You may have gotten to this blog from Scoble’s latest post. Here is the video of his interview.  If you didn’t get here from his blog/video, I was at a Mentorship Mixer event last night and was interviewed by Scoble to talk about Startup Visa.

I wanted to add a few more context to the conversation on what I’m up to and why I’m supporting StartupVisa.  I recently left my Product Designer position at Carbonite (I know the resume isn’t updated, I will!) and my green card application through another mean is still pending. Once that comes back, I will be able to start my company or get involved with any funded or unfunded early stage start up of my choosing. So I am really looking forward to that freedom. But to achieve that freedom, I cannot work for any employer at the moment. I think it’s a great trade. If you want to know more about what I’m up to, read this next post.

But there are many other MIT graduates like me who are working in companies that sponsor their H1B visas since they graduated. We all graduated in 2005. The 6 year limit on H1B is coming up pretty soon for many of us. The current immigration policy makes it hard for them to keep working in US. I understand with the current economy and the unemployment rate, some people may be resistant to doing anything about this.

And then, there are ones who want to start their own startups. They moonlight and work on their projects on the side while having a full time job. But they cannot get up and quit their full time job to dedicate 100% to their startups and raise funds and grow a company for real. That’s why I think Startup Visa is going to make a difference. This type of visa doesn’t take any job from any americans and if successful, they are going to be creating jobs for many.

I have to say Scoble is a great journalist. He really had a genuine interest in people’s stories and he got me talking about the topics I’m pretty passionate about, startup visa, women in tech, etc. I’m looking forward to having more conversations like this. I’ll do one more follow up post based on the conversation we had about under-representation of women in tech and start ups. Hold me to it!

Sponsored by: Portland citizenship lawyer