Digital India' vision
Silicon Valley stars sign on to PM Modi’s ‘Digital India’ vision
Microsoft said it will partner with New Delhi to bring low-cost broadband connectivity to 500,000 villages in India. Google announced it will help India set up base for free Wi-Fi at 500 railway stations. Qualcomm has pledged to invest $150 million in Indian startups, as America's tech giants, spanning Seattle to San Jose to San Diego on the Pacific Coast, responded with alacrity to Modi's espousal of India's transformation "on a scale that is, perhaps, unmatched in human history."
Mark Zuckerberg changes his profile picture to support 'Digital India'
A dinner engagement with Silicon Valley CEOs was the centerpiece of the Modi's 30-hour barnstorming of the Bay Area that included field trips to Tesla, Facebook, and Google. In a speech that was a marked departure from the somnolent peroration typical of political leaders, the social media-savvy Prime Minister connected instantly with tech pashas, teeing off with a joke about how he had already "met many of you in Delhi and New York, and on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram — the new neighborhoods of our new world."
It set the tone for some thoughtful reflections that impressed the assembled digerati who generally hold politicos in disdain. Microsoft's CEO Satya Nadella said the PM seemed to know how technology is a powerful tool to enable human ingenuity, and Pentium chip-maker Vinod Dham enthused about Modi's ideas and vision for social transformation through technology.
Dissent about the Digital India initiative — an organization called Alliance for Justice and Accountability had bought digital billboards along area freeways denouncing Modi's "regressive" agenda — was a distant echo with supporters drowning out discord.
PM Modi answered critics who he said see the digital economy as the tool of the rich, educated and the privileged, saying, "ask the taxi driver or the corner vendor in India what he has gained from his cell phone, and the debate gets settled." He cited numerous examples of workaday people benefiting from technology to argue that he sees technology "as a means to empower and as a tool that bridges the distance between hope and opportunity."
"Social media is reducing social barriers. It connects people on the strength of human values, not identities," he added.
PM Modi continues rock-star US tour
Full text of Modi's speech at Digital India event
The tech outreach followed a community reception where an adulatory crowd stampeded around him to get into group photographs and sneak in selfies, attesting to his popularity abroad even as it broadcast their lack of decorum. A field trip to Tesla demonstrated his keen sense of identifying technologies that could address India's workaday problems.
Although he posed next to a flashy red Tesla car, he showed greater interest in the company's powerwall, incorporating its battery storage technology, primarily wanting to know the prospects of solar charging and how best to give off-grid energy access in India.
When he returned to his hotel to receive Apple's Tim Cook, he wanted to know, among other things, if and how Apple Pay could help his signature Jan Dhan Yojana that involves direct money transfers to the less privileged in India.
What they said:
Microsoft's Satya Nadella: India has world class entrepreneurs and human capital. The Prime Minister's vision is spot on; He knows how tech is a powerful tool to enable human ingenuity.
Tesla's Elon Musk: Great discussion about solar/batteries empowering rural communities ...We talked about electricity generation and how arguably theres way to skip ahead with it as with cell phones.
Congressman Ed Royce, lawmaker from California and ardent votary of stronger US-India ties: This visit will undoubtedly bring the US and Indian tech sectors closer together, helping to deepen our strong and growing economic ties.
Apple's Tim Cook: India has a special place in every Apple employees mind; Our founder Steve Jobs found his inspiration in India
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