SAN JOSE, CA: Indian American technology professionals are eagerly looking forward to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Silicon Valley later this month.
The San Francisco Bay Area, of which Silicon Valley is a part, is home to technology giants like Google, Facebook, Cisco, Apple, and Oracle. It is considered to be the startup hub of the world, housing nearly half a million Indian expats, many of whom work as technology professionals.
According to research conducted in 2012 by the Arthur & Toni Rembe Rock Center for Corporate Governance at Stanford University, Indian-Americans have founded more technology companies than immigrants born in the next top seven immigrant-founder-sending countries combined.
The percentage of companies founded by an Indian American (33.1%) was more than four times the next highest percentage by an immigrant group, the Chinese Americans (8.1%). Indian Americans founded 16% of Silicon Valley’s startups and 6.5% of those nationwide – an amazing fact given that Indian immigrants comprised much less than 1% of the US population at the time the study was conducted.
Epicenter of innovation
One such prominent entrepreneur, Vinod Dham, the father of the Pentium Chip and a Venture Capitalist, stated, “Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit is significant as Silicon Valley is the epicenter of innovation. 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.”
Prakash Bhalerao, a high-tech entrepreneur and venture capitalist, similarly expressed his excitement at the upcoming arrival of PM Modi. “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 agenda, which is that massive change in India can only come through innovation and technology.”
Numerous professional bodies such as The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE), Global Indian Technology Professionals (GITPRO), various alumni groups of different Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)s, National Institute of Technology (NIT)s, Indian Institute of Science (IISc) and many Indian employee organizations at different companies such as Google, Amazon, Yahoo, Oracle, Cisco and HP are among those registered as Supporting Organizations for the community reception for the Indian Prime Minister on September 27th.
Nupur Dave, Chief Operating Officer for the Indian Googler Network, an employee organization at Google, said that there was tremendous enthusiasm among Indians at Google. She summed up the general feeling in the Indian American tech community by saying, “The Community Reception event had over 700 Indians from Google registering and scores of bubbling fans reaching out to help volunteer with the event, more than a month in advance! It is expected to be the event of the year, and we feel we have the luck of a superstar that Prime Minister Modi is visiting the Bay Area!”
The event to be held at the SAP arena has been oversubscribed with more than 45,000 registrations for a seating capacity of about 18,000. Requests for event passes are still coming in large numbers every day.
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India Post News Service
