In midst of war, Ukrainians like Misha Shvets keep working in NC tech sector – they deserve our support

Editor’s note: Steve S. Rao is a Council Member and Former Mayor Pro Tem for the Town of Morrisville and served as a Board Member for the New American Economy, now the American Immigration Council. He also serves on the NC League of Municipalities Race and Equity Task Force. Steve is a regular contributor to WRAL TechWire.

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RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK – For the past few weeks, UNC graduate student Misha Shvets has been glued to his phone. When war broke out in Ukraine, the young computer scientist immediately called to warn his mother in his hometown of Dnipro. In the following days he spent long hours comforting her as the air-raid sirens howled, and repeatedly tried to reach his father and young siblings as they fled west to escape the bombs.

Misha’s story underscores that Russian dictator Vladimir Putin’s assault on Ukraine isn’t just a criminal act of war and a humanitarian catastrophe. It’s a disaster that directly impacts the many Ukrainians working in North Carolina’s innovation economy — and it’s yet another reason why the United States needs a skilled-worker system that would help people like Misha stay and work in the United States for as long as they need.

Steve Rao

According to the Ukrainian Association of North Carolina, there are almost 21,000 Ukrainians living in our state, and many came here to study and conduct research at our universities, work at our tech companies, or create startups of their own.

It’s thanks to high-skilled Ukrainian immigrants that we now have companies like Upswot, the Charlotte fintech startup that’s now creating scores of jobs across North Carolina. It’s how America got PayPal, co-founded by a Ukrainian entrepreneur, and A.D.A.M, a biotech company whose Ukrainian founder is making painful bone grafts a thing of the past.

Dnipro is an industrial hub known as “Rocket City” because of its importance to the Soviet space program. Misha grew up speaking Russian, and after high school he moved to Moscow to study applied mathematics. After completing a master’s degree, though, he left Russia behind and moved to the Research Triangle. “American universities are where innovation happens,” he says. “It was just the natural thing for me to do.”

Since arriving in the Triangle four years ago, Misha has been able to work with the world’s top AI experts, creating neural networks that can interpret photos and videos. He’s worked with Nuro, a Silicon Valley startup, creating robots that can deliver groceries without human supervision, and also worked at Facebook and Microsoft to improve the tech giants’ image-recognition and VR tools. If Mark Zuckerberg’s “metaverse” takes off, it’ll be thanks to people like Misha.

The impact doesn’t stop there. Misha has also co-authored a paper adapting his team’s image-processing algorithms to detect whether different molecules could be used to treat illnesses. That could turbo-charge drug development, making it easier to create new pharmaceuticals and stay ahead of fast-evolving diseases.

Misha’s journey — from Ukraine, to Moscow, to Chapel Hill — shows why our state’s innovation economy makes us a global leader. Misha got a good education in Russia, but Putin’s control economy simply can’t compete with the free-wheeling vibrancy of the U.S. private sector.

And yet Misha’s ability to remain in the United States is by no means guaranteed. That’s because it’s incredibly hard for STEM graduates and skilled workers to gain visas here in the United States. The H1B skilled-worker system is literally a lottery, and each year many bright young tech innovators wind up having to return to their home countries because they can’t get visas to stay in the U.S.

Misha Shvets

The White House’s recent expansion of OPT opportunities for STEM graduates is a step in the right direction, and will help many highly skilled international students to find work when they graduate. But with conflict raging in Ukraine, it’s vital that we do more to address this crisis and create a more stable pathway for skilled Ukrainian immigrants to work in the United States.

There are about 200,000 tech workers and IT professionals in Ukraine, and three-quarters of them already work directly with American companies. It’s time to update our skilled-worker visa system, and help U.S. employers to quickly extend job offers both to those already here, and those now fleeing the conflict zone and urgently in need of support.

When he graduates later this year, Misha hopes to help rebuild Ukraine, but he knows that working here — using his skills to help American companies, strengthening Ukraine’s ties to America, and sending money home to his family — might be the best way for him to make a contribution. Whatever he decides, we should ensure that he’s able to easily get a skilled-worker visa that will let him remain and keep on contributing in the United States for as long as he needs.

For now, Misha is praying for his family’s safety. He says he’s proud of the strength they’ve shown, and that he wants to do whatever he can to help them and his compatriots as the war continues. We should do what we can to help, too — both in Ukraine, and by supporting the Ukrainian immigrants who play such a vital role in our state’s innovation economy.