Weekend Entrepreneur Links: Global Edition

by Nathaniel Whittemore · 2010-09-18 15:04:00 UTC
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The news in social entrepreneurship this week is from all around the world. Sustained questions of how America will enable talented immigrants to build companies and lives on our shores appear in the Economist; a profile of a Middle Eastern venture capitalist making the region safe for startups makes it to TechCrunch, and more in this Weekend Entrepreneur Links.

Importing Job Growth: This piece in the Economist is yet another smart argument against our stupid immigration policies which make it difficult for the world's most talented to come here to work, or even worse stay here after investing four years in a degree program. There are all sorts of sensible ways to fix these problems  -- including programs like the Startup Visa that would carve a portion of an existing class of visa to give founders of venture-backed companies time to build their businesses here. Alas, "sensible" tends not to enter the immigration debate these days.

Entrepreneur to Entrepreneur: Meet the Ron Conway of the Middle East: Ron Conway is a legend in Silicon Valley. He is the godfather of the new class of "superangels" - highly active seed stage investors who are disrupting the traditional model of early stage venture financing. This interview, conducted by Social Gaming Network and seed investor Shervin Pishevar, profiles Fadi Ghandour (pictured above), a Jordanian entrepreneur who is now parlaying his success into investments and mentorship for new ventures in the broader Middle East.

The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation Commits $500,000 to Astia: A few weeks ago, I wrote a post about women in social and technology entrepreneurship. There is a perennial conversation about why there aren't more women in entrepreneurial fields. Luckily, there are also organizations like Astia who are more interested in providing resources to change the situation rather than just discuss the reasons for the status quo, and funders like the Kauffman Foundation who are willing to give those organizations the support they need.

Giving Pledges by Rich Disclosed: The Shanghai Daily reported last week that, in advance of a visit by Warren Buffet and Bill Gates, more than 100 Chinese multimillionaires had committed to giving away a significant portion of their wealth -- or in some cases, all of it -- to charity. Chen Guangbiao, worth about $440m, has been a leader in organizing his countrymen to the pledge, committing his entire fortune to charity before he dies.

Photo credit: Joi

Nathaniel Whittemore is the founder of Assetmap. Previously he was the founding director of the Northwestern University Center for Global Engagement.
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