vivekwadhwa's blog

The top talent in countries around the world have a new suitor: the Chinese government.

China has a severe shortage of skilled talent and, in a policy reversal, has decided to open its doors to talent from around the world. This could mean that the brilliant NASA scientists the U.S. laid off, could find new employment — and a new home — in Shanghai or Beijing.

University of California, Berkeley School of Information’s dean, AnnaLee Saxenian, often talks about a visit, in the ‘90s, by a high-level delegation from Japan. The Japanese kept asking where the government’s administrative offices were. They wanted to meet the people who did the central planning for Silicon Valley in order to learn directly from them.

When oil was still spewing uncontrollably from the Deepwater Horizon well last summer, philanthropist Wendy Schmidt and the X Prize Foundation issued a $1.4 million challenge calling for better technologies to clean up oil spills. Aside from Schmidt’s concern for the environment, the need for innovation in this arena was dire.

Dear Peter:

After winning accolades from the Israeli parliament for academic achievement and gaining 10 years of experience in building mission-critical systems for the Israel Defense Forces, Amit Aharoni came to Stanford to complete an MBA. Then, like many of his Stanford peers, Aharoni caught the entrepreneurial bug. Last July, he founded a start-up, which is building a shopping engine for buying cruises.

Welcome to 2012 and a new list of New Year’s resolutions — a list that likely includes some variation on adopting a healthier lifestyle. Thanks to the acceleration of technology, fulfilling your resolutions this time around may be easier than it was in 2011.

Below is the text of my testimony. If you wish to download a PDF of this, here is the link.  And here is a piece in the Washington Post by Emi Kolawole about the Hearing.

Statement of  Vivek Wadhwa

Committee on the Judiciary

In 1980, when I came to the United States to study, this was the only land of opportunity for skilled immigrants like me. It took less than 18 months for me to get a permanent resident visa, and I became a citizen as soon as I became eligible five years later. I came here to study, but ended up founding two technology companies, which employed hundreds of Americans.

Washington Post Innovations columnist Vivek Wadhwa issued a statement regarding the death of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs.

The ugly reality of engineering — one that no one wants to admit — is that it is an up-or-out profession. If a 40-year-old engineer is doing the same job that can be done by an entry-level worker, he or she is headed toward unemployment. This is the case in the most fast-moving fields of engineering, with the software industry being particularly brutal.