9.2 8.5 8.2 7.

8.5 8.2 7.9 GO IS THE MOST IN-DEMAND CODING LANGUAGE ACROSS THE GLOBE TECH I’D LIKE TO SEE
7.1
Number of Interview requests per

6.8 6.6 WHAT LANGUAGES DO YOU PLAN ON LEARNING NEXT?

6.5 6.4 6.4 6.2
Combining IoT, AI & 3D printing
candidate on Hired in 2019

6.1
5.4 5.4 5.2 Go 36.2%

I
Python 27.7% would like to see IoT, 3D ECG, BP, pulse measuring de-
3.3 Kotlin 24.9% printing and AI coming vice on my wrist is constantly
Typescript 20.7% together to create “things” for monitoring me in
preventive health and well- real time and
R 20.0% ness of humans. Imagine if we alerting both
Scala 18.9% could create personalised hip the care pro-
Swift 16.9% or knee joints, or customised vider and my
Go

Scala

Ruby

TypeScript

Kotlin

Objective-C

Javascript

Swift

PHP

Java

HTML

Python

C++

C#

R
Rust 16.3% cancer vaccines, which target family/ friends
only the cancerous cells in the in case there is
Ruby 15.9% body and leave the healthy an emergency.
Source: Hired’s 2020 State of Software Engineers
Source: HackerRank 2020 Developer Skills Report JavaScript 15.4% ones alone, or swallowable de- I believe this
vices which can look inside our tech will go

Why tech companies are hiring

body. All of this prefabricated, mainstream
but personalised and intel- within the
ligent. For instance, the data next 3-5
from the swallowable pills can years and
create my own medical profile, the world

people with humanities degrees

check it against millions of would be a
similar profiles and it can then much bet-
predict the propensity of my ter and
contracting a specific disease healthier
in the future. Meanwhile, an place.

Sourabh Chatterjee | PRESIDENT & HEAD – IT, BAJAJ ALLIANZ GENERAL INSURANCE
They are seen to In an age of 280 characters,
IM and Slack, clear
and move into tech roles which are
seen as most sought after
the evolution of the human race, he is
well equipped to understand how the
educational programmes that pre-
pare its employees with a human-
understand communication skills have atrophied.
The technology values speed and
and are here to stay for a
while. While the number
human mind works ities background for the digital
workplace. “By building a new
customer needs compression over precision
and completeness. This
of such professions is
growing, I do wish it was
Monesh Dange | PARTNER AND NATIONAL
LEADER- ADVISORY MARKETS, EY
hybrid talent pool, which draws on
broad-based liberal arts founda-
better, and can communications scarcity
is a gap that liberal arts
faster
As technology becomes more
tions and promotes cognitive di-
versity, we can leverage the liberal
help design more graduates are ideally fit for
Swetha Harikrishnan |
HR DIRECTOR, HACKEREARTH
pervasive and human-centric,
professionals with expertise
arts and technological know-how
required to create complex and
relevant software Sean O’Brien | VICE
PRESIDENT, EDUCATION, SAS
For some of the roles like
in social sciences are
needed to understand
advanced technology solutions,”
says Richard Lobo, head of human
Avik Das, Arpita Misra & software testing, people can how it is best used by resources at Infosys.
Swati Rathor | TNN We follow a certain be trained irrespective of their individuals and societies Creative writers are specifi-
methodology to understand background if they have good

I
Kalika Bali | PRINCIPAL cally hired because of the huge
n his book The Fuzzie and what the customer problem is. For analytical and logical reasoning RESEARCHER, MICROSOFT documentation activity in tech
customer empathy, a multi-faceted skills as it enables them to spot RESEARCH LAB,
the Techie: Why the liberal companies. Most e-commerce
approach is needed. For this we have defects. Besides, for marketing and
arts will rule the world, BENGALURU companies hire theatre artists
engineers, complex lead generation activities, as well as
venture capitalist and au- analytics people, and business analyst roles, humanities and mass communications stu-
thor Scott Hartley makes a liberal arts and social students can be considered. Cognitive scientist positions dents to drive their marketing and
strong case for the importance sciences folks to bring are filled by graduates PR activities and also their con-
Murali Bollu | PRESIDENT, HYESA, APEX IT tent production. An average tech
of liberal arts or humanities in diversity of thoughts holding a wide variety of degrees
BODY IN TELANGANA
studies in a world which is dom- to address the pain who upskill themselves. We company hires about 20% from
inated by talk of AI, ML, design point have seen a lot of liberal arts, and a combination of

Cameras and AI
thinking and data science. Sanket Atal | MD, When you apply psychologists globally liberal arts with STEM (science,
The “best engineers,” Hartley INTUIT INDIA
creativity and move into the role of technology, engineering, math)
writes, “are those who are also design to analytics, the ognitive scientists subjects or an MBA is a huge plus.
deeply versed in and passionate flavour and output it Most of the content creators, writ-

are revolutionising
about philosophy, psychology, and I have seen a pattern in the gives makes it far more Deepak Ojha | ASSOCIATE ers, PR managers, social media
industry where people with conducive. A student DIRECTOR OF DRAUP, A handlers, UI/UX designers are
ethics. They play music, are re-
various non-tech qualifications and of anthropology SAAS-BASED STARTUP from liberal arts backgrounds.
fined in culture and have a deep
sense of their own values.” backgrounds want to learn a tech skill has understood INCUBATED BY ZINNOV “An education in liberal arts is

the retail business

Across the globe, technology broad and diverse, rather than
companies are increasingly look- into technology.” computer scientists which can be sion and completeness. This com- narrow and specialised. Most of
ing to hire people with back- Among many who powered Fa- used to solve problems differently. munications scarcity is a gap that the successful UI/UX designers
grounds in the humanities – lit- cebook’s growth, Bess Yount’s role For example, people with majors liberal arts graduates are ideally are from creative arts,” says Kau-
erature, economics, psychology. as the social media giant’s head of in philosophy have often studied fit for,” says O’Brien. shik Banerjee, business head at Sujit.John@timesgroup.com bought macadamia nuts (often
They are seen to understand the SMB marketing is often quoted. A logic – which is explicitly about Intuit’s chief data officer staffing firm TeamLease. cheating, sometimes acciden-
needs of customers better and
have the capacity to help design
more relevant software.
“As technology becomes more
communications graduate with a
Masters’ in sociology emerged as
the perfect fit for a business which
is all about human interactions
how to break down an idea into
its contributing and non-contrib-
uting parts. Many liberal arts
degrees require extensive re-
Ashok Srivastava also emphasises
the idea of breaking up a problem
into smaller pieces and tracing the
history behind the decisions
Kamal Karanth, CEO of staff-
ing company Xpheno, says there
are two ends to the software indus-
try that have to work in tandem to
J oe Jensen is Intel’s vice presi-
dent of the IoT (internet of
things) Group, with specific
responsibility around retail, hos-
tally). Today, cameras detect the
nuts and automatically label the
bag. Retailers are also using
such systems to handle queues,
pervasive and human-centric,” and sense appeals. Globally, there search and writing. And good made. “These are important. If we deliver what a software or a solu- pitality, education and banking. estimating the walk-ins, and
says Kalika Bali, principal re- are a plethora of examples of suc- writing requires precise expres- exclude that and only focus on the tion promises. One end is the pure But retail is what we mostly dis- predicting when the queues
searcher at the Microsoft Re- cessful tech leaders who hold a sion of thinking. So liberal arts technical without cultural under- tech end, which has to do with the cussed; that’s where his teams are likely to get too long, so
search Lab in Bengaluru, “profes- degree in humanities – Stewart majors often have the most train- standing of the history, it does not codes and tools, while the other are combining cameras, com- that staff can be proactively
sionals with expertise in social Butterfield of Slack (philosophy), ing in how to think and how to address the problem. Also, I have end is the user’s end. “There’s now puter vision, IoT and AI to create redeployed. Safeway in the US,
sciences are needed to understand Jack Ma of Alibaba (english), communicate their ideas in spo- found that teams that have varied a critical layer of non-tech talent some fascinating solutions. Jensen says, used the system
how it is best used by individuals Brian Chesky of Airbnb (fine arts) ken and written form. backgrounds function better as and skillsets that operates close to Take digital advertising to reduce the number of staff
and societies. Human-computer and Susan Wojcicki of YouTube “Few engineers get that kind of they have a better understanding both ends. If the process of design- boards in front of large stores. in the store.
interaction work relies on design- (history and literature). writing experience. In an age of of the customer needs,” he says. ing and deploying a software sys- They can show a variety of of- Kiosks at restaurants, which
ers and anthropologists to do deep Sean O’Brien, vice president of 280 characters, IM and Slack, clear Infosys has tied up with educa- tem to the end user is Alchemy, ferings, but the one it shows as have become very popular, are
dives into technology from a user- education at SAS, says that liberal communication skills have atro- tional institutions like Trinity this layer operates as the catalyst you pass by may be irrelevant being equipped with these tech
perspective, and how these in- arts graduates develop different phied. The technology values College and the Rhode Island or in many cases the Alchemist to you. So now comes those tech- to get people to buy more than
sights can then be incorporated mental models than engineers and speed and compression over preci- School of Design to create new itself,” he says. nologies we mentioned. They what they otherwise would. In a
can figure your gender, your fast-food place like McDonald’s,
approximate age, and if it is if you order only a plain ham-
ORACLE: BEACH CLEANING TO DENTAL HYGIENE
Oppo’s developing 5G,
connected to the inventory sys- burger, the outlet may lose mon-
tem, it could show you some- ey. If you add cheese, fries and
Oracle Giving donates thing you might want to buy. drinks, they make good money.
over $7.6 million annually Suppose it was an unusually So kiosks display some lovely

camera tech in India in India, to over 100 dry season and the store has two looking dessert or drink while
nonprofits working to new raincoats in stock. Instead you order. If you are male, it
advance education, protect could display an energy drink
the environment, and THE GURU (almost all energy drinks are sold
to men). “By adding cameras and
Swati.Bharadwaj@timesgroup.com 5G Whatsapp video call test strengthen communities
analytics, you can actually opti-
of waiting until it is forced to

C
The company also runs
T
hinese smartphone maker he Hyderabad centre recently put the raincoats on a deep dis- mise the experience customer by
Oppo’s Hyderabad R&D centre successfully conducted Oppo’s the Oracle Volunteering count, the screen could show customer,” Jensen says.
is just over a year old but it’s first 5G WhatsApp video call test. It programme that supports the raincoat with a small dis- Walmart, he says, has been
already playing a major role in de- carried out the call displaying 5G and encourages employees count as someone passes by. spending about 5% of revenue
veloping new technologies for India band and speed, demonstrating fast to be the change they wish “The system can tell not just my on IT for almost five years, al-
and the rest of the world. The movie downloads and cloud gaming to see in the world gender but also my size. I’m a most three times of what is con-
350-strong centre is Oppo’s largest features on Snapdragon pretty big guy, so if the rain- sidered best-in-class in retail, of
Last year, 34,000
and only one outside China. coats aren’t extra-large, it will 1.7%. “They are at a point where
Tasleem Arif, VP & head of R&D smoother game play.
volunteers donated nearly not show me the raincoat, it will their base infrastructure is
in Oppo India, says the centre has Frame Boost 2.0 allocates re- 125,000 hours of their time show me something else it has fully ready to bring in new in-
played a key role in its VOOC fast sources to avoid the consumption and skills to support over in stock,” Jensen says. novations. They are rolling out
charging technology, in the globali- of too much power and overheating 740 nonprofits e In Australia, one of Intel’s robots, each with 14 cameras
hygien
zation of its operating system of the phone, and Touch Boost 2.0 Dental amp with grocery store partners was los- that can even read the labels of
ColorOS 7, and in its newest smart- assesses touch events and acceler- SOME PARTNERSHIPS es s c
awaren oundation ing $5 million a month because products. They go down the
phone F15. “We have filed over 50 ates response time, increasing gen-
With Room to Read Aroh F people buying bulk products aisles to measure the shelf in-
patents this year, 30% of which are eral touch performance by 35.2%. often put the wrong product ventory real-time, find empty
India Trust – provides girls Through
in imaging and 20% in the network For the F15, which was recently code on the bag – the code for, spots, wrongly placed prod-
with critical resources
space,” he says. launched in the Indian market, Oppo
to complete their basic
the Oracle say, peanuts, when they had ucts,” says Jensen.
came up with localised technology
CUTTING EDGE innovations such as AI video beau-
education Volunteering

MADE IN INDIA tification and a WiFi calling feature. With Barefoot College,
programme, EDGE PROCESSING, FILTERING
“In the AI video beautification Ajmer – serves children in we’re supporting
This includes patents in the ar-
eas of camera and image process-
feature, which is applied in both the
front and rear cameras, the soft-
night schools, most of who
are first time learners
and encouraging
employees to fulfil T he camera/AI systems record lots and lots
of high-definition video. There’s not enough
bandwidth to send all this to the cloud for
ing, battery, networks (5G), system ware has been configured to cap- their potential as
performance, payments, AI and ture and analyse Indian skin tones With Swami Vivekananda analytics. That’s where Joe Jensen’s teams come
Youth Movement – support change-makers, in. They architect systems that look like the
gaming. “There are more patents in and features,” Arif says.
process,” Arif adds. With the WiFi calling feature, for science education conservationists, cloud, but where much of the processing happens
The latest version of VOOC, 3.0, users can make and answer calls projects in rural Karnataka and creators of at the edge, and where massive amounts of
which powers the Reno2 series, was even in low bandwidth areas, as MS Swaminathan social good data filtering happens to send only the most
developed in the centre here. Some long as they are connected to a WiFi Research Foundation – meaningful stuff to the cloud – how many men/
– Colleen Cassity women walked into the store, how old were they, what was
key features of the F15, like Game network,” he explained. support for capacity-building
Boost 3.0, Hyper Boost and Frame The team has worked on local | EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, shown to them, did they buy or not. “We create the spam filter for
for farmers in the coastal The Scrappy Beach Clean-up and Play project in
Boost technologies, were developed innovations like integrating the agro-ecosystem of the Mumbai to help children understand the perils of ORACLE CORPORATE the cloud. We shrink raw data by 2,500 to one,” says Jensen.
here. Hyper Boost delves deep into government’s DigiLocker service Nagapattinam district ocean plastic and how it impacts marine life CITIZENSHIP
the handset’s performance to exam- into ColorOS 7 and came up with a

Everyone’s stuck at home, and upskilling

ine latency and control issues, as localised feature called DocVault
well as touch control and refresh that makes storing and retrieving
rates to ensure games run smooth- documents like driving license and
ly, even in heavy loading scenarios. Aadhaar card simpler and faster.
The optimised FPS (frames per sec- By 2020, the Hyderabad centre
ond) is 38% higher. Average touch expects to be 500 strong. “We have date,” he says. Anant Goyal, director and found- founder of Gradeup, an exam
sensitivity rises by 16%, ensuring been hiring skilled resources from
Akhil.George@timesgroup.com
INSPIRATION Panic among students during er, Bright Tutee. prep site, says the spike in usage

W
fast touch response even in low prestigious institutes like IIT, IIIT hat are young profession- is synonymous with ‘bonus’ for this hectic exam season is seen Lido Learning, an ed-tech is across all segments, but espe-
power conditions. Both these enable and NIT,” says Arif. als and students doing most. The economic downturn to be another reason why ed-tech startup for CBSE students, has cially true for JEE and NEET
cooped up in their homes can affect the immediate salary platforms are all the rage right also seen a 25% increase in us- aspirants, with their exams be-
during this virus outbreak? Play- hike or even result in no hike. now. Bright Tutee, an online ed- ers. Shobhit Bhatnagar, co- ing postponed.
ing video games, binge watching There is a massive psychological tech platform that serves over
shows on Netflix? pressure. Acquiring a new skill 100,000 students and offers vid- An interruption in the One possible reason for this
Turns out they are diligently set can be a stepping stone to a eo lectures for 18 state boards, delivery of education can increase in online learning
upskilling themselves on ed- career transition,” he says. says they have seen a 124% in- cause long term disruption. The is that professionals are utilising
tech platforms. Hari Krishnan Prateek Shukla, co-founder of crease in student engagement pandemic requires universities to the time they have saved by
N a i r, c o - fo u n d e r o f G re at Masai School, believes that given on their platfor m amid the rapidly offer online learning to their working from home to upskill
Learning, says they have wit- the role technology is playing coronavirus pandemic. students. Fortunately, themselves. This is
nessed a 100% increase in users during the ongoing global crisis “With teachers being inacces- technology and content especially true in the
across major cities. (remote working etc), learners sible due to the school shutdown, are available to help case of IT professionals,
Mayank Kumar, co-founder of are recognising the growing op- students are panicking, given the universities transition to as multiple companies
upGrad, which has seen a 50% portunities in the tech sector. upcoming tests. So we have of- online quickly and with have declared work from
increase in enquiries a day, says “With organisations also invest- fered over 1,500 hours of video high quality home as an option
the anxiety of losing jobs could ing in integrating new technolo- lectures and exam preparation Raghav Gupta | MD, Kashyap Dalal | CO-
be a major reason for this. “Also, gies, this poses a threat to those kits for 18 state boards complete- INDIA, COURSERA FOUNDER, SIMPLILEARN
The Oppo R&D team in Hyderabad one must not forget that March employees who are not up to ly free to all our users,” says