Top tech giants hail PM Modi’s `Digital India` initiative

Modi began his tour of Silicon valley with an interaction with the Indian-American community at the Imperial Ballroom of Hotel Fairmont here.

Sandwiched between his two community events would his visits to the campuses of iconic Tesla, Facebook and Google.

Modi, who is in the United States on the occasion of 70th annual session of the UN General Assembly in New York, will be in the Valley on September 26 and 27.

And tech experts say that is the point.

“Digital India will bring about solutions for the challenge of digital divide”.

“Pichai said, “Mr. Modi has accelerated effort to make India the next driver in innovation” He further added”, India has the fastest growing start-ups in the world. So, that would be an area of interest.

Inviting the tech giants, including Google, Microsoft, Adobe and others to participate, Modi said: “So, from creating infrastructure to services, from manufacture of products to human resource development, from support governments to enabling citizens and promoting digital literacy, Digital India is a vast cyber world of opportunities for you”.

Zoe Lofgren, a Congresswoman posted a video, which stated, “India and the Silicon Valley, shared the ideas of innovation and entrepreneurship”.

The Indian premier will meet Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg and other Internet leaders as he pushes for investment in India’s IT sector, after coming to power in May 2014 pledging to revive India’s flagging economy. “Education and skill development are priorities for us”, he said, adding that India has launched several schemes to empower people. On Sunday, after visiting a wave of marquee campuses in Northern California, Modi will join Facebook’s CEO for an event billed as being filled with “candid and insightful conversation”.

Modi’s California jaunt is a brief detour from his trip to a United Nations summit in New York, where he gave a speech about India’s environmental issues and emissions obligations on Friday.

Thereafter Modi would meet US Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz and participate in a round table on renewable energy – coordinated by the US Department of Commerce and Stanford University. “We want to turn our villages into smart economic hubs and connect our farmers better to markets and makes them less vulnerable to the whims of weather”, he said.

With all the pomp and excitement over Chinese President Xi Jinping’s Seattle visit with technology firms, it’s easy to miss that India’s prime minister is meeting the U.S. tech sector this week.

“Silicon Valley illustrates the stark difference between what Indians can accomplish outside India versus inside”, enterprise messaging app startup Teamchat CEO Beerud Sheth told Quartz.

It could even be used for next year’s Super Bowl, said Tryon, who runs the nonprofit Silicon Valley Office of Protocol.