Are dinosaur managers and poor teaching holding back Digital Britain?

More must be done to convince grey-haired business leaders to embrace web 2.0 developments, a panel of experts has warned.

A panel assembled by the British Computer Society (BCS) were asked to consider whether IT could lead the UK out of recession. But it warned the UK's potential around technology - and thus the potential of IT to drive economic recovery - is being held back by the current crop of business leaders who are failing to 'get IT', and also by the failure of the education system to inspire young people to acquire the skills needed by the industry.

David Smith, chief executive of thinktank Global Future and Foresight, claimed the UK is "not good" at educating businesses on new and emerging technologies so companies can prepare themselves for what's coming down the line in two to five years' time.

He cited the insurance industry as an example of where an opportunity for plugging into web 2.0 trends is going begging. "You can deliver the whole product end-to-end across the internet so therefore it's a perfect industry for really understanding communications," he said.

"But on the other hand it's a risk averse world, it's a world that isn't particularly inclined to look ahead at emerging technologies like virtual worlds, social networks - how do you embrace those for business and how do you use virtuality and avatars for engaging with channel, with individuals and with markets?"

Smith added: "The problem is that half the population pretty much around now is over 50 - and some of us don't get it. The folk who drive the companies, the folk that own the budgets in the big business that can invest in this to really make it quite exciting and dynamic in the way we interact with consumers and the population - we need to help them get it. Because they'll invest the money then which will pull people through."

Panellist Rebecca George, a partner at Deloitte, also identified a disconnect between young consumers of technology and the older heads of business running UK Plc. "Let's address this gap I see between the silver surfers and the Facebook generation," she said.

The people who run UK businesses understand the importance of HR and finance but "haven't yet caught up with the implications and impacts" of technology, she added.

Smith added: "It's amazing the number of people who have never heard of Second Life. Or a virtual world."

But if UK kids are technophiles in their spare time, they are technophobes at school - and this is another looming problem for UK Plc.

David Clarke, CEO of the BCS, said: "We need to do more in the education system at a younger age. I think that kids by and large make up their mind what career they're going to take up when they're 12 or 13 and IT is not taught well in schools at that age. There's a fundamental shift needed to make kids of that age realise this is a great profession to go into."

A recent report by the CBI blamed poor teaching in schools for contributing to a shortage of graduates in science, technology, engineering and maths. "Scientific potential at the age of 14 is not being fully realised," the report noted.

"If you talk to 12-year-olds they'll say I don't want to work in an office because what they're taught at 12 is [Microsoft] Word and Excel," Clarke added. "They're not taught what this profession is really about so I think that's fundamentally important to get the best kids looking at this profession."

Another issue highlighted by the panel is the difficulty of keeping skills up to date in what is a very fast-paced industry with ever-changing requirements. Global Future and Foresight's Smith noted some 70 per cent of the workforce of 2020 have already left school meaning another way will have to be found to reach and upskill them. "I think we really have to look at how do we provide that continuing professional development for people engaged in the industry," he added.

But tomorrow's tech workers will need a very good head for business indeed.

"IT people have to have a much more business awareness and in future the success of IT-enabled work will be how IT and technology is applied rather than the technology itself," said Clarke. "Technology very rarely fails. It's actually the application of the technology that usually is a problem."

"The issue for me is how competitive we are in future in applying the technology in this country compared to our competitors. And that will determine whether we are successful in future in every aspect because this underpins everything. So we've got to be not just better at it but better than all our competitors at it," he added.

A survey of CIOs and IT managers commissioned by the BCS to coincide with the debate also puts skills at the top of the agenda. Asked how the tech industry could help the UK get over the recession, nearly two-thirds of survey respondents said greater focus on IT education at all levels is important, and the same proportion said they want to see more investment in developing IT skills.

Meanwhile, more than half of those polled are positive about the economic prospects for the UK's IT industry in the coming year, with almost two-thirds believing the UK will emerge from recession by the end of 2010.