Immigration: how it applies to entrepreneurs and opportunists
Recently I read about the US’s Start-Up Visa Act, proposed by Senators John Kerry and Richard Lugar in late 2009, under which non-US entrepreneurs would have readier access to employment visas into the US — contingent on these two key conditions being met:
• Entrepreneurs should have at least $250,000 in funding from a US-based venture capital firm, or $100,000 in angel funding;
• The startup must also have plans to either create five new jobs every two years, raise at least $1 million every two years, or generate at least $1 million in revenue.
Startup Visa Act Final Final 1
Over 150 Silicon Valley VCs and angel investors — some tech entrepreneurs themselves — have signed a letter of support for the Start-Up Visa proposal. These supporters include Reid Hoffman (founder of LinkedIn), Dave McClure (previously Director of Marketing at PayPal) and Paul Graham (YCombinator).
Readers interested in finding out more about these US legislative proposals can refer to:
• http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/mar2010/tc2010033_186150.htm
• http://econsultancy.com/blog/5478-will-a-startup-visa-lure-entrepreneurs-to-the-united-states
• http://www.readwriteweb.com/start/2010/02/startup-visa-introduced.php
• http://techcrunch.com/2010/02/24/startup-visa-jobs-green-card/
• http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8417510.stm
For information on emigrating to the US, the UK, Australia, Japan, South Africa and other countries:
THE IMMIGRATION ISSUE IN THE UK ELECTION
Today the second TV debate between the three leaders (of the Conservative, Labor and Liberal Democrats Party, respectively) takes place. The focus will be on foreign affairs and is expected to include policy differences on:
• nuclear armament (the GBP100 billion Trident program);
• the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; and
• Europe, the Euro and reneged promises on referendums regarding the Lisbon Treaty
It will also likely touch upon how the UK needs to negotiate in the future with other countries (particularly the recent Eastern European entrants of an enlarged EU) about mass migration across borders. Immigration is a key policy area that the electorate is concerned with and more about this can be read here:
Yesterday the UK’s unemployment figures were disclosed and they are at a 16-year high of 2.5 million, which some media commentators believe is a “massaged” figure and that the real figure is higher. Some people would argue that, given this level of unemployment, it should be more of a priority to create jobs for those individuals and place them in long-term jobs rather than encourage any more migration into the country by people who simply want to access the UK’s benefits system.
It’s quite an emotive subject because it’s not clear how many immigrants have entered the UK in recent years, people who voice concerns about immigration levels run the risk of being branded “racist” and there are genuine and legitimate asylum seekers and economic migrants in the system (who are professionals that have come over to the UK to work/study) as well as those who are illegals, opportunists and criminal gangs.
Certainly, it’s a policy area that needs to be handled with sensitivity and sense.
Meanwhile, I’m keeping track of the US’s Start-Up Visa developments since………I’m going global in my options for financing 360-2020.
SKY’S INTERACTIVE POLICY COMPARER
Just as I noted in a previous post how helpful it would be to have a side-by-side comparison of each of the main party’s policies, Sky has produced this interesting interactive game to help voters decide which party to vote for:
At the end of the quiz, users are shown which policy belongs to which party and some of the answers may surprise them and test how much they really know about the policies rather than the performance of the leaders. Now that’s the type of tech tool which is smart and democratizing!
[...] and sensibly” (which readers may recall are broadly the words I used in a previous post, Immigration: how it applies to entrepreneurs and opportunists). Meanwhile I shouted at the TV when Gordon Brown, the Labor leader and incumbent Prime Minister, [...]