President Donald Trump's administration is postponing and plans to drop a program to provide visas for foreign entrepreneurs who launch companies in the United States.



The visa program, proposed last year by former President Barack Obama, was intended to give entrepreneurs who are not eligible for other types of visas permission to live in the U.S. for 30 months to get their enterprises up and running.



Leading figures in the technology industry had lobbied strongly for the visa program as a way for immigrants to come to the U.S. to start companies, contribute to the economy and create more jobs. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has estimated that nearly 3,000 entrepreneurs would be eligible for such visas each year.



The so-called startup visa program was to have taken effect next week, but DHS issued a notice Tuesday postponing implementation of the International Entrepreneur Rule until March 14, 2018.

The notice posted online by the Federal Register said DHS plans to rescind the rule, but is requesting public comments before issuing a final decision.



The program would permit non-U.S. citizens to stay in the country for renewable 30-month terms if they have $250,000 in capital investments or win $100,000 in government grants to support their proposals.



The president of the National Venture Capital Association, Bobby Franklin, said Monday the administration's decision was "extremely disappointing."

“At a time when countries around the world are doing all they can to attract and retain talented individuals to come to their shores to build and grow innovative companies," Franklin said, "the Trump administration is signaling its intent to do the exact opposite.”

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, part of the DHS, has said it decided to delay the rule to ensure it is consistent with an executive order Trump issued during his first days in office, limiting federal officials' authority to grant permission for foreign nationals to remain in the U.S., except on a case-by-case basis.</s>Peelamedu, home to the next 'Silicon Valley'

Peelamedu has been growing significantly due to strong economic policies

Peelamedu has been growing significantly due to strong economic policies

Coimbatore’s real estate market provides a plethora of options for homebuyers and investors to choose from, with various localities developing as catchment areas for housing and commercial real estate. One of these is Peelamedu, which is among the fastest-growing locations and a very favourable destination for property buyers. Located in Coimbatore, which is being seen as the ‘next Silicon Valley’ in South India, Peelamedu has been growing significantly due to strong economic policies driving development in this region. It is one of the rapidly evolving and ...</s>For a Bollywood movie, Gaurav Dhingra's Angry Indian Goddesses was decidedly un-Bollywood. There were no song-and-dance sequences, no lavish weddings, and no bankable superstars whisking away leading ladies. Instead, there was swearing, lots of sexual innuendo, and a lesbian engagement. Or at least there was — until India’s Central Board of Film Certification had its way with the film. The government agency stripped Dhingra’s feminist drama of its sexual innuendos and replaced all the “fucks” with loud bleeps. Dhingra was furious. He and Pan Nalin, the film’s director, protested the film’s censorship on primetime talk shows and social media. And shortly after the movie hit theaters in December 2016, they posted uncensored clips of everything that had been cut from the official release on the film’s Facebook page. It was right around then that Netflix came calling. Netflix wanted to buy global streaming rights to the uncensored “international version” of Angry Indian Goddesses. It would stream in more than a hundred countries — expletives and all. Dhingra and Nalin were ecstatic. They signed the deal. Then, days before the film went live on Netflix in India in April, the streaming service called again. It had changed its mind. “We were told that India streaming has been delayed because they needed to stream the same version which was theatrically released in India,” Nalin told BuzzFeed News. He did not divulge any more details, but sources familiar with the deal say that the next few days were fraught with tension. “[The filmmakers] were counting on Netflix as a place where people could finally watch their film as they intended it to be watched,” said the source. “But Netflix refused to budge.” In the end, the filmmakers gave in. Angry Indian Goddesses made its "fuck"-free debut on Indian Netflix in April even as the rest of the world saw it uncut. But “after many, many hours on the phone with the producers,” according to sources familiar with the situation, Netflix changed its mind yet again. At the end of June, it replaced the censored version of the movie with the international version in India. “Fans reached out to us [about the movie] and we are listening,” a Netflix spokesperson told BuzzFeed News. “What happened with Angry Indian Goddesses was a miss.” Netflix may have relented, but it’s an exception among Silicon Valley companies, which often censor their products in India. In the world’s largest democracy, Amazon Prime Video cuts most nudity and profanity from its content, Google bans retailers from buying ads for erotica, Amazon and Flipkart refuse to sell adult products, and Tinder positions itself as a brand that parents approve of. Selling adult products, watching nudity online, and casual dating aren’t illegal in India. But Silicon Valley is playing it extra safe, and its attempts to not offend some Indians are alienating others. “Western companies trying to expand in India are being overcautious because of the huge investments they are making in the country,” Prithwiraj Mukherjee, professor of marketing at the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, told BuzzFeed News. “They don’t want to risk offending anyone’s sentiments in a diverse country like India.” The country is a crucial market for Silicon Valley: There are now more internet users in India than there are people in the United States — and millions more will come online in the next few years. But as American tech companies pour billions into the country, they’re fumbling as they attempt to appeal to India’s already-online, Snapchat-savvy, English-speaking, Beyoncé-listening, urban millennials, while also trying to win over the country’s comparatively conservative millions.

Amazon’s proactive censorship has no legal basis in India. Last year, India’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting explicitly clarified that the country’s government has no power to censor content on the internet, nor is it planning to frame any regulations to do so. Despite this, Amazon doesn’t seem to have any plans to pull back its censorship in India. At an Amazon event held in New Delhi in April, Nitesh Kripalani, Amazon’s head of Prime Video in India, told BuzzFeed News that the reason Amazon censors content in India is because it has a “responsibility to balance customer preferences and Indian cultural sensibilities.” Amazon did not respond to BuzzFeed News’ questions on the topic despite multiple requests. “I don’t think these companies want to risk drawing negative attention to themselves,” said Mukherjee. There’s precedent for this. Large companies have, at times, abruptly found themselves the target of the wrath of angry Indians for unwitting missteps. In January, Indians were outraged when they found out that Amazon Canada was selling doormats with an Indian flag design (touching things with one’s feet is considered disrespectful in India). Amazon did, eventually, remove the doormats, but not before India’s external affairs minister angrily tweeted about rescinding visas issued to Amazon officials in India.

For a site that sells pasties and penis pumps, Lovetreats.in looks remarkably tasteful — a cross between Etsy and a gift guide in a glossy magazine. The Bangalore-based startup is one of half a dozen that launched in the country in the last few years to cash in on urban India’s newfound taste for sex toys. Business has been great. Lovetreats has grown nearly 30% every month for the last year and a half, its cofounder Balaji T.V. told BuzzFeed News. But here’s what’s holding him back: He’s not allowed to register as a seller on two of India’s largest e-commerce platforms — Amazon and Flipkart — to sell his products. Indian regulations do not allow massive e-commerce websites with multiple sellers, like Amazon and Flipkart, to own their own inventory, which means that all online retail business in the country is driven entirely through third-party sellers. According to a press release, Amazon doubled the number of sellers on its platform in India since July 2016, to 200,000. But popular Indian adult product startups like Lovetreats and MasalaToys aren’t allowed on Amazon — which is ironic for a company whose vision statement once said that it wanted to be a place where people could come to “find and discover anything they might want to buy online.” Amazon’s policies for sellers in India explicitly state that “‘adult-only’ items that are primarily sold through adult-only novelty stores and erotic boutiques are not permitted,” without specifying the reason for the ban. In contrast, Amazon’s policies for selling adult products in the United States are clear and granular, separating items into toys and games, bondage gear, fetish wear, sensual products, and “sexual furniture” like sex swings, ramps, and cushions. A casual search for “vibrators” on Amazon US throws up more than a hundred pages of results. Flipkart, which operates only in India, doesn’t list any policies for adult products on its site, but searching for adult products doesn’t show any results. “I could see my business growing eight to ten times if I could sell on Amazon India and Flipkart,” said the cofounder of a popular Indian adult products website, who requested anonymity.

Flipkart did not respond to BuzzFeed News’ requests for comment. An Amazon spokesperson responded to BuzzFeed News’ questions around its policy with a single sentence: “Sellers are prohibited from selling these products on Amazon.in.” The spokesperson did not respond to a follow-up question: “Why?” The sellers that BuzzFeed News spoke to all said that large e-commerce companies, especially Western companies like Amazon that are pumping in money to expand in India, don’t want to risk violating the country’s obscenity laws, which prohibit graphic imagery on packaging and marketing materials. Companies have been sued over sex toys; in 2015, for instance, a lawyer in New Delhi took Indian e-commerce startup Snapdeal to court for selling vibrators on its platform. But the case was thrown out. There is no law in India that explicitly forbids anyone from buying or selling sex toys, as long as the packaging isn’t graphic. “For companies like Amazon, the sex toys market in India is a small, high-risk one,” said a seller who did not wish to be named. “When we sell these things on our own websites, we are extremely careful [about] not violating India’s obscenity laws. You’ll never find anything objectionable in our packaging and presentation. But I think a brand like Amazon wouldn’t want to get in trouble with a rogue seller on its platform.” Still, big e-commerce sites seem to recognize the appetite for adult products in India. Multiple sellers told BuzzFeed News that both Amazon and Flipkart had reached out to them to explore the possibility of selling some of the “softer stuff,” as one seller put it. “They said that we could try selling handcuffs, but no vibrators, blow-up dolls, or anything hardcore,” this seller told BuzzFeed News. “But eventually, the discussions fizzled out. I guess they chickened out.” Amazon and Flipkart did not respond to requests for comment about this. Being banned from India’s largest e-commerce platforms isn’t the only thing that hamstrings adult product sellers. They are also banned from buying keywords and display ads from Google, the world’s largest advertising company. India is one of 19 countries where Google doesn’t sell adult ads, according to Google’s advertising policies page. Google told BuzzFeed News that it is simply complying with India’s obscenity laws. “Based on an assessment of prevailing legal and regulatory requirements, at present, we do not allow adult products or toys to be advertised in India,” a Google spokesperson said. But sellers of adult products argue that this policy shouldn’t prevent them from advertising things like lingerie and scented candles on Google. In one instance, a seller who did not wish to be named told BuzzFeed News that he fought a losing battle with Google’s sales reps for nearly eight months before giving up. “They told me that even though my ad was for lingerie, the website that it linked back to sold hardcore stuff, so they couldn’t let me buy ads,” he said. Google did not respond to BuzzFeed News’ requests for comment on this.

Admittedly, some Western tech companies don’t censor or restrict their products proactively in India. But they still struggle when confronting conservative Indian mindsets. Daljeet Singh Virdi is a middle-aged Airbnb host in the Indian city of Pune. He has offered a bright, airy bedroom in his spacious apartment on the platform for over a year. It’s good for business travelers, says Virdi, and solo adventurers, and married couples. The “married” bit is crucial. “If you look like a young couple, I ask that you prove to me that you’re married,” Virdi told BuzzFeed News. “You can either show me a marriage certificate, or maybe a common address [as] proof to show that you live with each other in the same house.” Dozens of listings that BuzzFeed News viewed on Airbnb India in the last month had a “married couples only” policy. “Most requests I used to get were from couples who weren’t married to each other,” said Kaniska Bhattacharya, an Airbnb host from Kolkata who has listed his property on the platform for nearly a year. “You can call me conservative, but look, me and my family are really not into letting unmarried couples live with each other.”

While this might be unexpected in the US, it isn’t unusual in India. Conservative landlords in Indian cities (and even some Indian hotels) regularly turn down potential opposite-sex tenants and customers for not being married to each other — and nothing in India’s laws forbids this or defines it as discrimination. Airbnb, on the other hand, has a nondiscrimination policy, which all hosts and guests are required to agree to when they sign up for the service. It says that the company’s commitment to nondiscrimination rests on two principles: inclusion and respect. “Airbnb hosts may not impose any different terms or conditions or decline a reservation based on a guest’s age or familial status, where prohibited by law,” it says. Bhattacharya said that he’s aware of this policy but that “ultimately, it’s my house and my decision who to rent it out to.” Airbnb stands apart from other tech companies operating in India in that it doesn’t encourage this kind of behavior. In fact, the company prohibits it. An Airbnb spokesperson told BuzzFeed News that the company investigates hosts in India who ban unmarried couples. “These types of restrictions violate our nondiscrimination policy and when they are flagged for our team, we reach out to the hosts to help correct the problem,” the spokesperson said. “In some very rare cases, hosts may have reasonable concerns, but in the overwhelming majority of cases, the host removes this restriction or we remove the host from our community.” Still, it’s easy to stumble across this discriminatory policy while checking out listings on Airbnb in India. When asked how Airbnb flags these listings on its platform and how so many seem to fly under the company’s radar, the spokesperson said: “We respond to inquiries whenever these matters are brought to our attention or when they are identified by our team. We use a variety of manual and technical tools to ensure compliance with our policies.” At other times, companies trying to crack the Indian market subvert the very brands they’ve built. Tinder, the app whose “swipe right” feature changed dating culture in the US, now operates in more than 190 countries, including India. But the company, which is owned by the $4.6 billion dating giant Match Group, misread its audience when it started operations in India in 2015. Nearly a year after its launch, Tinder released its first ad campaign in India. The premise: A daughter lies to her Indian mom about her plan to go out on a date (outside India’s rarefied liberal circles, casual dating isn’t the norm). But after the mom sees her daughter’s phone lighting up with Tinder notifications, there’s a plot twist as she swipes right and approves of her daughter’s dates. “Our intention [with the ad] was to start a conversation about the future of dating in India — and we certainly did,” Tinder’s India head Taru Kapoor told BuzzFeed News. “We believe that we need to start having more conversations and debates to address existing stereotypes and talk more openly about dating and relationships.” But Tinder’s campaign misfired. Young, progressive, urban Indians — precisely the kind that make up Tinder’s core audience — saw the ad as regressive and lashed out on social media.

Tinder’s fumble with the ad doesn’t seem to have affected growth, however. The app was downloaded 3.2 million times in India on Android and iPhone last year, according to data from analytics firm Sensor Tower. That’s an 88% increase compared to the year before. And last month was Tinder’s best ever for new installs in the country. Amazon and Google’s businesses in India are rapidly growing too. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos attributed Amazon’s higher-than-expected first-quarter revenue earlier this year to strong growth in India. And Google’s business reportedly doubled in in the country in the last two years. Tech companies’ continued expansion in India is a sign that angering the comparatively small liberal parts of India’s huge population doesn’t really hinder success. Sure, it’s bad PR, but only for a while. After a point, people move on. India has 355 million internet users — second only to China — and fewer of China’s business restrictions, linguistic challenges, and political tensions. That’s a lot of potential new users with an appetite for American tech products. An elite liberal sliver with a global outlook among that massive user base wants to use these products as they are intended — uncensored and unrestricted. A much larger majority, however, is ready to lash out at any company that slips outside the lines of “Indian” values and sensibilities — and India’s unpredictable government has shown that it can react with the same sense of outrage. For Silicon Valley companies trying to woo their next billion users, censoring their products and placating India’s conservative majority appears to make good business sense — at least for now. ●</s>For whatever reason – divine gift, the pressures of persecution, genetics – many Jews have a knack for thinking outside the box. It perhaps should come as no surprise, then, that Israel enjoys a reputation as the world’s “startup nation,” with many Israeli entrepreneurs working in an area outside Tel Aviv dubbed “Silicon Wadi.”

But nothing compares to the real thing. For Israeli entrepreneurs seeking larger markets and investment capital funding, California’s Silicon Valley remains the ideal place to strike “digital gold.” The Jewish Press recently spoke to one Israeli entrepreneur who moved to the Valley together with his wife and two children: Daniel Shaked, CEO of ClipCall.

The Jewish Press: How would you describe your company to someone who knows nothing about it?

Shaked: ClipCall is a fully digitalized marketplace to help homeowners find and hire the right service professionals for a home-related project.

According to your website, the ClipCall app allows a homeowner with a leak in his ceiling, for example, to upload a video of the leak so that others can see it and bid for the job. What happens then?

Those who are interested respond instantly and start communicating with the customer through our app. When ready, they send a quote, which can be booked by the customer. We bill the customer at that point but only release the money to the service professional after he gets a thumbs-up from the customer, approving that all is fine. Everything is done within the app. It’s all recorded in a very structured way so there are no disputes.

Approximately $350 billion are exchanged between homeowners and service professionals every year in the United States. The homecare market in the U.S. is huge. But it’s all offline. Nothing is managed digitally. We monitor the entire transaction and are able to profile vendors. What’s their response time? What’s their booking rate? Are they ever late for meetings? Are there any no-shows?

Our vision is really to change the way – the broken way – that people are dealing with plumbers and movers and all these other guys, which today is so full of hassle for everyone involved.

How many service professionals are currently registered in ClipCall’s system?

We have over 1,500 businesses in the four areas we operate in today: New York, New Jersey, L.A., and the San Francisco Bay Area. When I say “business,” though, that might include a local moving company with 15 employees.

Suppose a homeowner’s dishwasher broke and he needed someone to fix it. How long after he described his problem and posted a video would he get a response? And how many people would respond to his video?

Around 77 percent of postings are responded to within the first two hours. And almost all of them are responded to after another few hours. On average, you get quotes from two or three vendors, but a customer can control that and get many more if that’s what he feels he needs.

Is ClipCall the first company of its kind?

At this point we are the only company that manages and controls the entire process end to end. And this is just the first stage of our company. We have a huge vision for the second stage. Since we aggregate a lot of data and are able to profile people, analyze projects, and get a good understanding of repeat usage patterns, the next stage is offering people a “homecare service” contract. It will be like a hotel room where if you have a problem, you call the front desk, and that’s it. You won’t need to go online anymore to find quotes and discuss projects with people you don’t trust.

Did you move from Israel to Silicon Valley for the express purpose of founding ClipCall?

Yes, because this is where big visions and big companies can be built. There is a lot of knowledge and talent around here, and the investor ecosystem here can support huge visions.

ClipCall actually started in an acceleration program in Palo Alto called UpWest Labs. It’s an awesome program run by three Israelis that focuses on helping Israeli entrepreneurs who want to found big companies in the United States. They incubate your company for a few months and get you people from Facebook, Google, and other places who take a look at what you do and give you feedback. They also give you a chance to meet potential investors.

There are around 100,000 Israelis here. We call it the second Israel. There are chummus shops and falafel shops – you feel very much at home. It’s like a huge kibbutz. And it’s also a very supportive community. People really help each other with connections and knowledge. And when a new family comes from Israel, there’s an entire structure of volunteers to help them settle and get around.

Look, Silicon Valley is the “Hollywood of tech,” and the high-tech scene in Israel is very strong. I think it’s the number-one startup country per capita in the world. But Silicon Valley is where 90 percent of investments are done and where all the huge established players and companies are. It’s also where the biggest market in the world is. So it really makes sense to get over here if your dream is to build a huge multi-national company.

Is the large Israeli presence in Silicon Valley very noticeable to others?

Silicon Valley is full of nationalities. Just in the middle school where my daughter studies there are 60 different nationalities. So it’s a very multinational setting. Israelis are a big presence here, but definitely not the biggest. The Chinese, Indian, and Pakistani communities – which have great developers and great talent – are by far bigger and more noticeable.

Some have observed that Israelis draw closer to Judaism, ironically, when they leave Israel and suddenly find themselves in a foreign culture. Do you find that to be true?

Yes, since you are far away, you suddenly feel the need to, for example, do Seder Pesach the right way with friends. That’s a correct observation. And there’s a lot of activity around Judaism happening here – in the JCC, in Beit Chabad, and elsewhere. But I must tell you that there are people who leave Israel and try to be more American than Americans. I don’t know many people like that, but there are some. So it really depends on the person.

Personally, I was born in Russia and immigrated to Israel when I was eight years old. I served in the Israeli army for around 25 years. I was a battalion commander, and being there for so long I saw how important your roots are in shaping who you are and how you see the world.</s>Silicon Valley around the time of the dot-com bust in 2001. David McNew/Getty Images

Two weeks ago, I took a shot and called the top of the stock market.

My argument is that speculation is getting out of control. And not just on stocks—on Bitcoin, comic books, and all kinds of stuff.

When you have one bubble, others usually follow.

But the one that people are most focused on is the bubble (if you want to call it that) involving Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, and Google. Throw in Apple and Tesla for good measure, and maybe a few more.

A handful of tech stocks have gone bananas. So, let's do some basic blocking and tackling.

I spend no time on charts in The 10th Man (my free weekly newsletter), but technical analysis is important. The quality of the analysis often depends on the analyst, and one of the best is Frank Cappelleri at Instinet.

He has pointed out that on a short-term basis, the NDX (which largely tracks large-cap tech stocks) has formed a head-and-shoulders top and is breaking trend.

This is the first real weakness we've seen in tech in a really long time…

Though Frank is quick to point out that on a longer-time horizon, the trend is still firmly intact:

I don't think it is a coincidence that the short-term breakdown occurs during tumultuous times in Silicon Valley.

Uber is disintegrating before our eyes. Unless they go public (which they can't), they're going to have to do a down round. And it's not out of the question to think the company might cease to exist one day. That likely has implications for private valuations everywhere.

Also, the news broke of some pretty big sexual harassment allegations recently in tech-land. This is significant because public opinion matters. I can foresee a time when tech executives are viewed about as favorably as Wall Street was in 2011, when Occupy Wall Street began.

Keep in mind that Silicon Valley never really had a recession like the rest of the country did in 2008.

Sure, the VC business slowed down, but do you remember what was happening in 2008? Facebook had about a $15 billion private valuation, and it was spawning a whole ecosystem of tech startups like Zynga.

Silicon Valley went down the cleantech path for a few years, which was a dead end, but moved on to apps like Yo!, which apparently was not.

So Silicon Valley hasn't had a real, honest-to-goodness downturn since the dot-com bust. That was 17 years ago! Probably most people now working in the valley weren't even around when that happened.

That's the funny thing about cycles—they usually repeat when nobody remembers the last one.

Most people have no idea the sorts of excesses that are happening in the tech world. I don't either, but I have spies.

About a year ago, a friend of mind visited LinkedIn headquarters, went to their cafeteria, and told me of the incredible opulence there. The types of luxuries that are available to people in Northern California… you or I cannot even conceive of it.

Having Said That

It's hard to argue that things haven't gotten excessive, especially in startup financing (seed and pre-seed). Seems like all you need is a pitch deck and a dream, and you have yourself a $10 million valuation.

The old-timers know that's not normal.

The old-timers know there is a cycle.

The Fed keeping interest rates at emergency levels has allowed this to go on a lot longer than it should have. The down part of this cycle will be instructive, for a lot of people.

And I hate to pick on the FANG stocks, because at least they make money (more or less).

Even if you're not bearish on the overall market, I would bet strongly on tech underperformance. It seems likely that value will strongly outperform growth, for the foreseeable future.

That one is easy enough to implement.

Meet Jared Dillian, former Wall Street trader, fearless contrarian, and maybe the most original investment analyst and writer today. His weekly newsletter, The 10th Man , will not just make you a better investor—it's also truly addictive. Get it free in your inbox every Thursday.</s>NEW DELHI: After the Donald Trump administration's intended tightening of the work visa rules that has come as a blow to the Indian IT companies , the US government’s latest announcement to delay the so-called "startup" visa could impact Indian entrepreneurs . The visa programme was approved in January by the then Barack Obama administration and was meant to allow foreign entrepreneurs who started companies in the US to live in that country — a longstanding demand of the Silicon Valley. It was supposed to come into effect on July 17.Immigrants have started more than half of US startups valued at $1 billion dollars or more, and are key members of either management or product development teams in more than 70% of these companies, according to a 2016 study by the National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP), a US-based non-profit nonpartisan public policy think tank. Out of these, people of Indian origin have founded almost 30%.Indian-American technology entrepreneur and academic Vivek Wadhwa called the policy “brain-dead” and a “lose-lose” for the US. “Without doubt, bringing in entrepreneurs creates American jobs and expands the economy, it is the closest thing there could be to a free lunch for the United States. This is a lose-lose for the US and for the entrepreneurs who would have come here but it will benefit the countries where they would have come from.”Wadhwa, who is a Fellow at Carnegie Mellon University Engineering in Silicon Valley, added that countries such as India and the rest of the world could gain from this. “This is the type of brain-dead policy that is becoming a hallmark of the Trump administration. They are pandering to anti-immigrant groups rather than focusing on US competitiveness and economic growth ,” said Wadhwa.As per the NFAP study, 14 Indian-origin entrepreneurs have started billion dollar companies in the US which are collectively valued at $19.6 billion. The foundation had evaluated 87 startup companies valued at over $1 billion as of January 1, 2016, for the study. The Obama administration’s idea was to keep high-calibre talent who come to the US for studies but return to their countries and start businesses that become huge successes.Puru Vashishtha, a Valley-based Indian entrepreneur-investor who studied at Stanford University, said the startup visa would have been great for Indian and Israeli students. “Imagine if Vinod Khosla had to come back to India to work in Infosys. That would have been a big loss for innovation. Unfortunately, it’s already happening now, due to difficulties faced by international students and immigrants to become entrepreneurs. Countries like Canada are taking advantage of it, but they don’t have big enablers that Silicon Valley provides and a big market that US readily provides,” he said.Vashishtha added that he has witnessed the struggle of many of his Stanford friends without the startup visa. “These were highly trained, best minds in the world. They wanted to do product startup in the Valley. Unfortunately, because of being a foreign national, even a top university graduate does not get the same options as rest of her US classmates. This is regressive and it deprives the US from significant value creation and job creation. startup visa was a big hope.”According to a 2012 study, companies founded by immigrants in the US have created more than 10 million jobs and over $4.5 trillion in annual revenue.On Monday, the US Department of Homeland Security issued a memo saying that the rule will now be launched on March 14, 2018 and it will solicit comments from the public about rescinding the rule, and "may ultimately eliminate the program."“Given the real shortage of tech talent in the US, this startup visa would have been a great enabler. It has the potential to take the innovation to the next level. This move to cancel it is a big setback,” said Vashishtha.</s>SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA--(Marketwired - July 10, 2017) - Integrated Device Technology, Inc. (IDT) (NASDAQ:IDTI) today announced that it has selected four young, deserving students who will each receive the IDT STEM Scholarship to help finance their post-secondary studies. IDT's "Acts of Giving" corporate responsibility initiative partners with local organizations that make a difference by providing guidance and support to young people who face varying degrees of challenges. These four scholarships have been initiated through a partnership with the Silicon Valley Children's Fund and TeenForce (www.svcf.org/teenforce.org). Silicon Valley Children's Fund (SVCF) and TeenForce are 501(c)(3) nonprofits committed to improving educational, career, and life outcomes for foster youth. SVCF has provided over $3M in scholarship dollars to foster care youth in the Silicon Valley.

"IDT chose Silicon Valley Children's Fund and TeenForce as one of its causes not only because of the invaluable work they do in helping foster youth, but also because of its focus on helping young people who are interested in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) as a career path," stated Greg Waters, president and CEO at IDT. "As a technology corporation, IDT is gratified to be able to help young people pursue their education both through financial and mentoring support."

"The Silicon Valley Children's Fund and TeenForce are very pleased to have the support of IDT to further our efforts in helping young people realize their dreams" Stated Sherri Brooks, Senior Manager of Higher Education Pathways. "These scholarships, as well as the offer from IDT to mentor the students, indicate a real commitment from the company to change the trajectory of disadvantaged youth in Silicon Valley."

The IDT "Acts of Giving" program partners with various community-based programs and charities throughout the US. Kristina Bullock, principal HR business partner and community relations manager at IDT, explains "The primary focus is on charitable organizations with a STEM component where the employees of IDT can also become personally involved in volunteering as well as mentoring in addition to the financial support IDT provides."

Integrated Device Technology, Inc. develops system-level solutions that optimize its customers' applications. IDT's market-leading products in RF, high performance timing, memory interface, real-time interconnect, optical interconnect, wireless power, and smart sensors are among the company's broad array of complete mixed-signal solutions for the communications, computing, consumer, automotive and industrial segments. Headquartered in San Jose, Calif., IDT has design, manufacturing, sales facilities and distribution partners throughout the world. IDT stock is traded on the NASDAQ Global Select Stock Market® under the symbol "IDTI." Additional information about IDT can be found at www.IDT.com. Follow IDT on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube.

© 2017, Integrated Device Technology, Inc. IDT and the IDT logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Integrated Device Technology, Inc., and its worldwide subsidiaries. All other brands, product names and marks are or may be trademarks or registered trademarks used to identify products or services of their respective owners.</s>Silicon Valley may not be where you’d expect to find a group of investors keen to protect the environment. That’s just where Pope Francis has found them, though.

The Laudato Si Startup Challenge, launched earlier this year, offers money and mentorship to entrepreneurs working to make the world a better place. Read more</s>In an effort that could undermine foreign entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley, the Trump Administration has delayed the roll out of a program allowing immigrant founders to obtain provisional startup visas.

Silicon Valley tech advocates say the move will send an unwanted message to future startup pioneers and risk the region’s long-term competitiveness.

“This is unquestionably a setback for the United States in the global race for talent – we should be encouraging innovators to bring their new ideas, expertise, and unique skills to our country, rather than incentivizing them to put their talents to work for our competitors abroad,” said Todd Schulte, president of FWD.us, an immigration advocacy group backed by the tech industry.

The International Entrepreneurship Rule, or IER, was proposed by the Obama administration last year to let foreign investors stay in the U.S. for up to five years, provided they have a track record and business plan for expanding here.

The visa requires a founder to have substantial ownership in a company less than five years old, at least $250,000 in funding or otherwise “provide a significant public benefit to the United States.”

The program was scheduled to open next week, but the Trump administration will delay it until at least March 2018. The president built his political platform around immigration reform and curbing the number of visas allowing for the flow of foreign visitors for study and business. The administration is also considering changes to the H-1B visa program for skilled workers.

A study by the National Foundation for American Policy found more than half of the startups valued over $1 billion have at least one foreign-born founder. The list includes Silicon Valley moguls Elon Musk and Sergey Brin, among many others.

The Department of Homeland Security estimated that 2,900 entrepreneurs, mainly from countries such as India, Brazil and Russia, would apply for the program.</s>To have a giant's strength, but it is tyrannous to use it like a giant.

Google, Facebook, Amazon, and the rest of Silicon Valley are on top of the world. They’ve never enjoyed more success or influence. Yet at the peak of their power, they are stepping on the political accelerator in a way that could backfire spectacularly.

On Wednesday, political activists are planning a “Day of Action” to support the Obama-era Federal Communications Commission regulations that turned the Internet into a public utility. The activist groups oppose the new FCC’s proposal to reapply the light-touch and highly successful rules that governed the Internet for the past three decades. Although much of Silicon Valley opposed the FCC’s surprise effort in early 2015 to invoke the heavy-handed “Title II” rules, they are now supporting the partisan Day of Action.

The tech firms’ support for highly partisan and ideological activism comes at a crucial time. Silicon Valley’s gigantism is making lots of people nervous. Many economists are worried about over-concentration and the possible need to constrain or even break up the largest tech firms. At the very time one might think technology firms would be resisting micromanagement from Washington, however, they are instead inviting politicians to get more involved in the technology business. Is this a wildly clever play we don’t yet understand, or a massive blunder?

The largest five tech titans now boast a combined market value of $2.84 trillion. Google and Facebook account for 70% of the $73 billion spent on online advertising and generate some 80% of online referral traffic. Apple still rules the mobile world, and Amazon, Google, and Microsoft dominate the rapidly growing business of cloud computing.

As large as these firms are, however, they are preparing to grow much bigger. Google is a major player in autonomous vehicles. Apple is getting into health care. And Amazon is making huge plays in food, pharmacy, and, well, everything else.
Visas given to potential entrepreneurs who are foreigners will be significantly reduced prompting fears and criticism from Silicon Valley. Many of those given visas are from India.