Immigration as the heartbeat of innovation
The debate on immigration should be about innovation, not competition, says Stack Overflow CEO Prashanth Chandrasekar
My first international flight was when I moved to the United States. I was 17 years old, relocating from Bangalore, India to attend the University of Maine in Orono, Maine - a very small (and cold) town relative to what I was used to. I was able to pursue a degree in computer engineering that led to further education at Cornell University and Harvard Business School and leadership positions at Barclays, Rackspace, and Stack Overflow - the world's largest community of 100 million software developers - where I'm CEO today.
When I reflect on my career, I often think back on a moment that happened decades ago. My father came home from a business trip in Hong Kong with my first computer: a 286. That machine, basic as it is compared to today's computers, represented limitless opportunity to truly create something new. It was an expressive outlet for ideas. It catalysed my pursuit of a career in technology through exploration and learning. That desire to learn and contribute to something bigger exists in so many throughout the world, especially aspiring technologists.
In order to better our world, we must foster and not hamper that excitement. Creating boundaries and borders preventing immigration or migration of tech talent actively hinders innovation.
Technology is by definition borderless, but workforces and countries are not. In the countless conversations that happen on a daily basis around evolving immigration policies, it almost always comes down to competition - competition for jobs, resources, and housing. Is competition a good thing or a bad thing? It depends who you ask. But what if it's not about competition at all? For example, like many fellow CEOs, I spend much of my time making decisions about resource allocation so that we drive the highest positive impact for our community, customers and employees. At the heart, resource allocation decisions, especially with new ideas, involve creating a nurturing environment where employees have the space to be innovative, maximising the chances of success. The debate on immigration shouldn't be about competition; it should have everything to do with innovation.
The talent gap will never close by building up borders
Globally, there are over 200,000 software engineering roles open and 80% of developers aren't actively looking for a new job. Over 60% of developers say flexibility is important when evaluating current and future employers, and more than half say opportunities to learn are important to them. There is a rising population of technical talent hungry for flexibility and opportunities to learn. Without opportunities to empower technical talent to seek out opportunities regardless of borders, we will never close the talent gap.
There was a 50% rise in overall UK tech job vacancies advertised this year compared to 2020's figures, with advertised tech vacancies hitting 160,887 in November. Currently, tech vacancies make up 12% of all available jobs in the UK. There is a heated competition for tech talent, and it would be silly to eliminate a huge percentage of available talent purely because of where they are born.
Immigration ignites innovation
A recent study showed that while immigration can drive competitive labour markets, immigrants can also start new companies, expanding labour demand. In the United States, for example, the rate of founding businesses is 80% higher for non-US-born individuals than US-born. There were more jobs created by immigrants than by native-born residents.
According to the most recent country data, people born outside the UK make up an estimated 14.5% of the UK's population, or 9.6 million people. The size of the foreign-born population in the UK increased from about 5.3 million in 2004 to over 9.5 million in 2021.
Perhaps not so coincidentally, the tech industry in the UK experienced one of its biggest booms following the latest surge in immigration. The combined value of UK tech companies founded since 2000 is now £540 billion, and 2021 was the biggest funding year for UK tech since 2013, with £29.4 billion invested, coining 29 new unicorns.
As an immigrant, I truly believe that immigration policies that incentivise highly capable tech talent from around the world to move to and contribute to local economies are key to driving up the speed of innovation, local market competitiveness, and ultimately global progress.
Borderless learning will power tomorrow's workforce.
Creating more opportunities also means breaking down barriers for learning across borders. Over 70% of developers are learning a new technology at least once a year. Traditional schooling can't keep pace. Educating a global workforce will create more available talent and lift up our global economy.
Today, 70% of the global developer community learn to code from online resources, of which there are more high-quality, multilingual options than ever. By creating more opportunities for people to learn as a society, we are creating more opportunities for market disruption, innovation and progress. We are firmly in a time when aspiring technologists no longer need to rely on scholarships to institutions 8,000 miles away to learn to code. If we have any hope at continuing to build a more inclusive and diverse tech industry, it starts with making learning resources more accessible too.
With the explosion of cloud, the rise of machine learning, and new technologies emerging daily, now is the time to broaden horizons. Democratising learning, tech innovation, and digitisation is at the heart of progress for humankind.
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