Google Engineer on Australia's slow growing Silicon Valley

If you happen to be an Aussie who's stumbled upon this and you know a teacher or two, link them to this:<p><a href="http://iterate.inspire.edu.au/" rel="nofollow">http://iterate.inspire.edu.au/</a><p>And if you know any high school students link them to:<p><a href="http://challenge.ncss.edu.au/" rel="nofollow">http://challenge.ncss.edu.au/</a><p>There's some fantastic CS teaching programs going on in Australia and we should give them as much support as we can :)

This piece sums up one of the problems perfectly - the teachers simply can't keep up with the technology involved. As far as I can tell, our high-school CS curriculum in Queensland hasn't changed much since the early 90s. It consists of:<p>- One and a half semesters of "conceptual schema design procedure", backed up by a mundane textbook written in 1989 by a "big wheel" type from a local university. What makes this particularly strange is the amount of conceptual work you do on relational database schema design without <i>actually using</i> a relational database.<p>- Two and a half semesters of Visual Basic 6. I asked my teacher why he was still teaching it and his response was more-or-less "...because it's the only language I know". CS4HS could be a real help here.<p>- A smattering of lessons on "social and ethical issues in IT", which are about as insightful as they sound.<p>Of course, the HS curriculum is just one of the issues. The mining boom has meant that newly minted EEs can get up to $120k straight out of university by joining the fly in/fly out workforce in central QLD and WA, so the mathematically inclined students tend to choose civil, electrical, mechanical or chemical engineering courses. Australia has a long way to go if it wants to become the world's "Silicon Beach".

Australia will not have a Silicon Valley until the banks let Australian startups charge their customers in USD.

Many Australian universities have a 'Bachelor of Information Technology' instead of of a 'Bachelor of Computer Science'. The one I did was a 3 year degree, it still did most of the CS subjects that I've seen elsewhere, though it didn't have any compulsory Maths (I think an extra semester of Maths should be added).<p>I did the degree part time whilst working full time and once I was done I started the interview process for a position at Google. I was told that they don't usually hire anyone unless they have a bachelor of computer science, but that they'd make an exception seeing as I've been working (effectively had 4 years experience at that time). I ended up getting a non-grad job elsewhere even before my second phone interview, but it seems to me that if they only hire BSc students, the university system is not setup to suit them.<p>I've never met anyone from Queensland (my home state) that has done a BSc, its either called Bachelor of IT or Software Engineering. That doesn't mean they aren't capable of being great employees for Google.

I suspect a large part of the problem is Australia's very conservative investment culture. This is a country where Fortescue Metals Group was a risky investment because they were building a mine, some rail road, and a port for one big iron ore project. So imagine how popular investment in developing technology is over there when it is both: 1. little understood by the investors, and 2. perceived as highly risky. So with little technology investment, there are few options for graduates, aside from work in places where technology/IT is a cost centre, not a profit centre, which depresses the salaries and increases the appeal of moving to some place where their skills are in demand and highly valued.

How healthy is the startup scene down under?

As an Australian CS graduate, the best offer I got from an Australian company was less than half the worst BigCo offer in the states. Google might hem and haw about "Australia's future prosperity", but their motives should be clear. More graduates does not a Silicon Valley make.

Any thoughts on whether this is:<p>* a long term program to mint more developers (and drive down salaries) * to mint more developers to create more websites to display advertising on faster * ??? or<p>* a genuine good will program * ???<p>?

Does anyone know of anything interesting happening in New Zealand re startups?

I heard there were some restrictive regulations on selling retail items online in Australia? It effectively takes away any benefits of trading purely online. How successful is online retailing?