2023 Open AVENUES ANNUAL RePORT
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I am entering 2024 with a strengthened conviction in our mission, driven by the growth and impact of programming across our organization. This year, participation in our Fellowship program nearly tripled to 143 Fellows, allowing us to offer more than 663 students access to our educational programming – surpassing all of our goals for the year.
As we celebrate this growth, we must also acknowledge the impact that global conflicts had on immigration to the United States over the last year. War and political upheavals in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East left many in dire situations and threatened the safety and security for millions around the world.
For U.S. companies, a new demand to support U.S. contractors and employees to the U.S. from these regions emerged, emphasizing the need for companies to have mechanisms to mobilize their talent abroad when needed. We were thrilled to be a solution for more than 5 companies bringing employees to the U.S. from Ukraine, Russia, and Israel. We know our work is more important than ever before.
With increasing demand for our program, we spent a lot of time this year thinking about the future for our organization. Over the past five years we established a solid track record as a cap-exempt H-1B organization, adding value to U.S. colleges and universities while creating pathways for global talent to build careers and companies in the U.S. The demand for alternate H-1B visa solutions, immigrant talent, and education programming for university students is at an all-time high, and we’re working tirelessly to keep up with that demand.
We are thrilled to announce that heading into 2024, we will be launching The Build Fellowship,
by Open Avenues Foundation. This solution is more streamlined and has the potential to scale beyond where we ever could have dreamed we would be when we founded OAF in 2018. We’re taking the Global Talent Fellowship and the Careers Pathway Program to the next level. This initiative has limitless potential to solve some of the most pressing issues in immigration and education.
As we look to 2024, our focus remains on leveraging the potential of immigrants to make an indelible impact on student career outcomes and hallmark contributions to American ingenuity. Every story we hear from students, hiring managers, and foreign talent is the bedrock of our mission.
I extend my deepest thanks to each of you: Our company partners, Fellows, donors, and team, for your unwavering support and belief in our vision. Together, we are not just navigating a changing world, we are shaping it for the better.
Here's to continuing our journey and building in 2024 and beyond.
Warm regards,
Danielle Goldman
Co-founder and Executive Director
Open Avenues Foundation
Filling Talent Gaps of Today:
We fill the talent gaps of today through our immigration program, which opens pathways for foreign national innovators, entrepreneurs and experts from around the world to stay and work in the U.S.
Building the Workforce of Tomorrow:
While we build the workforce of tomorrow by hiring global talent to train students from our partner colleges and universities for jobs in high-demand fields throughout the country.
For more than 5 years, Open Avenues Foundation, a cap-exempt H-1B nonprofit organization, has provided U.S. universities and the diverse students they serve access to top global talent across the fastest growing industries in STEM and Business. Open Avenues’ program model builds the workforce of tomorrow at colleges and universities all across the country and creates career pathways for foreign talent today. Our impact is seen across the country.
As we look to the future, the growing demand for programming likes ours is ever-increasing. Now, we’re taking our model nationwide: we’re partnering with nonprofits across the country to proliferate the impact already generated at Open Avenues Foundation through launching The Build Fellowship.
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The Build Fellowship is a nationwide cap-exempt H-1B fellowship offered to foreign nationals, seeking to grow careers and businesses in the United States.
They are hired through a nonprofit organization, such as Open Avenues Foundation, to contribute to the mission’s and , and the economic success of the U.S. by opening career pathways for the future workforce. By “open sourcing” our model, The Build Fellowship will act as an immigration business, while placing foreign talent with cap-exempt nonprofits across the country through a licensing agreement.
In fact, by 2025, the U.S. will need 3.5 million workers in STEM fields like computing and engineering. Foreign talent can play a pivotal role in filling this gap, but they face significant barriers to entry, including a highly-restrictive U.S. immigration system.
Our model seeks to address this talent gap while simultaneously bolstering U.S. job seekers odds of success. How? We constructed a cap-exempt H-1B visa model that allows foreign nationals to work part time for Open Avenues Foundation training U.S. students while concurrently receiving a second visa to work at their full-time U.S. employer on a cap-exempt H-1B visa. Immigration solutions that serve foreign nationals and U.S. college students. It’s a win-win, and we believe it is critical to maintain a thriving U.S. economy.
SOURCES
https://www.axios.com/2023/08/29/us-economy-immigration-laborhttps://www.cato.org/blog/family-employment-green-card-backlog-exceeds-9-million
https://www.cato.org/policy-analysis/why-legal-immigration-nearly-impossible
Immigrant talent plays a substantial role in the national economy, contributing an impressive $1.3 trillion in spending power while only comprising 14% of the population.
Highlighting this impact, our 143 Open Avenues Fellows alone have added approximately $17.5 million to the U.S. GDP. This contribution underscores the significant economic potential of providing opportunities for immigrants to actualize their ideas and talents.
Our fellows have demonstrated remarkable achievements, including discovering new drugs to cure cancer, closing series A rounds of upwards of $20M, and expanding businesses by more than 30%. Additionally, another fellow pioneered new hydrogen technology, enhancing the viability of cleaner fuel options for the U.S. transportation sector.
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Experiential learning is highly valued for its ability to prepare college students for the job market by providing practical understanding and application of academic concepts in real-world settings. The tangible benefits of this learning approach serve as a driving force behind Open Avenues Foundation mission.
Education is the bedrock of Open Avenues Foundation’s model.
Foreign national innovators, entrepreneurs, and experts come to the U.S., lead experiential learning projects within their area of expertise, and students from our partner schools sign-up to complete these challenging projects over 6 and 8 week courses. These projects are wholly developed and run by the world’s brightest minds across fields ranging from mechanical engineering to gene editing.
We expanded to include 12 university partnerships nationwide, from California to New York, providing 190 micro-internships, workshops, and networking events to students.
663 out of 5,454 applicants graduated through our program, gaining confidence, skills, and valuable career opportunities.
Moreover, 96% of participants felt recognized by our programming with 84% forging strong connections with their Build Fellows enhancing their ongoing professional development.
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In Nepal, his home country, he started a design agency right after high school. In 2015, he came to the U.S to pursue his Bachelors. Shritesh already had a penchant for entrepreneurship, so shortly after starting his studies, he met his eventual co-founder, and would create a startup in 2016 on an EAD card. Nowadays, he is
a Senior Software Engineer at Remix Labs.
His first attempt at H-1B wouldn’t be fruitful, and as he applied a second time, his company shortly went under during COVID. Discovering Open Avenues Foundation was an anchor at a time
of increasing uncertainty. It also offered him a platform to leverage his experience and mentor an aspiring professional. Given his background, it was a no-brainer.
He ran a micro-internship called: “Build API Connectors and Web Dashboards”. Through his project, selected students connect multiple web APIs and create data-driven dashboards using a
low-code visual programming environment. Under his mentorship, Wilber Claudio, a student from Queens College, excelled. An aspiring software engineer with a passion for coding and gaming, Wilber brought a fresh, technical perspective to the no-code software platform Remix Labs operates on. His dedication,
above-and-beyond approach and work ethic did not go unnoticed. Shritesh was so impressed by his work, that Wilber became the first junior-level, no-interview hire. Mentoring Wilber and witnessing his growth reinforced the gratifying experience of guiding future tech talents. And, he gained a new
wicked-smart coworker.
Today, Shritesh is awaiting approval for his green card and Wilber is a Remix Labs team member.
It did just that for a recent Queens College college graduate from Long Island.
Wilber was drawn to computer science through his love for gaming, mainly Minecraft, and a hobby of creating and selling scripts. Despite his skill, transitioning from academia to a professional setting was challenging. There was a know-how that seemed alien to him, and he struggled to find opportunities that were well-matched.
After finishing a course on Codepath, it led him to Parker Dewey—which sent him to Open Avenues where he noticed his college was listed as a partner school. This chance encounter came at a crucial juncture, opening doors to practical experience and some much-needed guidance.
He applied for a software engineering micro internship with Remix Labs, which connected him with Build Fellow, Shritesh, who was the Senior Software Engineer. During the course of the micro internship he learned the ropes of Remix Labs, a no-code software that builds and customizes visual flows.
His work ethic and technical prowess impressed Shritesh and eventually, the entire team including the CEO. His seamless integration into the team and familiarity with the platform made his transition from an intern to a full-time Product Engineer at Remix Labs a natural progression (without an interview we might add!).
This story epitomizes the essence of what we want to achieve with Build. It's a story highlighting the power of mentorship, the importance of practical experience, and the transformative impact of supportive networks in navigating career paths. Their journey together signifies personal success and reflects our broader mission: to forge pathways for talent to thrive and contribute meaningfully in the U.S., thereby enriching the fabric of innovation and expertise in STEM industries.
Len Magara, Sr. R&D Engineer at Laborie led a project that called for using SolidWorks to create a conceptual plan of a Mechanical Uroflow Device that’s user-friendly and provides enhanced patient comfort.
Two students in our program joined Len’s project to develop their design skills in the medical device and biotechnology space. The students had to create design concepts through SolidWorks, a 3D CAD Design software, and present it to Len's colleagues, who asked each student questions and provided feedback on their concepts. The micro-internship was structured in a manner that replicated what a week-to-week real-world project would look like. With Len acting as a supervisor, providing directives to an associate or newer team member.
For the final students' presentation, Len had his supervisor join to ensure that the students had feedback and exposure to his company. For a few project sessions, Len had his supervisor join in to ensure that the students had someone more tenured than him be present for broader, industry-related questions. At the same time, he made sure to build a relationship with the students to offer a fresh perspective being on the more technical, research-focused side.
Their presentations exceeded Len’s expectations.
“Working with Len really improved my confidence as an engineer working in a professional environment. Bringing the design processes used in industry into the project and assigning tasks to communicate using the appropriate corporate language was a good experience that I didn't get in college. Len was also a really good resource to bounce design concepts off of.”
“My Open Avenues micro-internship was a unique and valuable experience. I count myself lucky to have worked on a project I was very passionate about by using drafting software I was not very familiar with. Another aspect that made this experience valuable was our project leader, who went above and beyond to make sure we had all the resources available to us, as well as helping with career-related activities. I would highly recommend participating in a micro-internship with Open Avenues, it seems to me that the people and companies selected are willing to help students in any way they can.”
Felix Madutsa was an engineer at Brex by day and an entrepreneur by night. He nurtured the idea of starting his own company until it became a real business he could make a living from: Orb Labs, a multichain solution for software developers. However, he had to leave to Canada as his OPT expired in 2021.
As his start-up became more and more compelling, the risk of him not being able to work on it full-time grew bigger everyday. The wait for his green card was in a holding pattern. It started to look like he wouldn't be able to continue business in the U.S. However, by January 2023 he discovered the Open Avenues’ Build Fellowship. Thanks to the cap-exempt H-1B visa solution, he could fully immerse himself in growing his American business.
As he joined as a Build Fellow at Open Avenues Foundation, Felix designed and led a project to create a dashboard for analyzing performance of Blockchain interoperability protocols. During this project, students designed a web application that monitors costs and processing times of transactions to/from the Ethereum blockchain. It gave students a foundation on how to create cross-chain messaging protocols by following well-written introductions on the GitHub repository. Felix helped students fix bugs in their code, explained every step of the project, and guided each and every student towards a solid understanding of what the daily life of a software engineer looks like. Not to mention, they walked away with a pretty rad skillset in their arsenal: designing and testing decentralized systems to be operable by a regular user. For students greener to the software engineering space, they learned concepts and frameworks like Docker, PostGre SQL and Typescript and gained a rock-solid foundation in Blockchain.
We visited one of our most engaged university partners, Franklin Cummings Tech in Boston, Massachusetts and held a workshop about career development.
It was an open discussion with 15 students, where they candidly shared fears, hopes, expectations about the job search process. Each concern was met with stories and recommendations to help each person approach their respective job searches with more confidence.
We visited one of our most engaged university partners, Franklin Cummings Tech in Boston, Massachusetts and held a workshop about career development.
It was an open discussion with 15 students, where they candidly shared fears, hopes, expectations about the job search process. Each concern was met with stories and recommendations to help each person approach their respective job searches with more confidence.
In 2023, our team worked tirelessly to serve over 150 Fellows across more than 140 companies teaching and mentoring more than 1000 students.
We are comprised of leaders and doers from different backgrounds, nationalities, and skills. We are all united by the core belief that the global flow of skills and expertise is inextricably linked to the economic success of the United States.
As we continue to grow, we’re excited to see what perspective, and solutions, each person brings.
Amy is a social impact consultant helping companies craft strategies and communications around employee engagement, nonprofit partnerships, community involvement, and sustainability.
Marvin Loiseau Ed. D. is Dean of Academics at Benjamin Franklin Institute of Technology (BFIT). Dr. Loiseau began his tenure at BFIT in July 2011 and previously served as Dean of Recruitment.
Leia is the co-founder of EllisX, a startup that connects startups with visibility opportunities. EllisX was inspired by a side project Leia started in order to help change the narrative around immigration in the US by providing visibility for immigrant entrepreneurs.
Nick is an experienced technology business leader and currently Vice President of People Operations at Karat. Nicholas is responsible for creating an enriched workplace environment for top-talent to join and thrive as part of a uniquely inclusive community.
Juan is a Senior Program Manager at Azure Space, Microsoft’s newest team serving the global space industry. In 2021, he graduated from a dual MBA and MS degree program from the Harvard Business School. Additionally, he holds a mechanical engineering undergraduate degree from the University of Texas at El Paso, becoming the first person in his family to graduate from college.
There are incredible people around the world who are an inch away from opportunity, but are not close enough to touch it. Our goal is to bring that opportunity one inch closer to those who seek it, by giving deserving individuals a chance to grow, thrive, and build in the U.S.
Our goals are ambitious and we’re looking to provide the highest quality programming to U.S. students and further enhance both our education and immigration programmatic focus.
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