The global geopolitical ecosystem is fast changing.  Defense spending across various countries is expected to increase, demanding more manufacturing and engineering skills.  Among many things, Ukraine is also the world’s bread basket (about 12% of the world wheat supply comes from here).  As a result, many countries are developing strategies around food procurement and containing food inflation.  Countries like Belgium have declared the delay of the Nuclear energy exit, which will further drive up Engineering and Digital skills.

With Web 3.0 and Quantum computing around the corner, we developed a utility model to size the expected supply-demand gap by 2030.  The US, Europe, Middle East, and Africa supply-demand Gap by 2030 could be as high as 25 million approximately.  This is a sizeable Supply-Demand Gap for digital and tech talent.  What can we do about it? 

(Please note in this model, India, China, and Asian Countries are not modeled in this dataset – this model is US+EMEA)

In his book, 21 lessons for the Twenty-First Century, Yuval Noah Harari wrote something fascinating.  Human Society was developed based on stories that we tell ourselves.  We somehow tell ourselves that Everyone cannot build Technology.  I recently read an inspiring story about Coss Marte, a gym owner in New York City.  Coss Marte was born in harsh conditions and ended up in prison due to poor choices.  But post serving time, Coss Marte built a revolutionary gym–prison style where trainers and workouts offer a very disciplined routine.  It is now one of the highly-rated gyms in NYC!.

Human potential is therefore unstoppable.  Sometimes we just need a chance.  The underlying belief that technical skills need to be precisely matched is a primary cause of this supply-demand gap.  Let us look a the following

• If you need Kafka skills – Java is the foundation from where you can learn Kafka
• If you need Kubernetes – Linux is the foundation from where you can learn Kubernetes
• If you need Salesforce Developer, find a Java Developer to train
• If you need a Python developer, find an R studio developer and train
• And the list goes on

At a minimum, Enterprises need Java, Python, and Linux boot camps.  One can then add other package drive requirements on top of this.  Reskilling the workforce in this direction will provide an excellent foundation to any enterprise

If we start thinking about talent this way, there is a Plentitude of talent.  We just do not know it yet.  Imagine this.  Maslow once said, “One’s only failure is failing to live up to one’s own possibilities.” If enterprises need to live up to their true potential, they need to have these boot camps

Our location choices also need to be a bit more expansive.  We recently evaluated the Jamaican schooling system, and the government has committed higher spending on Technology at the school level.  Such investments take a while but a great start.  With remote work, some of your Engineers may relocate there and build a small team (who knows!)

Latin America and Canada are showing a lot of possibilities.  Here is a quick snapshot of Early Career Tech (ECT) talent and Fresh talent across some of the hubs

According to Harvard University professor Stefan Thomke, 77 % of economic growth is attributed to small creative advances and not radical innovations.  This effect is also true in Digital talent.  You only need to make incremental improvements, and over time, your enterprise becomes a place to develop digital talent