India to have more startups due to H1B visa ban

Bangalore: While the ban on U.S. H1B visa holders is heavily criticized, for India it is a blessing in disguise. The ban will cause more Indian expats to return leading to the emergence of more technology startups in the country.

"The return of such talented individuals who have international experience will be of huge benefit to India. It will definitely imply a greater level of activity in the innovation sector," said Hari Venkatacharya,President of TiE Toronto. He is also the Managing Director of Nytric Business Partners. In the last decade, Indians have founded more engineering and technology companies in the U.S. than immigrants from Britain, China, Taiwan, and Japan combined, as 26 percent of all immigrant-founded firms have Indian founders. As per the findings of a research made by Vivek Wadhwa, Senior Research Associate,Harvard Law School and executive in residence at Duke University, the immigrant workers are getting frustrated with the immigration process and tens of thousands of expats are returning home. Agreeing to Venkatacharya's statement, a returnee from U.S. who now Heads Bell Labs Research of India, Vijay Poosalaa said, "The immigrants are trying to come back to India, which has emerged as a land of opportunities. They gain the required experience in U.S. which will help them to thrive in India."

The immigrants are also great deliverance for the top tech firms in U.S., who are highly dependent on Indians and Chinese for their patents on technology. Thirty-three percent of patents filed by Intel was contributed by the expats while the contribution in Microsoft's patents accumulated to around 23 percent. Even in IBM the percentage of contribution of the expats towards the patents filed was 22 percent. The brainpower of the foreigners has immensely helped U.S. to thrive on the technology front. This experience will be of immense help for the Indian IT to build up the product development side which is comparatively lagging behind the IT services. "The expats from U.S. will definitely want to come back and start something of their own, the focus though will be more on product development than on services companies," said Prashanth L J, Managing Director, Lectra India. However, Kiran Datar, Managing Director, India Cisco, WebEx Technology Group cautions saying, "It should be kept in the mind that in order for these startups to be successful we need to have a supportive ecosystem and a robust domestic market which can be tapped by them."

Encouraging the entrepreneurs to kickstart their startups, Nitin Paranjape, CEO of a startup company named maxoffice.biz said, "It may be a good idea for the immigrants to come back and start their ventures now because it is a good time for recruiting talented people. Lower inflation, lower cost of funds, lower infrastructure rates are all favorable for this phenomenon." He also added that industry bodies, management institutes and government can actually run a proactive campaign to encourage people to come back. Providing a single window or simplified set of processes for business start-ups will enhance this further.