American Bazaar Online's first ever conclave in Bangalore (India) successfully concluded on 1 February, dispelling myths related to tight visa restrictions and limited opportunities available in US post-recession, especially in the IT sector.
Ever since the late 2007 US recession, there has been some insecurity among Indians, regarding the opportunities in America. And the recent law suit on Infosys for visa fraud amounting to $34 million (₹210.38 crore) fine had escalated fears among the techies.
Despite reports of US government's protectionist measures related to implementation of additional taxes on companies outsourcing jobs to foreign countries and formation of new immigration laws (awaiting approval), there is enough encouragement for technically qualified immigrants (with US graduate degree) to avail citizenship, as well as open their start-up firms in the American shore, said experts, who presided the AB Conclave 2014.
One of the eminent global speakers, Dr. Satyam Priyadarshy, founder, Reignite Strategy, Virginia vividly shed light on the future of Information Technology and the opportunities available in the USA.
According to figures, cited by Dr. Priyadarshy, indigenous freelance workers in the USA amounted to a mere 17-percent of the total population. It is touted to reach 40 percent in the next decade and with 18 percent baby boomers set to retire in 2020, there is a dearth of workers in America related to cyber security, social media, application development (for smart devices) and cloud computing.
Dr. Priyadarshy revealed that there is an estimated requirement of more than 350,000 IT professionals (designers, testing (quality), administration and more) in cyber security and big data (database storage management).
Apart from computing-based technology, there is also a need for IT professionals in the field of medicine, said, Jason Harmon, CTO and founding partner, Get Real Health, a pioneer organization in specializing in patients engaging and custom care solutions.
Another star attraction of the AB Conclave 2014 was the Murthy Law Firm founder Sheela Murthy and team. Touted as one of the world's leading legal consultancy company, they detailed the intricacies of the US immigration Visa (H1 B and L1) procedure.
AB Conclave 2014 was also presided by top technology leaders, giving insights on the skill requirements for the future technology challenges. They include SAP Labs India MD, Anirban Dey, Shameer Shariff (founder and CEO, Impelsys Inc.), Nagarjuna S (vice-president, global immigration management services, Wipro Technologies), Robinder Sachdev (founder and president, Imagindia), Manoj Sreenilayam (vice-president, Service delivery, Get Real Health) and Mohammad Yaseen (Director, Capgemini).
