Skip to content

How to prove an original contribution in IT

Key answer

The working scheme from the chat: you are at the top of the industry, the industry has a problem, you solve it, many people in the industry use your solution without knowing you, and it has innovative features compared with alternatives. One member closed the criterion with his own popular open-source projects, proving it with download, install and site-visit statistics and examples of use by well-known companies. A great product used by customers is usually a role, not a contribution; a solution used only inside a company, even a huge one, is hard to show as an industry contribution - dissemination is needed. For NDA libraries and for journalists the contribution is shown through recommendation letters from those who used your work, and you still have to prove novelty.

Community answers

The answers below are translated from the original Russian - the language of the community chats.

  • I closed the contribution criterion with open-source projects. I have my own popular projects, not contributions to someone else's. It was proven through statistics such as downloads, installations, website traffic, and examples of usage by well-known global companies. Additionally, two articles in major publications and three in specialized ones, three scientific publications, three judging positions, one national award, and a critical role in three foreign organizations.

  • The contribution algorithm: there's an industry where you are at the top; this industry has a problem that many face; you somehow solve this problem; many others in your industry use your solution, even without knowing you personally; your solution has several unique and innovative features compared to similar ones. In this scheme, a contribution can be recognized.

  • For us IT professionals, contribution is what other IT professionals use. If you create cool software or a platform used by end-users or businesses, it is often not considered a contribution, but rather a role. It's interesting how this will work with an API or library under NDA: it seems that a recommendation letter from other developers can show the contribution. They use it, so it's a contribution.

  • I doubt it. In calls, the focus has always been on the fact that the contribution should be to the industry, not just to the company, and showing dissemination is mega important. Here lies a dilemma: it seems the company is huge, but it's still within the company. Even with this, you still need to prove innovation, uniqueness, and that specifically your contribution was a driving force, to avoid being told it was just your job.

  • There is a suggestion that proving contribution to the industry in your case may be helped by recommendations from within the industry: from colleagues who began to do the same after your work, from editors and managers who learned something from it. This is the influence on the field, not on just one company.

The answers are anonymized community experience from the public chats, not legal advice. Officers may decide similar cases differently.

Why "Original contribution" gets refused

Accepted in 4% of challenged petitions (9 of 209); not an approval rate.

The contribution is not shown to be of MAJOR significance to the field. Good work, even cited work, does not establish it: the influence must extend beyond your employer and your project.

All refusal grounds and the sample

Sources

All questions on: Original contributionAll questions on: IT professionalsAll questions on: EB-1AAll questions on: O-1 visa

Related on this site

Similar questions

A reference page built from community experience, not legal advice. Requirements and practice change - verify on uscis.gov.

Did this answer help?