Interview with Houman Younessi, Ph.D.,
Assistant Dean for Academic Programs

Why would an Information Technology or Computer Science major want to go overseas?

HY: The world we live in is becoming progressively integrated and societies interrelate more and more every day. Information and communications technologies (ICT) are the main vehicle through which such integration is taking place. As such, study of ICT must be done in the context of the global impact they have. Exposure to other cultures and business environments attained by traveling overseas provides the necessary context and perspective for effective understanding and utilization of technology, and successful innovation in the field in the future.

What factors were considered when selecting the destinations?

HY: We considered both the impact of ICT on business and society as well as that of recent business and societal changes on the global scale, in regards to how ICT is implemented or should be implemented. We will explore the elements that are crucial in ICT in the foreseeable future. These are: 1) Globalization and the impact of ICT on facilitating the creation and growth of global businesses. 2) How to conduct the business of ICT in the global environment: in this context we will explore the concepts of outsourcing, insourcing, off-shoring, and other modes of distributed development. 3) Software development and particularly the development of large-scale software in a distributed fashion by teams that are geographically dispersed – this will become increasingly important. 4) Information and communication security is critical for successful conduct of business and for many other reasons. A critical area of study is how to develop systems that are secure and how to communicate between these systems in a secure fashion. 5) Automation is the way of the future; therefore, it is important to study how automation will impact our future world, how to design and construct automated systems, and how to use automation to develop software.

Given these areas of concern, we have selected two international sites: Rome, Italy – which is a world-leading center for research, development, and implementation of secure large-scale information systems; and Warsaw, Poland – which in many ways is a leading world-center for fundamental work in automation and the development of automated systems. Poland is also a premier center for outsourcing.

What sort of project work will students be involved with?

HY: They will be engaged in hands-on projects involving the development of systems of some complexity with significant security requirements. Teams will work as models of an outsourcing house.

What kind of corporate partnerships does Rensselaer have?

HY: We have partnerships with universities, research centers, and leading corporate entities in all of our locations.

What should students expect in the classroom experience?

HY: The classroom experience will be rich, interactive, participative, and will entail a mix of lectures, presentations, workshops, case studies, simulations, games and other enriching experiences.

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