the alternative energy platform then the curriculum. If you can solicit and develop a loan portfolio for the METRO than this is minuscule.

Alternative energy instead of a perpetual reliance on fossil fuels is definitely worth pursuing .. solar and wind power are also cleaner .. energy conservation programs in government buildings and private homes to reduce the electrical load .. the recent program to replace incandescent light bulbs is a case in point .. these are all quite big challenges that must be tackled to ensure a successful IT industry .. as well as other industries that depend on a reliable supply of electricity ..

I personally will be attending this event. I'll let you guys know how it turns out.