Posted on 06/14/2007 6:54:43 AM PDT by fmkl
Ninety-six percent of immigrant founders of technology and engineering companies between 1995 and 2005 held bachelor's degrees, and 74 percent held graduate or postgraduate degrees, according to a study the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation released Monday.
Seventy-five percent of the highest degrees among immigrant entrepreneurs were in science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields, the Kauffman Foundation said in a release. Fifty-three percent of the immigrant founders of U.S.-based technology and engineering companies completed their highest degrees in U.S. universities. <A HREF="http://dc.bizjournals.com/event.ng/Type=click&FlightID=21264&AdID=30521&TargetID=1292&Segments=1,16,973,2183,3301,3622,3862,4117,4263,4611,4614,4829&Targets=3394,61,1292,2014,3078,3381,3619,3866,4009,4337,4344,4550&Values=25,30,46,50,60,72,84,93,100,110,150,155,202,295,333,473,565,736,775,830,872,894,949,951,959,960,961,962,980,994,996,997,1009&RawValues=GEOMAJORMETRO%2Corange%2520county%2CDOMAINTYPE%2C25%2CST_VERT_TOPIC%2Creal_estate__commercial&Redirect=http://www.tivol.com" target="_top"><IMG SRC="http://ll.bizjournals.com/ads/dc/tivol/Tivol_Cube_300_x_250_v3.gif" WIDTH=300 HEIGHT=250 BORDER=0></A>
Researchers at Duke University and the University of California-Berkeley conducted the study, which included a series of in-depth interviews with:
• 144 immigrant company founders on their educational attainment, degree types, reasons for entering the United States and other factors related to their entrepreneurial activities
• 87 Indian, 57 Chinese and 29 Taiwanese company founders to ask where they received their undergraduate education
• 1,572 companies in 11 technology centers to determine whether a key founder was foreign-born and the founder's country of birth.
Nationwide, immigrant-founded companies produced $52 billion in sales and employed 450,000 workers in 2005. The majority of these immigrant entrepreneurs came from India, United Kingdom, China, Taiwan, Japan and Germany.
"Our research confirms that advanced education in science, technology, engineering and math is correlated with high rates of entrepreneurship and innovation," lead researcher Vivek Wadhwa, executive in residence, Pratt School of Engineering, Master of Engineering Management Program at Duke University, said in the release. "The U.S. economy depends on these high rates of entrepreneurship and innovation to maintain its global edge."
Among the study's findings:
• More than half of the foreign-born founders of U.S. technology and engineering businesses initially came to the United States to study. Very few came with the sole purpose of starting a company. Almost 40 percent of immigrant founders entered the country because of a job opportunity, with only 1.6 percent entering the country with the sole purpose of entrepreneurship. They typically founded companies after working and residing in the United States for an average of 13 years.
• Immigrant founders were educated in a diverse set of universities in both their home countries and across the United States. No single U.S. institution stands out as a source of immigrant founders. Similarly, those who received their undergraduate degrees in India or China graduated from a diverse assortment of institutions. Even the famed Indian Institutes of Technology educated only 15 percent of Indian technology and engineering company founders.
• Immigrant entrepreneurs tend to move to cosmopolitan technology centers. The regions with the largest immigrant population also tend to have the greatest number of technology startups. On average, 31 percent of the engineering and technology companies founded from 1995 to 2005 in the 11 technology centers that were surveyed had an immigrant as a key founder. This compares with the national average of 25.3 percent.
• Technology centers with a greater concentration of immigrant entrepreneurs in their state averages include Silicon Valley (52.4 percent), New York City (43.8 percent) and Chicago (35.8 percent). Three technology centers had a below-average rate of immigrant-founded companies: Portland, Ore. (17.8 percent), Research Triangle Park (18.7 percent) and Denver (19.4 percent).
More information about the study is available on the Kauffman Foundation's Web site.
I welcome legal immigrants as well(at least in limited numbers). However ONLY if they come to be Americans. Those who relinquish loyalty to their former countries and learn English and American history. This idea that just because they are “legal” are is fine and dandy is bogus to me. We have been importing many “legal” immigrants over the last 40 years or so who have little allegiance to America and are only here for what they can get out of us. Entrepreneurship is great if it is done with a certain amount of gratitude for the environment that enables it and a certain sense of loyalty to the American people.
I agree with others who question the timing of this article.
Especially since former KC Mayor and spokesperson, Steve Gloriso (big, big liberals)are attacking new Mayor Funkhouser and his latest appointee to park board, Frances Semler (white grandmother member of Minutemen- eek that KKK, racist, hate group.)
Local "Hispanic activists" are screaming (hiding SmartPort/Mexican Owned/Jumbo scam going on in K.C.)that Mayor Funkhouser is "embracing racists against minority rights."
Change the title to include “Illegal Aliens” and you’ll get a whole different set of numbers.
Welcome to FR!
Bingo!!!!
Oh geez. Give it a rest already...... the study comes from researchers from Duke and Cal (although I guess to conspiracy theorists, this is the equivalent of waving the red flag at the bull).
Thanks to everyone who welcomed me. I honestly don’t see where illegals come in the discussion here. I mean, there are so many threads for illegals......lets keep comments there......and we can all agree illegal immigration should not be tolerated.
This posting was more along shining the spotlight on the “controversial” H1B program.......like it or not, that’s a legal way of immigrating into the US, and currently, the only way foreign students can stay after their studies. Given the time frame of the study, 1995 - 2005, and the nature of the subjects, I think almost all would have been on H1B visas unless they married US citizens before completing their studies.
So this posting was more along the lines of “taking jobs from Americans” (which I’d heard a lot of) vrs “creating jobs for Americans” (which I didn’t know.......)
Thanks for humoring me.
Welcome to FR.........
Hear you there! Is there much/any awareness among the fine citizens of KC concerning the SmartPort and what it entails?
I have some roots in Missoura and would hope there’s a groundswell of opposition to such an abomination.
One Worlders continue to lie and smear when challenged outright.
No Mexicans, Africans, or South Americans in the list. Those are the countries from which we receive a majority of immigrants. The amnesty is mostly about Mexicans.
In other words the current and proposed immigration laws actual bring in relatively few of the kind of immigrants mentioned.
Its the second and third generations that effectively become Americans, just simply by living and breathing the experience everyday of their lives. Their parents/grandparents, however, never truly lose their old world ways.
Besides, if you were an urbanized educated Indian/Korean/Russian/Argentinean, etc., would you REALLY want to assimilate into NASCAR nation?
Assimilation patterns are different today than when your grandparents probably arrived.
Who knew. Pea picker to engineer in one night class.
The only first generation folks who ever acculturate into the U.S. came here when they were under 12. The rest never quite leave the old country behind. Their kids, however, are always Americanized, including speaking English (which alot of Freepers refuse to believe). This is as true of the Colombians/South Americans who were my neighbors in Miami, as it is for the Chinese and Middle Eastern kids who were my neighbors in SW Brooklyn.
The patterns are different.
On the upper end of the scale, you have the so-called NYLON types, etc. who never really settle anywhere. They just keep bouncing around. But they typically know four or five different languages very, very well.
On the middle-to-low end of the scale, you have much larger groups who remain connected to the “old country” through internet, cheap phone, cheap travel and cable television. There’s really no desire to assimilate. A hundred years ago immigrants who were here were stuck here. Not so today.
It’s going to take at least two generations to produce full-fledged Americans.
No, this article was by way of excusing the total of “immigrants” by putatively assigning positives to the bare fraction that nobody would deny have merit.
As a newcomer you have no need to justify your position; you only need to be honest with your motives.
I’ve heard the argument before. The fact is, the kids that I have encountered have ZERO desire to watch sabado gigante and the latest novela. The kids in question are/were in the lower middle income strata. Of course, I am extrapolating from folks I know/knew in Newark, Miami, and Chicago, but, even with all of the media, one cannot maintain the culture of “the old country” unless the move to the middle of nowhere or join some religious cult (see: the Hasidim, (ducks)).
Substantiate, please; tautologies are sophomoric.
As a newcomer you have no need to justify your position; you only need to be honest with your motives.
My motives are nothing less than complete and total world domination. I plan to accomplish this through my winning personality and careful attention to personal hygiene.
All your base belong to me!
Better lay off the garlic...
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