White House Champions of Change: Seeking Immigrant Innovators and Entrepreneurs

The White House Champions of Change program highlights the stories of people across the country who are strengthening their communities and moving America forward.

In just a few weeks, the White House Office of Public Engagement will host a Champions of Change event focused on immigrant innovators and entrepreneurs – the best and brightest from around the world who are helping create American jobs, grow our economy, and make our nation more competitive.

The facts are clear Immigrants make America more prosperous and entrepreneurial. Immigrants are more than twice as likely to start a business in the United States as the native-born, and more than 40 percent of Fortune 500 companies from GE and Ford to Google and Yahoo! were founded by immigrants or the children of immigrants.

Moreover, immigrants generate extraordinary innovation as scientists and engineers. Immigrants represent 50 percent of PhDs working in math and computer science and 57 percent of PhDs working in engineering. By some estimates, immigration was responsible for one third of the explosive growth in patenting in past decades, and these innovations contributed to increasing U.S. GDP by 2.4 percent.

We are asking for your help to identify immigrant innovators and entrepreneurs who may be "Champions of Change." For example, a champion could be the founder of a growing U.S. company, or a graduate student working on breakthrough research at a U.S. university.

Nominate an immigrant innovator or entrepreneur as a Champion of Change.

(Under "Theme of Service," choose "Immigrant Innovators and Entrepreneurs".)

Please submit nominations no later than 6pm ET on Sunday, May 12.

We also encourage you to learn more about President Obama's plan to fix our broken immigration system and share your own immigration story.