Although the September 27 community reception for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at San Jose’s SAP Centre arena had already been oversubscribed by nearly 27,000 seats, requests for event passes were still flooding in “in large numbers every day,” according to event organisers, the Indo American Community of the West Coast (IACWC).
While many among the 45,000 initial aspiring registrants for the event would be disappointed given that the arena can only seat 18,000, some are likely to find cheer in Mr. Modi’s announcement over the weekend that he would be holding a “town-hall style Q&A” from the headquarters of Facebook alongside the Silicon Valley company’s founder, Mark Zuckerberg.
In a Facebook post Mr. Zuckerberg appeared to mirror the sense of anticipation felt by members of the diaspora in the Bay Area when he said, “I'm excited to announce that Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India will be visiting Facebook HQ later this month for a Townhall Q&A. Prime Minister Modi and I will discuss how communities can work together to address social and economic challenges.”
He added that after his meeting with Mr. Modi in India last year it was “an honour to have the chance to host him here at Facebook,” and that the live video of the Q&A would be posted on Facebook and on the Prime Minister’s web page.
Meanwhile leaders of the Indian-American community appeared to view Mr. Modi’s events in California as an opportunity to invigorate ties with India and take conversations on technology and the economy to a new level.
Speaking of the broader hopes and expectations from Mr. Modi’s trip Prakash Bhalerao, a high-tech entrepreneur and venture capitalist, said, “We are excited that we finally have a government in India that is focusing on the growth and development of the country. The Prime Minister’s visit to the Silicon Valley signifies a much needed change in the Indian government’s come through innovation and technology.”
Similarly Vinod Dham, who IACWC described as the “father of the Pentium Chip” said that Mr. Modi’s visit was significant as Silicon Valley was the epi-centre of innovation and “There is excitement in the Indian diaspora about the change that Modi has brought in India and a feeling that things can be brought back on track.”
The prospect of the Prime Minister’s presence in the Valley appeared to underscore the strong links that the diaspora community has within the tech ecosystem there, a fact that IACWC emphasised as it quoted a Stanford University study showing that Indian-Americans had founded more technology companies than immigrants born in the next top seven immigrant-founder-sending countries combined, specifically that the percentage of companies founded by an Indian-Americans at 33.1 was more than four times the next highest percentage by an immigrant group, Chinese-Americans at 8.1 per cent.
Further, IACWC noted that numerous professional bodies such as The Indus Entrepreneurs, Global Indian Technology Professionals, various alumni groups of different Indian Institute of Technology, National Institute of Technology, Indian Institute of Science and many Indian employee organizations at different companies such as Google, Amazon, Yahoo, Oracle, Cisco and HP were among those registered as Supporting Organisations for the community event.
Nupur Dave, Chief Operating Officer of one such tech employee organisation, the Indian Googler Network, said that there was “tremendous enthusiasm among Indians at Google,” and with over 700 Indians from Google registering for the SAP Centre event “It is expected to be the event of the year, and we feel we have the luck of a superstar that [Mr.] Modi is visiting the Bay Area!”
