July 21, 2006
Future Skilled Worker Shortage In RFID Industry
This website gets a fair number of comments asking for ideas for RFID applications for college projects. While most commenters don't say, I'm suspecting these students are in engineering or possibly computing programs. However, with the exception of a few colleges and universities, not many schools have dedicated RFID labs or study programs. This lack is going to cause trouble in the RFID industry, as Evan Schuman points out in an article.
Evan's article discusses a report from analyst firm Aberdeen Group, which says, amongst other things, that there is a lack of personnel with RFID experience even now, not to mention in related areas such as biometrics. Such lack is obviously going to hinder projects for implementing RFID into various operations, a growing area of the industry.
There are careers in the RFID industry, but just not enough educational programs to create the skilled workers to fill the opportunities. A few places currently offering RFID studies in North America are Oakton Community College, Middlesex Community College, Indiana University (Kelley School), and U.C. Irvine. If you know of more, anywhere in the world, please feel free to drop a comment letting us know. We'll compile a list.
RFID manufacturers should consider forming alliances with each other to jointly donate labs, equipment, and even instructors (paid, of course) to various schools, to decrease the chances of future labor shortages.
As for school RFID project ideas, besides this and loads of other RFID sites, I'll suggest makezine.com as an actual project site. Just do a search there for "RFID" or "radio frequency".
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