U.S. Geek Shortage a National Security Risk

According to an article on Wired's Danger Room blog about a Request for Proposals from DARPA for ideas on encouraging college students to focus on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, the decline in students majoring in these subjects represents a threat to the long-term security of the United States. From the RFP:

... finding the right people with increasingly specialized talent is becoming more difficult and will continue to add risk to a wide range of DoD [Department of Defense] systems that include software development ...

Between the rapid retirement of the generation that won the Cold War and the shortage of techies in the new generation, it seems that middle-age nerds like myself who happen to understand defense and national security might be kept busy well into our Golden Years. Let's just hope we can trim some of the fat out of the defense budget without cutting into the muscle like we did with the so-called "peace dividend" of the early 1990's.

By: Guardian