The Agenda Setters: Bush's advisor calls for more visas and more tech exports

More IT visas for foreigners and fewer restrictions on IT exports will feature strongly in George W. Bush's presidential election campaign, according to one of his key advisors.

Tom Engibous, chief executive of Texas Instruments and technology advisor to the man tipped to win today's Republican Party nomination, told silicon.com that he wants Bush to relax export controls on technology, and boost the number of visas available to foreign IT professionals.

In silicon.com's Agenda Setters programme, Engibous said: "First of all, I think the ability to get skilled, technical labour is very important around the world. It's a very big problem in the US today."

He added that in the short-term, he's recommending that more Masters and PhD candidates are encouraged to join the US workforce. That measure would be intended primarily to entice IT professionals from Asian countries

Engibous said the issue of US export controls also ranks high on the agenda, and he's advocating a relaxation of the laws. "Those laws cannot keep up with the technology that we're producing, and it's holding us back in exporting those types of things."

Engibous added that DSP (Digital Signal Processor) chips and analogue technologies will be crucial in making this the "decade of the internet".

For the entire Agenda Setter interview, see our Telecoms Channel (http://www.silicon.com/a38915 ).