INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Ayah Bdeir
Contributor
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Ayah Bdeir is the founder and CEO of littleBits, a
platform of easy-to-use electronic building blocks for children to create inventions, large and small.
Tech CEOs and founders are
disrupting everything from travel to food, to space, to sleep
Now it time to disrupt a process that so many of us have relied on to get where we are today: immigration
According to a study by theNational Foundation for American Policy, immigrants have founded more than half of U.S
startup companies that are valued at more than one billion dollars.
With all that is happening around us, now is the time for entrepreneurs
to use their playbook for disrupting markets and apply it to immigration as a space — not for a financial upside, but for a more social,
human upside.
Turning a problem into an opportunity
One of the most important lessons you learn as an entrepreneur is outlining the problem
you are trying to solve and turning it into an opportunity.
Economistsgenerally agreethat immigration has net positive effects on both the
sending and receiving countries
Contrary to popular belief, immigration doesn&t increase crime rates ortake jobs away from native workers
In fact, according toThe Silicon Valley Competitiveness and Innovation Project Report, almost every major tech hub has more foreign-born
workers than domestic ones.
Before solving a problem, we have to agree on the facts
Research shows that people in many western countries greatly overestimate the number of immigrants — in this case, Muslim immigrants —
coming into their country
Misinformation makes it difficult to pursue effective solutions.
Source:The Guardian
There an opportunity to educate ourselves and instead
highlight the economic and innovation opportunity that immigration offers
Immigrants provide access to more talent, more diverse thinking and more creativity.
Dr
Adrian Furnham, a professor of psychology at University College London who studies immigrants and entrepreneurshipsaid, &What I&ve found is
that immigrants not only have the qualities that help any entrepreneurs succeed—including aggressiveness and creative thinking—but they
get a big boost because many of the skills they picked up coping with a new world are transferable to the entrepreneurial world.&
Rebranding
the word &immigrant&
Another important step in an entrepreneur playbook relates to changing perceptions
Airbnb, for example, had to challenge people assumption that opening their home to strangers was a dangerous and risky endeavor
Now, facilitating these types of interactions is an act of hospitality and the beginning of a friendship.
More and more recently, the word
&immigrant& has become a bad word
We have the responsibility to rebrand it to mean&maker& not &taker.& Look at HamdiUlukaya, the Turkish immigrant who created the Chobani
He employs 3,000+ people and has given them10 percentof the shares in the company.
When people research the word &immigrant& online, they
need to find Ulukaya story
They need to find images of successful, eloquent and positive entrepreneurs and leaders
That why it so important to speak as immigrants
To tell the story of how we came here and the challenges we&ve had to overcome
It tempting to try to blend in, but we have to infuse the word &immigration& with more positive visuals.
The University of North Carolina
at Greensboro (UNCG) established the Center for New North Carolinians (CNNC), with the aim of supporting refugees and immigrants living in
CNNC piloted a STEM club program for female refugees and immigrants using littleBits& electronic building blocks
Photos from the CNNC STEM Club, courtesy of littleBits
Taking [commercial] risks
In January 2017 when the Trump administration travel ban
was first implemented, littleBits posted abillboard in Times Squarethat said in English and Arabic: &We Invent the World We Want to Live
In.& We wanted people to associate Arabic script with a positive, inclusive message
It was the first time I decided to speak to my background as an Arab and Muslim immigrant
The public response, the impact on our team culture and the feeling of having stood up for what right made me bolder about using my platform
to speak out.
That why, when the debate around immigration rose up again in response to family separation at the border, I knew I had to say
something.
At littleBits, being from &another& place is a reality; we are a company built on diversity
We have close to 20 languages in the office, a multitude of religions and about 20 percent of us have visas or green cards or were born in
I myself know firsthand the struggle that immigrants face — I&ve had to flee my country of Lebanon three times for my own safety.
So, last
week Ijoinedleaders from Facebook, Twitter, Airbnband Microsoft and made my voice heard
I announced a donation program and wrote ablog postthat opened with: &We at littleBits strive to separate politics from our work
But when something touches human rights, it is no longer about politics
It becomes about justice.&
And you know what Like most things in America today, the reaction we received was polarizing
Some people said that speaking out was an &admirable move& and that it was clear we were focused on &making a big difference.& On the other
hand, 27 percent of respondents explicitly told us they would be less likely to purchase littleBits products as a result of us speaking out
One loyal customer told us they would now &actively discourage& their children from buying or using our products
Another said they would &throw [their] Bits in the trash.&
And yet, I stand by our statement.
The business risks involved with speaking out
But to me, putting a flag in the ground is always worth it
One email, one blog post, one donation at a time, I protect the diversity of my team, my company, and the country in which I reside
History will judge us if we quietly allow our government to strip us of the diversity and innovation that make America so amazing.
As
entrepreneurs, we have a platform
Despite the potential costs, we must use this platform to put ourselves out there, to speak out on the issues that matter to our country,
our businesses and ourselves
There may be financial downside and yes, it will be more difficult to quantify the human upside, but I for one am willing to take a gamble
that net, it will be a positive.
