Latest Internet Trends from Mary Meeker

KPCB Internet Trends 2013 from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers

The latest edition of the annual Internet Trends report finds continued robust online growth. There are now 2.4 billion Internet users around the world, and the total continues to grow apace. Mobile usage is expanding rapidly, while the mobile advertising opportunity remains largely untapped. The report reviews the shifting online landscape, which has become more social and content rich, with expanded use of photos, video and audio. Looking ahead, the report finds early signs of growth for wearable computing devices, like glasses, connected wrist bands and watches - and the emergence of connected cars, drones and other new platforms.

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National Day of Civic Hacking - June 1-2, 2013

How You Can Participate This Weekend!

Submitted by Michael Brennan on Tue, 05/28/2013 - 09:56 HackForChange.org

 

The National Day of Civic Hacking is upon us! We will see thousands of civic hackers come together following months of planning by hundreds of organizers, partners, government agencies, and communities around the country. So, how can you take part?

1. Find an event near you! There are over 95 events happening around the country. The most meaningful way you can participate in National Day of Civic Hacking is to attend one! Each event is run independently by an organizer who has created something special with their community. Some cities even have multiple events - take a look through them and decide what one is most interesting to you!
    
2. Choose a challenge you want to work on! There are dozens of national challenges available for anyone to work on. Your local event may also be focusing on a variety of local challenges that are highly relevant to your community.
    
3. Submit your project! By telling us what you did, you also have the chance to be recognized by one of the partner organizations - or even invited to show off what you've done at an event at the White House! A project is whatever you are working on for National Day of Civic Hacking. That might be a software application, it might be a story about the new hacker space you are organizing, or it might be about how you convinced your city to open up a series of new data sets.
    
4. Join the conversation on social media! share your photos with the Flickr Hack For Change group! Tell your story on Twitter and Tumblr. Chat with us on Facebook.

Still not sure how you can take part? Here are some answers to a few important common questions that might help:

I'm not a "hacker" because I don't know how to write code. How can I take part? You don't need to be a programmer to participate - you just need to be someone who wants to think creatively to solve the challenges we face every day! What else can you do? Take a look at this blog post by Massachusetts organizers that talks about some of the many roles that need to be played in hacking for change.

How can I participate if there is no event happening near me? It's not to late to start one! If you want to organize a public event, fill out this sign up form and we will get you set up with an event page ASAP. Another option you have is to gather some friends in your living room or a café for the weekend, pick a challenge, and start working on it.

I understand how my community benefits from this work, but what does participation mean for me? Participating in an event allows you to connect with other socially conscious do-gooders in your community. This strengthens communities, and empowers you as an individual. Join an event and join the movement of civic hacking!

We, the citizens, make the future. Participate in National Day of Civic Hacking and make it with us!

"Citizens Make the Future" by Institute For the Future

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Employers, Education Providers, and Youth, Live in Parrallel Universes

Technical Education Magazine 

Education to Employment: Designing a System that Works, (a report conducted by McKinsey & Company Center for Government, MCG) examines dual global crises—high levels of youth unemployment and a shortage of job seekers with critical job skills. The International Labour Organization estimates that 75 million young people are unemployed globally and probably triple that number if estimates of the underemployed were included. 

The report states that although global leaders are aware of the painful consequences for the social and economic conditions of youths believing their futures are compromised, the leaders struggle not only to develop effective responses, but also to define what they need to know. While it is shown that employers need to work with education providers so students can learn the skills they need to succeed in the workplace, there is little clarity on which practices and interventions work, and which can be scaled up successfully. To that end, the report focuses on skill development, giving special attention to the mechanisms that connect education to employment. 

In addition to the two crises, the report addresses a lack of data about which skills are required for employment, what practices are the most promising in training youths, and how to identify the programs with the best results. In response, the authors developed two unique fact bases: an analysis of more than 100 education-to-employment initiatives in 25 countries (selected on the basis of their innovation and effectiveness), and a survey of 8,000 youths, education providers, and employers in nine countries—Brazil, Germany, India, Mexico, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The result is the development of a global perspective on what characterizes successful skills-training systems. 

Six report findings emerged from the report:

1. Employers, education providers, and youth live in parallel universes;
2. The education-to-employment journey is fraught with obstacles;
3. The education-to-employment system fails for most employers and young people;
4. Innovative and effective programs around the world have important elements in common;
5. Creating a successful education-to-employment system requires new incentives and structures; and
6. Education-to-employment solutions need to scale up. 

This first-of-its-kind report for McKinsey is intended to begin to fill the knowledge gap, provide a useful road map of the education-to-work system for the future, and serve as a structured call to action to improve the understanding of employers, education providers, governments, and young people about what is needed in the area of skill development.

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Neelie Kroes unveils Net Neutrality plan for Europe, aims to end mobile roaming fees in 2014

By Matt Brian on May 30, 2013 03:42 am Email @m4tt               

The Verge

      

While travellers in Europe are enjoying lower roaming fees across the continent, the European Commission (EC) believes that isn't enough. As part of new legislation, its vice president Neelie Kroes today unveiled new plans to end mobile roaming, and for the first time, guarantee net neutrality. Kroes' legislative package is aimed at uniting European carriers, offering a single telecoms market by next year.

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Kroes will deliver the package to the European Parliament today, arguing that a single telecoms market will benefit Europe by boosting the digital economy, in turn establishing political connections. The EC executive believes "digital dividends can bring social ones." Kroes' home country — The Netherlands — became the first EU nation to pass net neutrality laws in May 2012. While Kroes is intent on establishing support for the package, she is mindful that it might not give everyone "everything you dreamed of," adding that it will "have to strike a sensitive balance if we are to agree it quickly." The hope is that the package can be signed and presented by Easter 2014.

 

Kroes says she has already gathered support from the "highest levels in institutions." With a single telecoms market, the EC wants to end consumers' roaming frustrations and encourage companies to invest in the European mobile infrastructure, and it already has the support of many European governments.

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California Assembly Approves Overhaul of Public School Testing

REL#13-61	CONTACT: Pam Slater
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE	PHONE: 916-319-0818
May 29, 2013	E-MAIL: pslater@cde.ca.gov

 

Assembly Approves Overhaul of Public School Testing

State Schools Chief Tom Torlakson Applauds Move to College, Career Readiness

 

SACRAMENTO—Legislation sponsored by State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson to create a new statewide assessment system using computer-based exams that would measure and promote student progress toward career and college readiness was approved today by the state Assembly.

Assembly Bill 484 (Bonilla) would limit the use of outdated Standardized Testing and Reporting (STAR) system tests for the 2013-14 school year and begin statewide use of new assessments aligned to California’s Common Core State Standards in 2014-15.

“I’m gratified that the Assembly agrees that California’s students deserve new assessments that gauge their knowledge of the real-world skills that open the door to success in a career and in college,” Torlakson said. “These new assessments will ask students to reason through complex problems and think in-depth, giving teachers new insights and new tools to improve learning.”

            Torlakson’s proposal would retain assessments required to meet federal mandates or those administered under the Early Assessment Program, as the state moves to put in place tests developed by the Smarter Balanced consortium. California serves as one of the governing states in the consortium.

            AB 484 would establish the California Measurement of Academic Performance and Progress for the 21st Century (CALMAPP21), including the use of the Smarter Balanced assessments, to replace the existing STAR program.

            The legislation is based on Torlakson’s recommendations contained in his

Recommendations for Transitioning California to a Future Assessment System released in January to guide the process of reauthorizing and revamping California’s statewide assessment system, which currently sunsets on July 1, 2014.

# # # #

The California Department of Education (CDE) is a state agency led by State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson. For more information, please visit http://www.cde.ca.govor by mobile device at http://m.cde.ca.gov/. You may also follow Superintendent Torlakson on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/TorlaksonSSPIand Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/CAEducation. 

 

 

 

 

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Internet Homes Poised to Gobble Up Average of 74.5 GB Per Month Within Four Years, Cisco Study Finds

Average Fixed Broadband Speeds to Soar 350% By 2017

By: Jeff Baumgartner May 29 2013 - 8:00am Multichannel

                          

Here’s some good news if you happen to be a vendor that sells broadband gear to network operators and gets a nice shot in the arm with every upgrade cycle: Internet consumption is exploding and is showing no signs of dissipating.

The average, global fixed broadband speed will jump from 11.3 Mbps in 2012 to 39 Mbps in 2017 – a 3.5-fold increase -- Cisco predicted in its latest Visual Network Index (VNI) Forecast.  In North America, Cisco’s predicting a slightly smaller jump  -- from 13 Mbps in 2012, to 38 Mbps in 2017.
Again, that’s just the global average speed and just one prediction among many presented by Cisco in its latest study of global broadband usage. Depending on the ISP and the region of the world, maximum burst speeds for residential broadband services, particularly in the downstream, are running anywhere from 100 Mbps to 1 Gbps.

And here are some data points for ISPs that have launched or are considering launching usage caps to chew on: the average Internet household (globally) will generate 74.5 gigabytes per month by 2017, versus 31.6 GB in 2012.  Put into video terms, 31.6 GB is equal to about 13 hours of HDTV, while 74.5 GB equates to 30 hours of HDTV.

Cisco is also predicting that 9% of homes in South Korea will eat up more than 250 GB per month, followed by the U.S. (3% of homes), the United Kingdom (2.5% of homes), Brazil (1% of homes) and Russia (0.8% of homes).

As has been the case with previous VNI studies from Cisco, this one, which looks out four years, flashes some monstrous numbers when the anticipated global growth of the Internet if factored in.
Global IP traffic (fixed and mobile) will reach an annual run rate of 1.4 zettabytes – more than a trillion gigabytes per year – by 2017. Put another way, 1.4 zettabytes is more than the 1.2 zettabytes that traversed global Internet networks during all prior “Internet years” (1984-2012) combined.
On a monthly basis, Cisco sees global IP traffic hitting nearly 121 exabytes by 2017, up from 44 exabytes in 2012.  To help visualize it, Cisco noted that 121 exabytes is equivalent to 30 billion DVDs.

And broadband networks will be required to carry an even heavier load of video. By 2017, global network users to generate 3 trillion Internet video minutes month, equal to about 6 million years of video.

And this just in: tablet usage is soaring. About 26% of Internet traffic originated from non-PC devices in 2012, but is set to rise to 49% by 2017, Cisco predicted. PC-originated traffic is expected to rise a 14% compound annual growth rate (CAGR), but that rate of growth will look like chicken feed when compared to tablets (104% CAGR), smartphones (79% CAGR), machine-to-machine modules (82% CAGR), and TVs (24% CAGR).

By device type, here's how average consumption stacked up in 2012:

And if that’s not enough to convince you that there’s something to this whole Internet thing, here are a few other bullet points from the study that have some cable industry implications:

• By 2017, there will be about 3.6 billion Internet users – more than 48% of the world’s projected population of 7.6 billion. That’s up from 2.3 billion Internet users in 2012.
• Content delivery networks will carry half of total Internet traffic by 2017.
• By 2017, 10 million Wi-Fi hotspots will be deployed, with 56% of global Internet traffic traversing some sort of Wi-Fi connection.
• Globally, there will be 8 billion IPv6-capable fixed and mobile devices/connections in 2017, up from just 1.6 billion in 2012.

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Stellar General Session Lineup At OTC'13

Last Updated on Tuesday, 28 May 2013 Written by Tiffiny Hickey Thursday, 23 May 2013 TechEDge

 

Have you heard about the General Session lineup for the Online Teaching Conference 2013? Included in your conference registration is attendance to two General Sessions. The Thursday conference schedule includes an impressive General Session panel and the Friday session promises to be highly interactive.

The Thursday night General Session will commence after the Keynote Address. A panel focused on the theme, "The Future of Distance Education: Disruption and Innovation," will include the following members:

• Barry Russell, Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs, Chancellor’s Office
• Steven Downes, MOOC Pioneer and author of OLDaily Blog
• Jay Field, Associate VP, LBCC and TTAC
• Linda Thor, Chancellor of Foothill-De Anza Community College District
• James Glapa-Grossklag, Dean of Library and Technology, College of the Canyons
• Connor Diemand-Yauman, Project Leader, Coursera
• Larry Cooperman, Director of OpenCourseWare at UC Irvine

And for Friday, the conference offers "Riding the Wave of Success: Sharing Our Innovation." The session will be a highly interactive activity with the audience participating in a discussion about innovations that have occurred around the state and nation over the past year. Come ready to share your best strategies and ideas with the OTC community.
Register for the conference now.

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Pre-conference workshops are still available.

In addition, some of the Pre-Conference Workshops are still available.
Some of these workshops are full but there are still spaces open in others.
Register now and learn about Google Sites, YouTube and Screencast-o-Matic, or CCC Confer.

There's also space in the VoiceThread and Prezi workshops, now with additional savings available via the promo codes included here:

Prezi Workshop
was $100 / now $75.
Use promo code "SAVE25" when checking out to save $25!

VoiceThread Workshop
was $150 / now $100.
Use promo code "SAVE50" when checking out to save $50!

Note: Pre-conference workshops are not included in the general conference registration fee but are available at the additional price listed.

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Local Long Beach Attractions.

There is so much to see and do in Long Beach and the surrounding areas! Bring your family to OTC'13 - they can explore Local Attractions ... the beach, the shore, museums, parks, sporting events and more! You can hear about their adventures over a treat at Miss Priss Cupcakes & Such, located across the street from the LBCC campus!

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Special Thanks to our Sponsors.

• Oracle
• Blackboard Collaborate
• Adobe
• Remote-Learner
• College Brain Trust
• ProctorU
• Community College League of California
• PGI
• Faculty Association of California Community Colleges
• edcetera
• Liebert Cassidy Whitmore
• Internet Broadcast Services Unlimited

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Register Now for OTC'13.

The Online Teaching Conference 2013 is sure to be one of the best ever!

• $185 regular (4/18/13 - 6/18/13)
• $235 on-site

Breakfasts and lunches are included.

Breakfasts and lunches are included.

follow on OTC'13 on Twitter | like us on Facebook | onlineteachingconference.org | info@onlineteachingconference.org

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People are talking about OTC'13.

Read what people across the web are saying about OTC'13:
http://www.onlineteachingconference.org/TopNav/Press.html

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The Online Teaching Conference is brought to you by the TTIP South Projects: CCC Confer, 3C Media Solutions, @ONE, and EduStream. TTIP South is funded by the California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office.

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Tiffiny Hickey is a Web Analyst for TTIP South.

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CVC: Your Distance Education Connection

Last Updated on Tuesday, 28 May 2013 Written by Sandoval Chagoya Monday, 27 May 2013 TechEDge



Greetings from the California Virtual Campus (CVC): Your California Connection to Distance Education. The CVC is funded by the California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office to serve as a distance education resource for all higher education students in California.

We encourage you to visit our website at http://www.cvc.edu/.

Our website offers the following resources:

• The CVC Distance Education Catalog: Our catalog allows you to find online classes and degree programs offered by colleges and universities across California. We currently list more than 16,000 courses and 1,200 online degree programs offered by more than 165 accredited higher education institutions.
• The CCC MyEDu Partnership: On behalf of the California Community Colleges, the CVC has partnered with MyEdu to offer students free academic tools. The tools help students to manage degree timelines, balance work load, and get a job out of college.
• The CVC Steps to Success: While online courses may help students overcome time, place, and pace barriers to their success, the distance education world in California can be challenging to navigate. The CVC recommends specific steps and resources as key to distance education success.

We are currently working to get the word out to ensure that the distance education community and especially distance education students are aware of our website and the resources it offers.
Please feel free to distribute this information to students and to appropriate higher education personnel.
You may also connect with us here:

• http://www.facebook.com/CAvirtualcampus
• https://twitter.com/CVCedu

If you have questions about the CVC or ideas for us regarding the best ways to reach out to students and staff, please contact Sandoval Chagoya at 530-879-4088 or schagoya@cvc.edu.<>

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Sandoval Chagoya is the TechEDge Managing Editor and a Project Manager for the
California Community Colleges Technology Center and the California Virtual Campus.

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NATIONAL INITIATIVE FOR CYBERSECURITY CAREERS & STUDIES (NICCS™)

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), along with our government, academia, and private industry partners, are proud to introduce the National Initiative for Cybersecurity Careers & Studies (NICCS™). Launched in January 2013, NICCS serves as the one-stop shop for cybersecurity education and career information.

What is NICCS?
NICCS promotes the various efforts of The National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education (NICE), a nationally-coordinated effort to enable a safer cyberspace for all by enhancing the overall cybersecurity posture of the United States.

What can I find on NICCS?
NICCS houses information on cybersecurity awareness, education, training, careers, recent news & events, and various research topics concerning cybersecurity. It also includes the Cybersecurity Education and Training Catalog and The Cyber Competition Repository. Both interfaces are poised to provide users with information on internship, scholarship, training, and cyber competition information for those interested in cybersecurity careers.

Where can I find NICCS?
The NICCS site can be located at www.niccs.us-cert.gov.

Why should I visit NICCS?
NICCS is a resource that can be utilized by anyone interested in cybersecurity. This ranges from students looking for camps or cyber competitions, a recent college graduate looking for employment in cybersecurity, parents who wish to educate their children on the growing industry, or current professionals who wish to advance their own careers.

Please note that NICCS has recently launched, and we are continually updating and improving the content and functionality of the site to make sure our users have the best experience possible. If you have any suggestions, relevant content, would like to learn more, or find ways to get involved in your community, contact us at NICCS@hq.dhs.gov.
Thank you and welcome to NICCS!

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MOUSE Squad Student Tech Leadership Program

The nonprofit MOUSE Squad Student Tech Leadership program, http://ca.mousesquad.org. is the award-winning STEM Innovation in Technology program that enables students in Grades 4-12 to learn 21st Century Information Technology (IT), communication, leadership, and problem solving skills, while providing tech services to their schools. It can be an after-school program or an in-school elective.

 

MOUSE Squad of California (MSCA), began with 5 Silicon Valley middle schools in 2004, and is now in 105 California schools and agencies, http://ca.mousesquad.org/squads/oursquads/index.html.

 

Schools and agencies that apply by June 24, 2013 for 2013-14 program implementation:

 

   1) Have preference for a MSCA mini-grant

 

   2) May attend August 2013 training for MSCA instructors/coordinators

 

The 1-page MSCA Student Tech program application is on our website, http://ca.mousesquad.org/forms/squadapplication.html, and can be used to apply for the mini-grant also.

 

Prerequisites for successful implementation:

1. 5 - 25 students interested in learning about computers 
2. Technology devices with Internet access
3. Instructors interested in teaching online technology and workplace skills curriculum
4. An administrator supportive of students assisting teachers with tech projects
5. Parents who champion student tech leaders
6. Funding from sources such as After-School, Career Tech Ed, 21st Century Community Learning Center (CCLC) grants, site or district magnet program allocations, local businesses, foundations, or service organizations, i.e. Lions Club or Rotary.

The core elements of the nonprofit program include:

• 100-hour online curriculum with technology and workplace modules; 
• Hands-on activities and service learning projects: 
• Tech focus areas and/or student-run help desk with ticket management systems; 
• Volunteers to assist with curriculum, help desk, mentoring; field trips for students; internships for high school youth.

If you know of other funding sources that may be a good fit for the MSCA program, we would be interested in learning about them also.

 

If you know of schools or agencies that may be interested in implementing the nonprofit MOUSE Squad Student Tech program, let me know, and I will be happy to follow up with them.

 

MSCA is a program of Aspiranet, a non-profit organization that provides after-school, Youth Development, and community technology programs, as well as children and family services in California. MSCA is in partnership with MOUSE (Making Opportunities for Upgrading Schools & Education), http://www.mouse.org, a New York City-based non- profit.

 

Jan Half

Program Director, MOUSE Squad of California (MSCA)

A Student Tech Leadership program of ASPIRAnet - Raising Hope, Empowering Community.

STEM Innovation in Technology Awardee

Phone: 408-712-5912

Fax: 650-573-6586

jhalf@ca.mousesquad.org

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CSU-MB Online MS in Instructional Science and Technology (MIST)

Hello,

CSU Monterey Bay is excited to announce that it is now accepting applications for the fully-online version of its highly- successful M.S. in Instructional Science and Technology (MIST) degree program. This accelerated program is in partnership with Cal State Online and is designed to allow the working professional to earn an M.S. in just 16 months-completely online. Never leave the comfort of your home and attend your 8- week courses with the flexibility of your own schedule.

To get more information, please call a Cal State Online representative at 800-247-5168, or log onto our website https://www.calstateonline.net/cso/home/montereyBayMISTand fill out the short form at the upper right.

Don't put your future on hold. Classes start on September 2nd, so get your application in today.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Dr. Bude Su

MIST Program Director

CSU Monterey Bay

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McKinsey: The $33 Trillion Technology Payoff

 

By STEVE LOHR, New York Times

The “next big thing” lists are a well-worn staple of technology analysts and consultants, typically delivered just before the calendar turns to a new year.

A new report from the McKinsey Global Institute, the research arm of the consulting firm, delivers a twist on the art form, and the difference is more than the timing. The 154-page report not only selects a dozen “disruptive” technologies from a candidate list of 100, but also measures their economic impact.

By 2025, the 12 technologies — led by the mobile Internet, the automation of knowledge work, and the Internet of Things — have the potential to deliver economic value of up to $33 trillion a year worldwide, according to the McKinsey researchers.

That would be a sweeping and disruptive effect indeed, since economists project that by 2025 global economic output will be about $100 trillion.

The McKinsey report does include the estimated value of the social benefits of using a more efficient technology, like time saved. Such benefits — known as “consumer surplus” — are not included in conventional measures of economic output. (An example would be the value of time saved by quickly finding answers to questions by using a search engine. Google economists estimate that saving at up to $65 billion annually.)

The estimated range of the impact of the dozen technologies is also quite wide, from $14 trillion to $33 trillion by 2025. That approach, McKinsey researchers say, takes account of the many uncertainties when projecting possible outcomes more than a decade in the future. Two of the 12 technologies identified in the McKinsey report, for example, are “renewable energy” and “advanced oil and gas exploration and recovery.” Energy prices will have a big effect on the measured impact of those technologies — and energy prices can fluctuate widely. Over the last decade, oil prices ranged from a a low near $23 to a high of about $146.

“We’re not in the prediction business, and we’re not in the forecasting business,” said Michael Chui, a principal of the McKinsey Global Institute. “We wanted to show potential, and do that with a quantitative perspective.”

The research institute has done other quantitative technology assessments in recent years. Two years ago, McKinsey published a report on the potential impact of the explosion in the quantity and variety of digital data and the use of artificial-intelligence software to find insights — a combination known as Big Data.

The current report does not include Big Data as a separate technology. Mr. Chui explained that the Big Data tools are coming to be a foundation technology for several of the 12 categories, including automation of knowledge work, advanced robotics, next-generation genomics, and Internet of Things, which involves embedding sensors, smart software and communications capability into machines and other physical objects.

The McKinsey report is a brief for technological optimism. “It weighs in on the side that there’s a lot of technology innovation going on and it will have a significant impact,” said Martin Baily, an economist at the Brookings Institution, who was an adviser to McKinsey on the study.

In the economics profession, there is a lively debate on that subject. The case for pessimism have been most forcefully presented recently by Robert J. Gordon, an economist at Northwestern University. Another adviser on the McKinsey study, Erik Brynjolfsson, an economist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has been perhaps the most prominent optimist.

The dueling economists even faced off in a debate last month at a TED conference.

Notes on chart sizing, from McKinsey Global Institute: These economic impact estimates are not comprehensive and include potential direct impact of sized applications only. They do not represent gross domestic product or market size (revenue), but rather economic potential, including consumer surplus. The relative sizes of technology categories shown do not constitute a “ranking,” since our sizing is not comprehensive. We do not quantify the split or transfer of surplus among or across companies or consumers, since this would depend on emerging competitive dynamics and business models. Moreover, the estimates are not directly additive, since some applications and/or value drivers are overlapping across technologies. Finally, they are not fully risk- or probability-adjusted.

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Worldwide Youth Unemployment and Job Skills Challenges Beginnings of a Solution

McKinsey & Company’s Center for Government (MCG) report, Education to Employment: Designing a System that Works, examines dual global crises—high levels of youth unemployment and a shortage of job seekers with critical job skills. The International Labour Organization estimates that 75 million young people are unemployed globally and probably triple that number if estimates of the underemployed were included. 

The report states that although global leaders are aware of the painful consequences for the social and economic conditions of youths believing their futures are compromised, the leaders struggle not only to develop effective responses, but also to define what they need to know. While it is shown that employers need to work with education providers so students can learn the skills they need to succeed in the workplace, there is little clarity on which practices and interventions work, and which can be scaled up successfully. To that end, the report focuses on skill development, giving special attention to the mechanisms that connect education to employment. 

In addition to the two crises, the report addresses a lack of data about which skills are required for employment, what practices are the most promising in training youths, and how to identify the programs with the best results. In response, the authors developed two unique fact bases: an analysis of more than 100 education-to-employment initiatives in 25 countries (selected on the basis of their innovation and effectiveness), and a survey of 8,000 youths, education providers, and employers in nine countries—Brazil, Germany, India, Mexico, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The result is the development of a global perspective on what characterizes successful skills-training systems. 

Six report findings emerged from the report (See pp. 18–21):

1. Employers, education providers, and youth live in parallel universes;
2. The education-to-employment journey is fraught with obstacles;
3. The education-to-employment system fails for most employers and young people;
4. Innovative and effective programs around the world have important elements in common;
5. Creating a successful education-to-employment system requires new incentives and structures; and
6. Education-to-employment solutions need to scale up. 

This first-of-its-kind report for McKinsey is intended to begin to fill the knowledge gap, provide a useful road map of the education-to-work system for the future, and serve as a structured call to action to improve the understanding of employers, education providers, governments, and young people about what is needed in the area of skill development.

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Phone Firms Sell Data on Customers

By ANTON TROIANOVSKI, Wall Street Journal

Big phone companies have begun selling the vast troves of data they gather about their subscribers' location, travels and interests -- opening up a long-anticipated and powerful tool for marketers but raising new concerns about privacy, Anton Troianovski reports on digits. Photo: Getty Images.

Big phone companies have begun to sell the vast troves of data they gather about their subscribers' locations, travels and Web-browsing habits.

The information provides a powerful tool for marketers but raises new privacy concerns. Even as Americans browsing the Internet grow more accustomed to having every move tracked, combining that information with a detailed accounting of their movements in the real world has long been considered particularly sensitive.

View Graphics

The new offerings are also evidence of a shift in the relationship between carriers and their subscribers. Instead of merely offering customers a trusted conduit for communication, carriers are coming to see subscribers as sources of data that can be mined for profit, a practice more common among providers of free online services likeGoogle Inc. GOOG -0.41% andFacebook Inc. FB +0.03%

When a Verizon Wireless customer navigates to a website on her smartphone today, information about that website, her location and her demographic background may end up as a data point in a product called Precision Market Insights. The product, which Verizon launched in October 2012 after trial runs, offers businesses like malls, stadiums and billboard owners statistics about the activities and backgrounds of cellphone users in particular locations.

Several European mobile-network operators have launched similar efforts. This week, German software giant SAP AG SAP.XE -2.19% is introducing a service that will gather smartphone-use and location data from wireless carriers and offer it to marketing firms.

Carriers acknowledge the sensitivity of the data. But as advertisers and marketers seek more detailed information about potential customers and the telecom industry seeks new streams of revenue amid a maturing cellphone market, big phone companies have started to tiptoe in.

The companies say they don't sell data about individuals but rather about groups of people. Privacy advocates say the law permits them to do so. In 2011, Verizon sent notice to customers saying they may use their data in this way.

Chris Soghoian, a privacy specialist at the American Civil Liberties Union, says the ability to profit from customer data could give wireless carriers an incentive to track customers more precisely than connecting calls requires and to store even more of their Web browsing history. That could broaden the range of data about individuals' habits and movements that law enforcement could subpoena, Mr. Soghoian says. "It's the collection that's the scary part, not the business use."

Verizon responds that the data it analyzes for Precision Market Insights is information it already collects and that it complies with legal processes when it gets requests for information from law enforcement.

The carrier also says that it will sell only broad information about groups of customers, and that the program won't include information from Verizon's government or corporate clients. Most other individuals' data will be used by default, but people can opt out on Verizon's website.

Jeff Weber, AT&T Inc.'s T +0.43% president of content and advertising sales, says his company is studying ways to sell and analyze customer data for advertisers while letting customers opt out, but so far the company doesn't have a product akin to Verizon's.

It's tricky territory. Last year, Spanish carrier Telefonica SA TEF.MC -1.36%provoked a political outcry in Germany over its plans to sell aggregated location data and eventually said it didn't plan to launch the program there.

Verizon's data service is being used by the Phoenix Suns. The basketball team has used it to map where people attending its games live in order increase advertising in areas that haven't met expectations, says Scott Horowitz, a team vice president.

The carrier, a Verizon Communications VZ +0.98% Inc.-Vodafone GroupVOD +0.17% PLC joint venture, has used its data to tailor its own marketing message, according to Colson Hillier, who oversees the data-mining program.

CCO -1.17% Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings Inc., CCO -1.17% one of the world's biggest billboard companies, has agreed to conduct a trial of the Precision service, according to Suzanne Grimes, Clear Channel's North America president. She says the service could allow billboard owners to measure how likely someone driving by is to go to the store being advertised. "You've got an industry that was historically about eyeballs," she says. "Now you know more about who those people are and what their behavior looks like."

SAP's offering will take an even broader approach. SAP Mobile Services President John Sims says the service will sift through huge volumes of data about how and where people use their mobile devices and then share the revenue from selling the information with the wireless carriers providing the data.

SAP hasn't said which carriers it's working with, but it described the process. When a smartphone user clicks on a Web link, the action will generate a data point, including basic information about the website the user is visiting along with the user's location as precisely as within 30 feet and demographic data.

SAP will then aggregate and analyze that individual subscriber data and provide statistics to clients about the usage habits at a particular location of groups of as few as 50 people. One possible use: Retailers worried about "showrooming," or inspecting products that the shopper will eventually buy online, can find out what websites people visit on their phones when they're in their stores.

Mat Sears, a spokesman for U.K. wireless operator EE, a joint venture ofDeutsche Telekom AG DTE.XE -2.27% and France Télécom SA, FTE.FR -2.46%says the company is evaluating the SAP product and views the ability to sell and analyze data about how people use their smartphones as "a potentially game-changing opportunity."

Meanwhile, Americans have become more comfortable disclosing their locations via social-media services like Twitter Inc. and Foursquare. Indeed, as carriers get more involved in data mining, they could find themselves competing with those companies and Internet giants like Google and Facebook.

But the carriers say that they have more comprehensive data. "This is the information that everyone has wanted that hasn't been available until now," says the Suns' Mr. Horowitz.

Write to Anton Troianovski at anton.troianovski@wsj.com

A version of this article appeared May 22, 2013, on page B1 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Phone Firms Sell Data on Customers.

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Hackers Find China Is Land of Opportunity

New York Times

Gilles Sabrie for The New York Times

A booth for a British company’s products at a law enforcement trade show in Beijing. Chinese companies there boasted of their ability to hack into and monitor computers and cellphones.

By EDWARD WONG

Published: May 22, 2013 91 Comments

BEIJING — Name a target anywhere in China, an official at a state-owned company boasted recently, and his crack staff will break into that person’s computer, download the contents of the hard drive, record the keystrokes and monitor cellphone communications, too.

Pitches like that, from a salesman for Nanjing Xhunter Software, were not uncommon at a crowded trade show this month that brought together Chinese law enforcement officials and entrepreneurs eager to win government contracts for police equipment and services.

“We can physically locate anyone who spreads a rumor on the Internet,” said the salesman, whose company’s services include monitoring online postings and pinpointing who has been saying what about whom.

The culture of hacking in China is not confined to top-secret military compounds where hackers carry out orders to pilfer data from foreign governments and corporations. Hacking thrives across official, corporate and criminal worlds. Whether it is used to break into private networks, track online dissent back to its source or steal trade secrets, hacking is openly discussed and even promoted at trade shows, inside university classrooms and on Internet forums.

The Ministry of Education and Chinese universities, for instance, join companies in sponsoring hacking competitions that army talent scouts attend, though “the standards can be mediocre,” said a cybersecurity expert who works for a government institute and handed out awards at a 2010 competition.

Corporations employ freelance hackers to spy on competitors. In an interview, a former hacker confirmed recent official news reports that one of China’s largest makers of construction equipment had committed cyberespionage against a rival.

One force behind the spread of hacking is the government’s insistence on maintaining surveillance over anyone deemed suspicious. So local police departments contract with companies like Xhunter to monitor and suppress dissent, industry insiders say.

Ai Weiwei, the dissident artist, said he had received three messages from Google around 2009 saying his e-mail account had been compromised, an increasingly common occurrence in China among people deemed subversive. When the police detained him in 2011, he said, they seized 200 pieces of computer equipment and other electronic hardware.

“They’re so interested in computers,” Mr. Ai said. “Every time anyone is arrested or checked, the first thing they grab is the computer.”

There is criminal hacking, too. Keyboard jockeys break into online gaming programs and credit card databases to collect personal information. As in other countries, the police here have expressed growing concern.

Some hackers see crime as more lucrative than legitimate work, but opportunities for skilled hackers to earn generous salaries abound, given the growing number of cybersecurity companies providing network defense services to the government, state-owned enterprises and private companies.

“I have personally provided services to the People’s Liberation Army, the Ministry of Public Security and the Ministry of State Security,” said a prominent former hacker who used the alias V8 Brother for this interview because he feared scrutiny by foreign governments. He said he had done the work as a contractor and described it as defensive, but declined to give details.

And “if you are a government employee, there could be secret projects or secret missions,” the hacker said.

But government jobs are usually not well paying or prestigious, and most skilled hackers prefer working for security companies that have cyberdefense contracts, as V8 Brother does, he and others in the industry say.

Self-trained, the hacker teamed up with China’s patriotic “red hackers” more than a decade ago. Then he began working for cybersecurity companies and was recently making $100,000 a year, he said.

V8 Brother said this cyberworld was so arcane that senior Chinese officials did not know details about computer work at government agencies. “You can’t even explain to them what you’re doing,” he said. “It’s like explaining computer science to a construction worker.”

In Washington, officials criticize what they consider state-sponsored attacks. The officials say intrusions against foreign governments and businesses are growing, and the Pentagon this month accused the Chinese military of attacking American government computer systems and military contractors. The White House, which has ordered cyberattacks against Iran, has made cybersecurity a priority in talks with China. The Chinese Foreign Ministry says China opposes hacking attacks and is itself a victim.

The furor in Washington intensified in February after The New York Times and other news organizations published details of hacking efforts against their own networks and the findings of a new report by a cybersecurity company, Mandiant. The report said a shadowy group within the People’s Liberation Army, Unit 61398, ran a formidable hacking and espionage operationagainst foreign entities out of a building on the outskirts of Shanghai.

In China, the unit is just one part of the complex universe of hacking and cybersecurity. And the military units are not a well-kept secret. At least four former employees of Unit 61786, responsible for cryptography and information security, have posted résumés on job-search Web sites listing employment in the unit.

Another job seeker reported employment in Unit 61580; the unit has engineers specializing in “computer network defense and attack,” according to the Project 2049 Institute, a nongovernmental organization in Virginia that studies security and policy issues in Asia.

Members of Unit 61398, the bureau mentioned by Mandiant, have written several papers on hacking and cybersecurity with professors at Shanghai Jiaotong University, which has a prominent information security department. Across China, the universities labeled jiaotong — meaning communications — are taking the lead in building such departments. The military recruits at the universities and runs its own training center, the P.L.A. Information Engineering University, in the city of Zhengzhou.

But cybersecurity experts here say the schools often churn out students who know theory but lack practical skills. That could explain why many Chinese hacking attacks that have been discovered do not appear very sophisticated. American cybersecurity experts say attacks from Chinese groups often occur only from 9 to 5 Beijing time. And unlike, say, the Russians, Chinese hackers do not tend to cloak their movements, said Darien Kindlund, manager of the threat intelligence group for FireEye, a cybersecurity firm in Milpitas, Calif.

“They’re using the least amount of sophistication necessary to accomplish their mission,” Mr. Kindlund said. “They have a lot of manpower available, but not necessarily a lot of intelligent manpower to conduct these operations stealthily.”

The culture of hacking began in China in the late 1990s. The most famous underground group then was Green Army. One sign of how hacking has gone mainstream is the fact that the name of a later incarnation of Green Army — Lumeng — is now used by a top cybersecurity company in China. (Its English name is NSFOCUS.)

These companies are often started by prominent hackers or employ them to do network security. They have polished Web sites that list Chinese government agencies and companies as their clients. They also list foreign clients — at least one company,Knownsec, lists Microsoft — and have offices abroad.

The Web site of another company, Venustech, says its clients include more than 100 government offices, among them almost all the military commands. The company, which declined an interview request, has a hacking and cyberdefense research center.

Another former hacker said the monolithic notion of insidious, state-sponsored hacking now discussed in the West was absurd. The presence of the state throughout the economy means hackers often end up doing work for the government at some point, even if it is through something as small-scale as a contract with a local government office.

“I don’t think the West understands,” he said. “China’s government is so big. It’s almost impossible to not have any crossover with the government.”

Private corporations in China are employing hackers for industrial espionage, in operations that involve complex tiers of agents who hire the hackers. Sany Group, one of China’s biggest makers of construction equipment, hired hackers to spy on Zoomlion, a rival, according to official news media reports confirmed by the former hacker. Sany declined to comment.

That hacker said he knew the middleman agent who had hired cyberspies for Sany. The agent was a security engineer who owned two apartments in Beijing and had been under pressure to meet mortgage payments. “In China, everyone is struggling to feed themselves, so why should they consider values and those kinds of luxuries?” the former hacker said. “They work for one thing, and that’s for money.”

Jonathan Ansfield contributed reporting, and Mia Li contributed research.

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