The world of hubs, routers and servers may be a mystery to many but increasingly is the language of the future as far as telecommunications is concerned.
These are the building blocks of networks that send information between computers, the infrastructure of the Internet.
Understanding this dynamic world means starting earlier and earlier. In the United States, where the industry has its heart, up to 1,000 schools have signed up for a scheme that offers students instruction in the basics of building and maintaining data networks.
The project is backed by perhaps the biggest name in the business, Cisco Systems, which has just brought the programme to Asia.
It has launched an initiative with Fudan University in Shanghai and hopes the idea will spread across the mainland. Elsewhere in the region it has set up programmes in Taiwan and the Philippines.
'Initially, the idea was purely to address the shortage of information technology (IT) manpower in the US,' Cisco's manager of education programmes in Asia, Marcus Lim Wah-Onn, said. 'The way to get people interested in an IT career is to really enthuse them at an early age.' In Asia, the scheme has particular resonance as national leaders look increasingly to IT development to spur economic growth.