Archive for the ‘H1-B Visas’ Category

New York Times Highlights Impact of ACT Fly In

Wednesday, May 22nd, 2013

We had a very effective two days of Fly In meetings and briefings with the White House, Congress, and FTC. And according to the New York Times, ACT lobby efforts in the Senate helped push tech amendments to the immigration bill over the finish line.

“The agreement represents a win for the high-tech industry, and comes on the heels of intense lobbying by the industry. The Association for Competitive Technology, a trade group, sent 50 executives and application developers to Washington on Monday and Tuesday to meet with lawmakers, including members of the Judiciary Committee.”



New York Times

Immigration Overhaul Wins Panel’s Backing in the Senate

Posted in H1-B Visas, STEM Education | No Comments »

ACT Members Coming to DC for Annual Fly In Event

Saturday, May 18th, 2013

On Tuesday, fifty tech CEOs and app makers from across the country travel to Washington to meet with officials in the White House, Congress, and the FTC to advocate for Immigration, STEM, and privacy issues.  They will be taking part in the Association for Competitive Technology’s (ACT) Washington Fly-In, an annual event for tech companies to promote policies that allow small business technology companies to innovate and grow.

ACT members are coming to Washington to ensure lawmakers and regulators hear the voices of small business tech companies.  The pace of innovation is remarkable, but that could change suddenly with overreaching legislation or regulation. Our members will meet with their elected representatives to tell the story of their companies’ success and what they need (and don’t need) to continue to grow and create jobs.

Specifically, ACT members will advocate for solutions that:

  • Implement a program to provide students with the computer science education that will help them qualify for rewarding careers in the tech industry. This will foster growth in our U.S. software development workforce where chronic labor shortages persist;
  • Fund STEM education initiatives through increased fees from H-1B visas and green cards. This addresses the short-term urgency to find high skilled workers while laying the groundwork to grow the U.S. high skilled technology workforce;
  • Allow internet companies to implement new solutions for data transparency; Congress should resist the urge to apply broad regulatory restrictions that would deny consumers many of the products and services they rely on every day;
  • Allow small software companies to protect their intellectual property without having to fight patent trolls and speculative lawsuits; and
  • Ensure that the government does not impede efforts to strengthen and expand our internet infrastructure so consumers can benefit from more reliable mobile and fixed data connectivity.

These are issues the federal government is facing. ACT members are looking forward to meeting with their elected officials and others in Washington to educate them about the technology industry so they can make the right decisions about our future. Hopefully, an informed Congress will allow small tech companies to continue to flourish.

Posted in H1-B Visas, Privacy, STEM Education | No Comments »

Immigration Debate Offers Opportunity to Fund STEM Education

Wednesday, January 30th, 2013

As the immigration debate has been renewed, a group of senators have advanced an initiative for the tech industry that would use funds for increased high-tech visas to fund billions of dollars of STEM education grants. ACT’s support for this proposal, the I-Squared Act, was highlighted on the Senate floor by its sponsors upon introduction of the bill. Below is the text of our letter to sponsor Senators Klobuchar, Hatch, Coons and Rubio.

ACT is greatly encouraged by press reports indicating that the I-Squared Act will soon be introduced to address the technology industry’s labor shortage. Your legislation would provide both near and long-term solutions to finding highly-skilled workers that are essential to ensure America’s continued leadership in the tech economy.

As you are well aware, U.S. schools and universities produce far fewer graduates in STEM fields than our industry requires. ACT’s small business members repeatedly raise this issue with their elected representatives whenever they visit Washington. To find candidates for the many unfilled openings in their companies, our members need the ability to hire qualified applicants from abroad.

Increasing the number of H-1B visas will relieve our immediate staffing needs, but it does not provide a tenable long-term solution. We must also focus on improving resources in our schools here in America to fill the needs of our growing software industry. Making a commitment to expand STEM education at the secondary and university level is critical in order to produce enough graduates ready to enter this high-wage marketplace. This must be our long-range goal so we do not remain dependent on foreign labor.

With increased demand for specialists in computer science, our industry is also ideal for worker retraining programs. Many unemployed or underemployed workers possess skills that would translate well into positions in our field.

ACT’s members are very pleased that the I-Squared Act addresses all of these concerns. This balanced approach, addressing our immediate needs while investing in the future of our economy, is the ideal solution.

We applaud your introduction of this legislation and look forward to working with you to tackle these issues critical to our industry’s future.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Zuck
President

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A Quarter of Silicon Valley Startups Founded by Skilled Immigrants

Monday, March 7th, 2011

Although the topic of immigration reform has been a feature of our political landscape much of the past decade, an element of this issue often overlooked is the substantial number of jobs created by immigrant entrepreneurs.

ACT’s Chairman, Mike Sax, was born a Belgian and moved to the states in the 1990s because our country offered the best environment to launch a tech company. His story is far from unique. A quarter of Silicon Valley startups are founded by skilled immigrants. These are people who leave their home countries to start companies that create jobs in the U.S.

Unfortunately, many are finding it difficult to navigate our immigration system. They would like to stay, and keep the jobs they created in this country, but their future status is uncertain. The conditions imposed on foreign entrepreneurs and business owners are so restrictive that many are simply closing shop, laying off workers, and returning to their home countries.

Duke University professor and entrepreneur Vivek Wadhwa recently featured in an NBC evening news report on this issue and expounded upon it at TechCrunch. After immigrating here, the companies he founded created over 1,200 jobs. Notable in his piece are the experiences from innovative entrepreneurs who are weary from battling ill-informed immigration authorities just to stay in the country.

Rapportive co-founder, Martin Kleppmann, who came to the U.S. from Germany, told Brokaw “In our case — we got a beautiful letter from the immigration service asking to prove that we had enough warehouse space to store our software inventory. We don’t even have boxes of software, it’s all on the Internet.”

Sakina Arsiwala, from Mumbai, India, struggled for years to get a visa so that she could work with her husband Naveen Koorakula on their social-networking startup, Campfire Labs. “Why deal with all this, you know, old school immigration systems, just go where you’re wanted”, said Arsiwala, who formerly headed YouTube’s international operations.

The U.S. does a great job educating the world’s software engineers. It makes little sense to force them to leave our country and take the jobs they create with them.

Posted in Entrepreneurship, H1-B Visas | 1 Comment »

Doerr: Staple a Green Card to Diplomas

Monday, November 10th, 2008

At the Web2.0 conference last week, John Doerr made a powerful argument for why America needs to address our supply of talented scientists.  Part of his proposed solution is:

"I would staple a Green Card to the diploma of anyone that graduates
with a degree in the physical sciences or engineering in the United
States."

Now that is a great idea for long-term economic stimulus.

It is often overlooked how important immigration policy is to tech startups in the United States.  Entrepreneurs must battle with companies like IBM, Google, and Microsoft to attract the best talent from US and global universities .  . . a battle that is made more difficult by a struggling economy with fewer opportunities for a big IPO payday.  Immigration is clearly not an alternative to making the necessary changes to our education system, but the government must create an immigration policy that enables both American technology giants and startups to obtain the foreign-born talent they need.

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Posted in H1-B Visas | 4 Comments »