'THERE IS A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN TRAINING AND EDUCATION. WHILE TRADE WANTS TRAINED INDIVIDUALS, SPECIFIC TO THEIR PERCEIVED NEEDS, EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS FOCUS MORE ON KNOWLEDGE. THIS GAP MUST BE BRIDGED'

摘要

As India gears up for 5G, broadband for all, IoT and a host of new telecom business and technology models, what are the key competencies that telecom professionals should possess? The key component has always been that of "understanding" and it shall always be so. Information is available today at the click of a mouse, but understanding is essential for innovations. Technological inventions, despite the increase in pace, are few and far between, while innovations are continuous and span areas from technology to management. Telecom today is a dumb pipe for data flow. The value comes from exploitation of such data flow for services that deliver efficiency. Hence, multi-spectral understanding of related technologies, ability to collaborate, learn, unlearn and re-learn will be key to higher level leadership. In technologies, organisations would have to redefine verticals based on depth of understanding required in related technologies while maintaining mesh like collaborations among them to ensure that every perspective is knowledgeably examined before arriving at a common perspective. The prominent fields of technology to train in would be optical transmission and processing, millimetric waves, transmission and data security, big data and analytics.