Page - 177 - in The Future of Software Quality Assurance

Developing Software Qualityand Testing Capabilities inHispanic America:... 177 first master’s program in Computer Science in Latin America. Brazil was first in creating doctoral programmes and, together with Chile, has grown scientific capabilitiesmorewidely thanallotherLatinAmericancountries. Latin America has experienced the same IT transitions that have occurred in more developed countries, typically with a lag of 1 to 5 years as compared to the originating technology’s country. Overall, Latin America has been mostly a follower in computing hardware innovation. Brazil set trade barriers to protect its industry,thenfundeddoctoralscholarshipsforstudiesabroadwithaviewtobuildits scientificand technological researchanddevelopmentcapabilities.Uponreturning, scholars help build national research laboratories or centres at universities. Brazil currently incorporates digital technologies to create an innovative environment to foster economicdevelopment. Chile stimulates Digital Government and nurtures public–private collaboration for innovation in education and business. Smaller countries, such as Costa Rica and Uruguay,obtained loans from the Inter-AmericanDevelopmentBank aimed at supporting their software industries’ export capabilities through improving quality and productivity in companies, updating university curricula, building institutional competenciesandpromoting innovationandentrepreneurship.ColombiaandMex- ico sponsor technology parks and regional initiatives for industrial clusters that includedigital technologiesandservicescompanies. Nowadays, due to the proliferation of the Internet (and the World Wide Web) and mobile communications, digital technologies have become pervasive in Latin America. Broadband access, together with smart phones, laptops and digital TV sets, has opened a market of enormous proportions, in a very short time frame: “442 million unique mobile subscribers across Latin America and the Caribbean, accountingfor68%of the[sub-continent]population”[10].DigitalTransformation is on the rise in the Americas, demanding more and more software applications to enableandsustain transformedbusinessprocessesornewendeavours. 3 SkillSets In the report ‘TheFutureof Jobs’,TheWorldEconomicForum[11]states: Disruptive changes to business models will have a profound impact on the employment landscape over the coming years. Many of the major drivers of transformation currently affecting global industries are expected to have a significant impact on jobs, ranging from significant job creation to job displacement, and from heightened labour productivity to widening skillsgaps. In many industries and countries, the most in-demand occupations or specialtiesdidnotexist10orevenfiveyearsago,andthepaceofchange isset toaccelerate. Digital technologies have been instrumental to changes impacting nearly every humanactivityworldwide.Thosetechnologies, themselves,havemadegreatstrides in the last 60 years, influencing and accelerating scientific, technological and businessdevelopmentoverall.