Get Those Muthaphukkin’ Geeks Off That Muthaphukkin’ Plane!!

A lot of people assumed it was an early April Fools’ story when British Airways announced it would solve the global skills crisis by putting 100 geeks on a plane from San Francisco to London. But it is apparently true.

UnGrounded will shut 100 Silicon Valley “game changers” in a BA plane and fly them from San Francisco to London. On the way, they have a task to carry out: solve the world’s “misalignment of talent” which, roughly speaking, is the problem that hubs like Silicon Valley and Tech City can’t get enough skilled people, while talented people in the developing world can’t find jobs.

When the plane lands, the A-team of digerati will head straight for the three-day DNA (Decide Now Act) conference in London, and give their answers to a waiting world  – and the audience at the conference will include Dr Hamadoun Toure, head of the UN telecoms agency, the ITU.

Summit in the sky

I suppose the idea isn’t completely stupid. There is a real problem to be solved, and the people being lined up to help do have expertise.

However, you have to ask – why a plane? Could it be that BA is the sponsor and wants to get people on board?

Although BA’s profits have been healthy, overall business air travel has declined in recent years, as executives move to phone calls and videoconferencing to save time and expense and reduce environmental impact.

The publicity for UnGrounded tells us that innovation is a “contact sport”. In other words, it’s saying you can’t do it all from videoconferences so we had all better keep getting on planes and go to meetings.

But if UnGrounded is supposed to be doing good, has the project thought of the environmental cost? Did they consider not using the plane, even if that might have cost them their big sponsor?

Did they, at least, use the figleaf of off-setting the greenhouse gas emissions caused by the event?

The publicity doesn’t tell us, and the PRs haven’t answered our question yet.

Should skills move?

And what about the question it’s addressing? On one level the answer is easy. To allow talent to move to tech hubs, the big requirement is easier visas. That’s something that Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg is looking into as a political campaign already.

But on another level, do we actually want tech skills to move from the South to the North? The problem is expressed in a breathtakingly Silicon Valley – centric way.

Maybe African nations, for instance, might prefer it if tech skills stayed right where they are, and fed local developments, building the local economy, instead of moving to regions which are already quite well off, thank you.

Perhaps the “misalignment of  talent” is actually a misalignment of funding, of opportunity, and of life opportunities.

Assuming the geeks-on-a-plane idea is real, those geeks might do better to stay off the plane, use other communications methods, and make sure they are addressing a problem the world wants to solve, not just something that blows a bit more hot air into their own bubble.

What about London’s Tech City though? Try our quiz!