6-5 The immigrant idea factory

• Would you consider moving to another country for work?
• In your opinion, what skills are most in demand around the world?
• What are the advantages of working with people from different countries and cultures? And possible disadvantages?

Why might immigration be important for new Canadian industries?

The immigrant idea factory

Immigration can be a boon in unpredictable ways. By bringing together ideas and experiences, it can fertilize imagination and invention. In his new book, Imagine: How Creativity Works, American writer Jonah Lehrer, who specializes in tracing the implications of neuroscience, suggests that “ages of excess genius are always accompanied by new forms of human mixing.”

According to the U.S. patent office, Mr. Lehrer says, “immigrants invent patents at double the rate of non-immigrants, which is why a 1-per-cent increase in immigrants with college degrees leads to a 15-per-cent rise in patent production.”

In that spirit, in the industrial heart of Kitchener, Ont., a 19th-century brick tannery offers a window on Canada's post-industrial future. The Communitech Hub is a space where the academic world of the University of Waterloo incubator programs meets the real world of entrepreneurs and investors. On average, there is one new business born here every day. And the bright minds who sit hunched over laptops in sneakers, jeans and Buddy Holly glasses are a multi-ethnic mix, including many immigrants and children of immigrants. The white board next to the empty takeout boxes spells out their ambition in huge block letters: “We are not leaving until this is done.”

Vigen Nazarian, 51, a Canadian born in Iran, is at Communitech meeting with an app developer. Mr. Nazarian is on his fourth tech start-up, a company called Antvibes, which tackles one little challenge of a diverse society by providing audio of the correct pronunciation of a name from a business card or e-mail signature.

In his opinion, people of different backgrounds take different approaches to problem solving, and with unusually successful outcomes: In the U.S., a quarter of energy and technology start-ups launched in the period from 1995 to 2005 had at least one immigrant as a key founder, and nearly half of the top 50 venture-funded companies were founded or co-founded by immigrants.
“Today, you're building a global product,” Mr. Nazarian says. “Gone are the days of a product with only local reach. I would love to have product-development ideas coming from immigrants who have a different perspective.”

Upstairs from the Hub is a Google branch office, an ever-present reminder of how quickly a company with a bright idea can grow. And across the hall is John Baker, CEO and founder of Desire2Learn, one of the darlings of the Canadian tech sector, which produces software for teaching, assessing and analyzing student learning.

Mr. Baker's company has grown to 420 employees from 140 two years ago; it aims to approach 600 by the end of the year. But he has 120 jobs that he can't find the talent to fill. In some cases, he has pored over 500 résumés, primarily from Canadians, without turning up a viable candidate.
Namir Anani, president of the Information Communications and Technology Council, says his industry forecasts predict that there will be 106,000 unfilled jobs in the ICT field in just four years. Immigration will have to help address that shortage, he says. Mr. Baker agrees: “Our industry thrives on finding the best and the brightest from around the world.”

But if a company's growth is impeded, it can miss its moment. Mr. Baker has gone abroad to hire before. Though he found the process cumbersome, he found someone from Finland with a rare set of skills who has been an important asset to the company. An employee of Brazilian background was extremely useful in understanding South American education systems – how the curriculum works there, and which exams are the most important.

Right now, Desire2Learn is looking for people deeply familiar with European education systems, their next target for expansion. “Having a global workforce helps us create products that serve a global marketplace,” Mr. Baker says. “If we don't have the skill set to help us understand how to serve those markets, we can't do business there.”

Extracted from ‘Why Canada needs a flood of immigrants’. The Globe and Mail, May 04 2012