04 Jan 2010
A proposal that will allow innovative entrepreneurs from the UK and elsewhere to set up a business in the US will be debated in Congress this week.
The proposal was made by congressman and IT entrepreneur Jared Polis with the aim of clawing back ground in technology innovation currently being lost to India and China. It is part of a wider proposed overhaul to the immigration system.
The issue would potentially swell the ranks of Silicon Valley, where even now, half the tech company founders are immigrants.
Krill Makharinsky, co founder of YouNoodle, a company that monitors the start-up sector, said: "There are similar programmes in Canada, the UK and Australia, and all these countries are vying for the top entrepreneurs. US citizens make up just 10-20 per cent of the world's talent. To only consider them would be extremely short sighted."
YouNoodle has also released estimated figures showing that if 10,000 start up visas were made available, over 3,000 additional new innovative companies would set up in the US each year, generating more than 10,000 jobs per annum.
Technical, innovative talent within the IT sector had a ready environment within the UK business sector to grow their skills, ideas and business until the UK Treasury regulated the IT interim market place with IR35 and S660. Since then outsourcing of entire IT departments to the Far East to avoid UK social taxes, coupled with the Depression, is in the process of destroying the Large and SME IT market place.
IT entrepreneurs have no choice but to follow the market, the US has now recognized that exporting/outsourcing an entire strategic industry, critical to the economic well being of the country makes no sense whatsoever. The UK mandarins will wake up in a few years, too late when the IT lights are turned off for the last time.
Posted by: James Walker 27 Jan 2010
If this legislation goes through, it will be a huge hit for many countries. The US is the largest market for almost any product or service. Imagine if they open the doors freely for all wannabe entrepreneurs with cash from around the world.
This has the potential to unleash a great talent migration again. All trade ministers around the world should sit up and make every effort to block this. Entrepreneurs are the critical engine of growth for any nation and this is quite simply blatant robbery, which the US has done for several years.
Posted by: Victor 26 Jan 2010
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