The Battle for Innovation

New York is the international business hub of the United States, yet the American legal system makes it surprisingly difficult for internationals to work or launch businesses here. The innovators that come to the United States, in the form of students or international entrepreneurs, face significant obstacles as they try to get innovative ideas or professional careers off the ground in the land of opportunity.A new grassroots movement aims to raise awareness of the primary issues facing international entrepreneurs, students, and young professionals trying to get started and stay in the United States. The Innovation Movement from the Consumer Electronic Association (CEA) highlights entrepreneurs who either have or are trying to make it in the United States. The organization also highlights issues facing the U.S. economy, the U.S. as a globally competitive nation, and foreigners hoping to stay in the country and contribute to its economy.The key issue addressed by The Innovation Movement is strategic reasoning behind the need for immigration reform in the United States. The U.S. is expected to be short 230,000 qualified advanced-degree workers by 2018, according to the Partnership for a New American Economy. Ways around this include making H1B visas easier to access for students hoping to work in the United States and streamlining the immigration process for qualified international entrepreneurs.Other issues that The Innovation Movement focuses on include reducing the national debt and encouraging a free-market economy where entrepreneurs can succeed.  They also push for affordable, high-speed Internet access nationwide by 2015 in order to stay ahead of other international economies, and an increase in free trade as such policies are responsible for more than 25 million jobs in the United States and increased wages for United States workers.

Experiences from International Entrepreneurs

The Innovation Movement has assembled many remarkable stories from innovators who all have one common background: "I wasn’t born in America, but I innovate here." These members have shared their stories on the I Am Innovation website to raise awareness of the challenges international entrepreneurs face.One such example is Jay Meattle, the founder and CEO of Shareaholic. Originally from India, Jay founded Shareaholic while finishing his degree at Tufts University. Jay was forced to leave the country when his student visa expired even though his company had more than a million people using its product. Although Jay eventually won the immigration battle to come back into the United States, he uses his story to raise awareness of the battle to keep high-tech companies and skilled workers in America.A similar story comes from Fabien Becker – who currently is in the struggle to keep his company in the United States. Fabien has a master’s degree from Stanford University and founded San Francisco-based Morpheus Medical, a company making cardiac diagnostic tools to help save the lives of children with heart problems. Immigration reform may force him to take his company – and the innovative technology behind it – outside of the United States.Italian born Massimo Baldini founded Livio Connect, a firm creating jobs in Michigan.  The struggle to gain U.S. citizenship was one that took him seven years – which he acknowledges makes him one of the lucky ones. Massimo not only works every day to bring jobs to one of the most economically devastated areas of the country, but also helps in keeping talent and innovation from leaving America. Experiencing the struggles to remain in America has turned these entrepreneurs into activists fighting to help support strategic immigration reform.

Other Minds Within the Innovation Movement

Other thought leaders across a variety of industries stress the need for immigration reform to keep the innovators who were educated in the United States in the country’s talent pool. Others simply pledge their support to remind others that innovation is America’s best hope for prosperity.One of the most notable supporters of the Innovation Movement is Alexis Ohanian, the founder of online phenomenon reddit. In his personal statement, Alexis simply states that the United States does not have enough Americans to do the high-skilled jobs needed by the country’s growing fields of technology.  “The reason the U.S. has succeeded in the past is because we’ve been able to take the best and brightest from all over the world and fostered their success,” he notes.  He goes on to say that the country’s competitive edge shrinks every day as the chances of innovation starting elsewhere in the world increase.Other successful entrepreneurs support the movement by submitting their personal statements to the website. These successful CEOs and company founders explain the reasons to conquer the challenges facing foreign innovators in the United States. The statistics are eye opening for those familiar with the United States’ need for talent in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics to stay competitive internationally.

• 45.3% of all students enrolled in engineering masters programs are temporary residents.
• 42.9% of students enrolled in mathematic or technology degrees are temporary residents.
• Immigrants are more than 50% more likely to launch businesses than native-born Americans.

 These statistics clearly spell out issues for American-operated companies looking to attract and keep the best talent in the world – while also making it clear why strategic immigration reform is so important for the future of the American economy.

More Support for Innovation

The Council of Foreign Relations is another organization that works to raise awareness regarding how the policies currently in place in the American legal system are driving immigrants to leave the United States with some of their more innovative ideas.In a conference held in October 2012, Indian-born entrepreneur Vivek Wadhwa discussed the need for immigration reform and other topics covered in his book The Immigrant Exodus: Why America is Losing the Global Race to Capture Entrepreneurial Talent.Vivek offered an example of an entrepreneur being forced to relocate, using a friend as an example. “He graduated from the top of his class, filed eight patents, starts one company which is very successful. He gets married, his wife is building Facebook Apps, they are paying $250,000 a year in taxes – named one of the 25 Top Entrepreneurs by Business Week – the people that we want. They go to India for the visa processing, and two months later, immigration says ‘Sorry, you can’t come back to America.’”  He goes on to say that not even the head of the immigration department can solve this mess, and the United States is now missing out on those tax dollars and the other brilliant companies his friends have since started in India.You can watch or listen to the full video at the Council of Foreign Relations Website.No matter your relation to the issues facing international talent, entrepreneurs, students, and immigrants in the United States, the ideas behind the Innovation Movement should be common knowledge among U.S. citizens due to the effects the lack of change could have on the U.S. economy and the future of the country as a whole. For more information, check out the Innovation Movement website to read incredible stories and statements from both international and domestic entrepreneurs.