Who is time to learn IT: five areas where there is a lack of specialists

It would seem that in 2020, every industry should be closely related to technology. But so far there are many areas in which there is a lack of both IT startups and the view of IT specialists. These industries, perhaps, are not afraid of the technological revolution – they simply will not go anywhere. But it is high time for them and those who work in them to change.

1. Education

In Russian schools, especially in general education, there is still no systematic approach to IT. This has become even more noticeable now, when schoolchildren are leaving for distance learning, then returning from it, and teachers have to hardly understand simple video communication technologies.

“In schools, computer science teachers are involved in system administration, reporting, and psychological testing. We do not have enough specialists who will only do this, and there is no stake on them, ”says Sergei Adamsky, a computer science teacher at the Penza school. “If there were enough such specialists, we would have had more time to prepare more colorful lessons with more relevant content. It’s impossible now. ”

But this problem does not only concern informatics teachers, it affects all aspects of the work of schools: their websites, the security of Wi-Fi networks, plans to switch to telecommuting and back, and so on. And hoping for the massive introduction of very interesting things like AR and VR technologies is still more likely in the areas of training specialists and in paid education than in schools. “The school I work with received a grant under the Digital Economy national project, and now they themselves create content for schoolchildren, for example, excursions and 3D models of computer components. But in general, there is still little educational content for AR and VR in the Russian segment, ”says Sergey.

If such an integrated and innovative approach to teaching became as widespread as possible, this would not only make school everyday life more interesting, but perhaps also give teachers and students more chances to finally find a common language.

2. Agriculture and food industry

In Russia, agriculture and food production is now lacking not only IT specialists, but also qualified specialists in general… The difficulty with the lack of personnel is due to the fact that expertise in this area is only growing, and the initiative to introduce innovations and develop IT solutions comes from outside – usually from IT integrators, large producers of seeds and plant protection products, large agricultural holdings.

“Small and medium businesses cannot afford such expensive technology. In addition, the industry itself is quite conservative: not all farmers are aware of how IT solutions can help them increase productivity. They do not see much sense in this yet and do not really want to invest in, from their point of view, risky innovations, ”says Yulia Fursova, senior consultant of the Chemicals direction at Hays.

This is especially frustrating considering how many interesting startups have recently appeared in these industries abroad: from autonomous robotsharvesting to sensors that can transmit information about soil conditions and systems that make accurate climate predictions.

Nevertheless, now, amid a pandemic, Russian farmers have nevertheless begun to smoothly move to the introduction of innovations: for example, to sales through electronic platforms, which was not easy to imagine back in 2019. Therefore, in the foreseeable future, specialists whose skills are needed for digital transformation will be more in demand in agricultural companies.

3. The medicine

There is a lot of talk about digitalization in medicine for a very long time. It is clear that in a field that is entirely built on science, one cannot but keep up with the development of technology. This also applies to pharmaceuticals, and the improvement of medical software, and the development of completely new types of equipment. All this requires a huge number of specialists who could work at the intersection of IT and medicine.

Of course, breakthrough technologies are very important. But even in things that are simpler and more familiar from a technological point of view, be it ensuring the safety of patient data or developing telemedicine services, it would be possible to advance much faster. Here, too, it would not hurt not only more specialists with technological knowledge, but also a good understanding (on the part of medical leaders) how important they really are.

Lack of understanding works both ways: lack of understanding works both ways: “for example, in those telemedicine projects that are now actively developing IT services (from Sberbank to Yandex), it would not hurt to pay more attention to the realities of doctors’ work and psychological subtleties of working with patients at receptions “, – considers surgeon and co-founder of the ProDoctors service Sergey Fedosov. This would make such services much more useful and convenient for doctors and patients.

four. Journalism

Sometimes finding the information you need among dozens of reprints of the same news is so difficult that you feel like a detective. Many media outlets have to retell texts on hot topics in their own words in order to attract the user’s attention and not lose their readability indicators. To increase attendance at the expense of valuable and truly interesting materials, which would contain a lot of new information, is too laborious for some media.

IT competencies can seriously change this situation. The ability to both tell stories and use IT tools allows journalists to do their work much more accurately and efficiently. “In the 21st century, the ability to write code for a journalist is no less important than the ability to write text,” – tells Roman Anin from Important Stories. “Before, I often tried to check the largest government contracts and their recipients in order to identify one-day firms and firms associated with officials. A lot of time was wasted on this and it could not be done systematically, which means that I was constantly missing something. But after I wrote the code that does the analysis for me, I don’t miss anything and spend a thousand times less time on it. “

Programming skills and other concepts about IT tools – in order to be able to at least set a task for an IT professional – allow journalists not only to be more accurate, not to miss important information and save time, but also to create interactive stories, data in which will be updated in real time ( for example, with election results). And this is much more interesting and useful for the reader than articles that are rapidly becoming obsolete.

five. Retail

2020 has shown that e-commerce is not only convenient for shoppers – it can be literally vital at times. In the first half of the year, the share of e-commerce in the Russian market for the first time amounted to almost 11%, approaching the indicators, for example, in the USA (where it was about 14%). Retail chains, online stores and delivery services are faced with the need to process much larger volumes of orders than before, and not everyone was ready for this. Large companies have increased the demand for specialists in almost all specialties related to IT.

If in large cities shops and delivery services managed to provide buyers with almost all the modern technical capabilities of online commerce – to choose the best payment method, receive goods without contacting a courier, and so on – then in smaller cities such convenient services are still lacking, especially when it comes to not about the largest networks and services, but about local business.

Moreover, this applies not only to Russian regions, but also abroad: the level of service convenience to which Muscovites are accustomed, for example, completely not typical for Germany or for many other countries, where it would seem that the atmosphere for startups is much more friendly, and the consumer is more demanding.

Therefore, retail is one of those promising areas where startups and large companies that are ready to hire good developers have many more regions and markets where they could develop in their experiments.

What do you think, in what areas there is a serious lack of managers and employees who would understand IT?