‘New IT’ demands more STEM graduates

The country needs more students to take the science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) track to address a demand for knowledge process outsourcing (KPO) talent, an executive said.

Bhaskar Ghosh, Accenture Technology Services group chief executive, said the requirements of “the new information technology,” which includes artificial intelligence (AI), augmented and virtual reality, as well as the Internet of Things, would require workers to scale up their skills.

“In the last 18 months, we trained more than 100,000 people in new IT across (Accenture’s global network),” said Ghosh in a press conference last Thursday in Taguig, during the launch of their liquid studio.

In recent years, the advent of robotic process automation (RPA) has allowed AI-powered machines to handle high-volume and “repeatable tasks” previously limited to humans.

In the Philippines, Accenture technology lead Ambe Tierro said the company is mostly hiring STEM graduates who will support its operations here.

“We primarily recruit STEM graduates so we are pushing for more STEM track enrollees in K-12,” said Tierro, referring to the expanded basic education curriculum. Introducing robotics is also encouraged.

Tierro also encouraged more girls to pursue the STEM track, which remains mostly occupied by boys until now. For Accenture’s global operations and in the Philippines, the firm’s ambition is to attain a gender-equal workforce by 2025, she added.

Accenture opened a liquid studio inside a 2,000-square- meter facility in Bonifacio Global City in Taguig, which will serve as a hub to accelerate software application development.