Brain circulation

I wanted to share this article from the New York Times. It's about second generation children of US immigrants that move back to their parents' home country to start new and innovative businesses. The profiles several young people, all from BRIC countries (minus the "R"--Russia), that have traveled back and created "Creative Class" type companies, those that we more often than not associate with Silicone Valley, Austin, San Diego, or Boston.

The article introduced a term that was new to me: brain circulation. This concept moves us beyond a world that is globalized for manufactured products and ideas. People and networks are globalized. It's not merely about the brain drain of young, ambitious, well-educated away from other countries into the US anymore, but the free movement of people and their ideas (and entrepreneurial spirit) around different countries, continuously circulating back and forth and all around. Pretty powerful stuff.

Some of my friends have gone this route of back-migration, to Hong Kong, Vietnam and elsewhere. Will they ever be back to the US? Who knows; to be frank, I don't think they know either. This quote from the article sums it up:

"Ms. Tran said she did not know how long she would remain abroad. She said she was open to various possibilities, including moving to another foreign country, living a life straddling China and the United States or remaining permanently in China. "

Perhaps this says something more about the condition of innovation and opportunity in the US more than anything else. The recession in the US is casting a long shadow across the the country, in more ways than one. For young, global-minded people for whom borders are only the creation of political machinations, there is less reason to stay in the US now. And with the recovery--if you can call it that--trudging ever so slowly along, it is hard to blame them.