Powering the U.S. Tech Engine
In 2010, Arean van Veelen, 46, who is originally from the Netherlands, was living comfortably in the Seattle, Washington, area with his wife and a baby on the way when he was faced with a life-changing venture. He had to decide whether or not to take on a risky project with a friend—launching a start-up company.
“If you had asked me that when I was 24, 23 in Holland,” van Veelen says, “I would’ve said that was crazy. I would never do that all at once.”
van Veelen’s older self, however, took the plunge, and with business partner Nick Huzar launched Off erUp in 2011. Th e mobile app offers users an easier way to buy and sell items with friends and neighbors. It has 42 million users, has raised more than $260 million from investors, and is valued at more than $1 billion.
A former information systems management and business graduate student at Ferris State University in Big Rapids, Michigan, van Veelen is one example of the outgrowth of steadily increasing numbers of international students studying in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields.
“I think that international students see the United States as the top place for both studying in science and engineering fields and being able to do cutting- edge research afterwards,” says Stuart Anderson, executive director of the National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP).
This combination of factors has created a fl ow of international students who go on to power the country’s technology and science
