From East Berlin to the Innovation Capital of the World

Jonas Korlach is being honored as a Champion of Change for his accomplishments as an immigrant entrepreneur and innovator.

In 1989, at age 16, I walked with my grandmother through the Berlin Wall at the Brandenburg Gate just after it was opened. The sense of freedom and possibility seemed limitless for the first time in my life. While I stayed in my home in East Berlin for a few more years to finish school, earning my B.A. and then M.S. degrees in Biological Sciences from Berlin’s Humboldt University, my interest in developing new methods and technologies for genetic research ultimately drew me to the United States.

The United States is seen around the world as a place where big ideas are welcome, and encouraged. The nation’s academic institutions and government investment in basic research are esteemed across the globe.  Coupled with the enterprising drive found in this country, the U.S. is perhaps the most encouraging environment in the world for inventors, innovators, and entrepreneurs.

Ultimately, I was drawn here by the caliber of research within the nation’s university system.  After participating in a high school exchange program and a few summer internships, I moved to America in 1997 as a graduate student in Cornell University’s molecular biology Ph.D. program. It was in Ithaca where I met a physics graduate student, Stephen Turner, who was interested in solving the same challenge as I was—how to observe individual enzyme molecules that synthesize DNA, the genetic blueprint of life, in real time.  In collaboration with our advisors, we invented a revolutionary DNA sequencing technology, the first in the world capable of capturing real-time movies of the behavior of these minute single molecules, reading the order, or sequence, of the building blocks of DNA in the process.

With the help of many people, the current commercial product of our invention, the PacBio RS II, is a machine that is advancing the understanding of infectious disease, microbiology, agriculture, and complex genetic diseases. Based on the Single Molecule, Real-Time (SMRT) Sequencing technology we invented at Cornell, the product is the capstone of a publicly traded company that now employs nearly 300 people in the U.S.  Appropriately based in Silicon Valley, our company employs a wide range of highly specialized scientists and engineers from disciplines including molecular biology, enzymology, surface chemistry, bioinformatics, nanofabrication, and optics, alongside marketing, sales, manufacturing and other staff to support our R&D and commercial operations.

Remaining here hasn’t been without its obstacles—obstacles that many of today’s foreign-born science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) graduates must overcome.  I was fortunate enough to have the support of a U.S. Congresswoman who spoke up on my behalf to help me secure a temporary residency visa in 2004. But what happens to all of the bright foreign students who are not as lucky as I was? Currently, the U.S. is short on so many native-born graduate students pursuing STEM degrees that by 2018, the country is projected to have 230,000 jobs requiring graduate-level STEM training that it will not be able to fill with native-born workers.  Encouraging high-skilled workers from around the world to fill these gaps not only helps them realize their dreams, but also helps support the U.S. economy and the nation’s interests in being the innovation capital of the world.

When the Berlin Wall came down, I felt like anything was possible.  But it was only here in the United States where those dreams became reality.  Since arriving in 1997, I have earned my Ph.D., been granted 33 U.S. patents, and helped build a company that is on the cutting edge of genetic research. In 2011, I was honored to be present as the PacBio RS was installed in a top research institution in Germany, an event that drew the attendance of VIP guest Chancellor Angela Merkel. I stood next to her, an East German herself and a physicist by training, as she insisted on being the first person to start the machine. It was a historic moment in Germany that was in part made possible by a historic moment 22 years before, when a wall came down and opened the possibilities for me to participate in the American Dream.  Today I am immensely grateful for the opportunities I have been given in this country, and to be honored as a Champion of Change.

Jonas Korlach is Chief Scientific Officer of Pacific BioSciences.

Building Wealth in Immigrant Communities

John Herrera is being honored as a Champion of Change for his accomplishments as an immigrant entrepreneur and innovator.

I am honored to be named a White House Champion of Change. I am an immigrant from Costa Rica and like so many people around the world, I have always admired the spirit of Americans.  I also know from experience that Latinos possess a strong entrepreneurial spirit. So, when I become a U.S. citizen on July 4, 1999, I felt it was my civic duty to help other immigrant families succeed and to help further strengthen this great country.

My work to foster entrepreneurship and greater economic opportunity for Latino families in North Carolina dates to the mid-1990s. While at the Duke Center for International Studies, I observed first-hand the rapid growth of the immigrant population in North Carolina, especially among working-class, low-income Latinos.  This new and largely unbanked population experienced cultural and language barriers to accessing financial services.  Most mainstream financial institutions did not view Latino immigrants as promising potential clients due to lack of credit history and low account balances.  This fed a reliance on cash that resulted in increased crime against Latinos, as they were viewed as “walking banks.”  I began looking for a grassroots response to the problem, gathering state and local leaders, community advocates, and the credit union community.

The outcome of these collaborations was the creation of the Latino Community Credit Union (LCCU), a full service, bilingual financial institution. Starting with one branch in Durham, LCCU has become a trusted and safe place for Latinos to save money, access affordable credit, buy homes, start businesses, and build wealth for the future.  We provide a full range of affordable and innovative products and services typically unavailable to low-income immigrants, such as bilingual staff, deposit and transaction accounts, loans, remittance services to Latin America, and a comprehensive financial literacy program. 

The need for our services has been demonstrated by our growth.  LCCU is now the largest Latino-focused credit union in the country with 55,000 member-owners and ten branches across North Carolina. We positively impact individuals and families and help create safer and more economically stable communities—a recent University of Virginia Darden School of Business study attributed a 3.8% increase in property taxes, a 4.2% overall decrease in crime, and the appreciation of $9.8 billion in taxable real estate value to the presence of LCCU branches.  With LCCU’s proven record of maintaining very low delinquency rates as compared to its peers, we have become a national model for financial institutions seeking to serve unbanked, immigrant communities.  Now we have begun serving immigrants and refugees from more countries, such as Myanmar, Bhutan, and Kenya, who encounter similar issues integrating into the U.S. financial system.

In my role as Vice President of Latino/Hispanic Affairs for the Center for Community Self-Help, I am well situated to explore new financial strategies to help low income families become more financially stable. Self-Help is a family of nonprofit organizations whose mission is to create and protect ownership and economic opportunity for all, and is one of the largest Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) in the country.  Self-Help is a highly successful innovator, and our entrepreneurial culture has continued to inspire me to push LCCU to greater heights.  My passion is to positively engage with people in all walks of life so that we can better understand and help each other. 

In addition to my work at LCCU and Self-Help, I served for two terms on the Town of Carrboro’s Board of Aldermen, and I was the first immigrant to win a municipal election in North Carolina.  I also helped found El Pueblo, Inc., a statewide Latino policy organization; El Centro Latino, a community-based organization; and the National Association for Latino Community Asset Builders, a coalition of over 90 organizations operating in 32 states to help build community assets and family wealth in immigrant communities.  I also am forever grateful for the superb education I’ve received here—an M.S. from North Carolina State University and a B.S. from the University of Delaware.

My parents taught me that we need to help others with whatever talents God gave us. I think my talent lies in my desire to help people and to bring people together to figure out how to effect meaningful change.  As a naturalized U.S. citizen, I am proud of both my heritage and my U.S. citizenship as I work to help effect positive change that helps all of our families and communities.

John Herrera is Co-Founder of the Latino Community Credit Union.

Transforming the World Through Software

Riddhiman Das is being honored as a Champion of Change for his accomplishments as an immigrant entrepreneur and innovator.

I was born and raised in a town of about a million people at the foothills of the Himalayan Mountains in India. I first used a computer when I was seven years old, and I realized that humankind was about to be transformed by the Information Technology revolution—and that software was going to change a lot about how we had been doing things for the past few millennia. I knew I wanted to play a part in this revolution, and I decided that I was going to one day be a computer scientist and do my bit to help people use technology in their lives.

My father was born in a remote village a few hundred miles away, worked his way through school, and eventually trained to be a hematologist at the University of Cambridge.  He was a living inspiration of what hard work and perseverance could achieve. He had always encouraged me to come to the United States to pursue my dream, since here is where most of the innovation in software happened. When he died when I was 14, my mother, a rheumatologist, stepped up, and with the help and guidance of a few family and close friends, I got into an American college and came over to pursue my goal of transforming the world through software.

During my college years, I got acquainted with the Kansas City technology entrepreneurship community, and I knew I could make a difference through my skills here. I co-founded my first company, Dr. Peet’s Software, with the goal of developing mobile software that would help children and young adults with developmental disabilities learn basic literacy skills. About a year later, I started Talent Helix, a company whose mission was to use social networks to help people find opportunities. The grand vision of Talent Helix was that college students and under-employed people in the community would use the service to find jobs and part time gigs while working full time or being a student. While Talent Helix never gained much traction, the experience taught me a lot about entrepreneurship, and more importantly, about Kansas City’s high-tech entrepreneurial community. I realized that while this community had its strengths, it also had a few major weaknesses.  One such weakness was an acute shortage of tech talent, and I started thinking about ways I could contribute to solving that problem.

With this in mind, I went on to intern, and later work remotely part-time, at a few companies in California and New York City, where the best and the brightest tech talent always seemed to go.  While there, I observed first-hand the processes and workings of several successful tech companies, both big and small. These jobs and internships gave me an opportunity to work on cutting edge technologies that led to my filing of three patents, and learn from the people who write some of the most popular software programs we use every day.

After a very rewarding year of doing this, I felt it was time to see if I could use these experiences to make a difference in the Kansas City tech community—and so I started Galleon Labs, a software consulting company that would handle the technical needs of any tech venture in the city, and hopefully eventually the entire Midwestern region. In just over 13 months of existence, we’ve developed the core products of over 21 different companies from the region. We’ve developed software to improve and maintain pharmaceutical drug adherence, web and mobile applications for pediatricians to keep track of patients away from the clinic, and computer vision applications for digital agencies to measure the effectiveness of their ad campaigns, among many other very interesting and challenging projects. My proudest moment was being able to hire one of my fellow graduates and one of my favorite professors from college.

Lately, I've also been heavily involved with EyeVerify, where we’ve commercialized a software-only, biometric method for verifying the identity of mobile users called 'Eyeprints.' The Eyeprint Verification System is based on the unique vein patterns in the whites of your eyes, and has fingerprint-level accuracy. Eyeprints require only the existing camera in a smartphone, so the system is not dependent on expensive fingerprint or iris scanning hardware. The patented technology is a major advancement in biometric authentication and is the only approach that uses built-in cameras within mobile devices to image and pattern-match the unique veins in the whites of users’ eyes, ensuring highly accurate, fast, and convenient security.

I often think of how different my journey would have been if I did not have to struggle with immigration laws. After I graduated college, I was planning on working for a major software company, but couldn't because my work authorization was denied for a very minor typographical error in the paperwork. As a result, in order to continue to be in the country, I had to exit the country and pursue my entrepreneurial and technical activities while also attending graduate school in the U.S. The United States has been at the forefront of technological and entrepreneurial innovation for decades, and it is my most earnest hope that legislators realize the immense value that highly-skilled immigrants bring into the country, so that the United States can remain in that spot for many years to come.

Riddhiman Das is Founder of Galleon Labs.