I keep wondering about 'the next generation'; i.e. what are the corporations doing for schoolchildren.

According to Tapping America's Potential, the corporates all feel they need to be able to recruit more engineers and scientists than the education system will produce.

Hewlett-Packard are doing something proactive about it in conjunction with the University of Colorado here Physics Education Technology, offering to all who will take it a pile of physics/engineering simulation models, source code included.

The material looks technically pretty good, to me as a physicist; and I would applaud Hewlett-Packard in their investment.

If this material does saturate the schools, it will shift the 'competitive balance' of various businesses in various ways. Some will benefit; others will suffer.

So which of you CIOs will help it to saturate the schools ? Will you give the time of your engineers to deploy it ? Will you sell the service of installing it ? Will you allow your engineers to give their own time ?

Where does progress lie ?