On January 31st, 2011, the White House announced Startup America, a public/private initiative to rally efforts to accelerate high-growth entrepreneurship in the U.S. by expanding access to capital, creating a national network for entrepreneurship education, enhancing the commercialization of federally-funded innovations and getting rid of tax and paperwork barriers for startups. Given the importance of new firms to America’s economy and the national urgency to create jobs, I take a look this week at what Washington accomplished—leading up to the summer break—in response to the President’s call for action.
On the policy front, the Startup America Partnership set out to create the right policy environment for entrepreneurs to flourish, and 2011 has indeed seen a number of developments in Washington that seek to move America in this direction. First, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) recently updated its FAQs to clarify that entrepreneurs may qualify for a National Interest Waiver under the EB-2 immigrant visa category if they can demonstrate that their business endeavors will be in the interest of the U.S. The document also clarifies that an H-1B beneficiary who is the sole owner of the petitioning company may establish a valid employer-employee relationship for the purposes of qualifying for an H-1B nonimmigrant visa. In May, DHS also expanded the number of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) graduates of U.S. universities who can extend their work training in the country from 12 to 29 months. These represent important steps in the right direction, but as I will allude to later, to expand access to the nation's pool of talented high skilled graduates in the science and technology fields, we need real "entrepreneurs’ visas" and green cards for those with degrees in science, technology, engineering and math.
To read the full, original article click on this link: Starting up Startup America - Entrepreneurship.org
Author:Jonathan Ortmans
