"So this is our conference room, probably the largest screen in Asia--this is forty digital screens [put together]," Nilekani explained proudly, pointing to the biggest flat-screen TV I had ever seen. Infosys, he said, can hold a virtual meeting of the key players from its entire global supply chain for any project at any time on that supersize screen. So their American designers could be on the screen speaking with their Indian software writers and their Asian manufacturers all at once. "We could be sitting here, somebody from new York, London, Boston, San Francisco, all live. And, maybe the implementation is in Singapore, so the Singapore person could also be live here... That's globalization," said Nilekani. Above the screen there were eight clocks that pretty well summed up the Infosys workday: 24/7/365. The clocks were labeled U.S. West, U.S. East, GMT, India, Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, Australia.

--The World Is Flat, Thomas L. Friedman, 2006

As one reads the above quote and analyzes the many inherent competencies of the participants of this 21st century business and technological milieu, the various skills needed to participate successfully in this type of business interaction become apparent. These identified component abilities are inextricably connected to the skills and courses that must make up a 21st century business and information technology curriculum.