Mar 9, 2021
In this episode of Immigration Law for Tech Startups, I’m absolutely thrilled to be joined by
Navroop Sahdev, a pioneering economist and blockchain expert, who has already achieved so much early in her career: She’s the founder and CEO of The Digital Economist, a Connection Science Fellow at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a partner at NextGen Venture Partners, an early-stage venture capital firm.
Navroop shares her immigration journey. “I never imagined I would ever be out of India—even for a visit,” she says, describing her upbringing in Punjab. Then “I remember how frustrated I was in India. When I was 19 years old, I started looking into going overseas.”
Navroop also shares her thoughts on U.S. immigration policy and what entrepreneurs need to do. “Talent is equally distributed in the world, but opportunity is not. That’s where the reform needs to happen,” she says. “I’m optimistic with a new administration reforming a 200-year-old system.”
To immigrate to the U.S., she needed to figure out what extraordinary skills she possessed and could contribute, first on an O-1 extraordinary ability visa and then for an EB-1A extraordinary ability green card. “[W]hat was missing [in the blockchain space] was an economist bringing insights or building the next economic systems of the future,” she says. “That became my differentiating value proposition and that’s the type of thing you need for O-1 or EB-1.”
Please share this episode with aspiring entrepreneurs, startup founders, or anyone who can benefit from it. Reach out to us if we can help you determine your immigration options whether you’re in the U.S. or abroad.
Don’t miss my upcoming conversations with other top technology thought leaders, venture capitalists, startup founders, professors, and futurists on Immigration Law for Tech Startups. Subscribe to this podcast here or on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or whatever your favorite platform is. We welcome your rating and review!
The Digital Economist’s Entrepreneur in Training program; sign up to The Digital Economist’s mailing list for the latest info on this program and others
Alcorn Immigration Law publications and courses:
TechCrunch column:
What everyone at a startup needs to know about immigration
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