New | Indian PM visits Silicon Valley as he seeks funds and skills to take home
Narendra Modi hopes to attract funds and skills from US to help burgeoning start-up scene
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi began a two-day trip to Silicon Valley at the weekend with a visit to "green" car maker Tesla Motors and a meeting with Apple chief executive Tim Cook.
Modi, 65, is the first Indian leader to visit the US west coast in more than 30 years. His trip follows a US visit by President Xi Jinping, who met several technology leaders in Seattle last week.
Modi hopes to attract funds and skills from US innovators to help India's burgeoning start-up scene grow, and he will seek to encourage some Indians who have thrived around San Jose, California, to bring their knowledge back home.
At Tesla, Modi met chief executive Elon Musk and discussed renewable energy, which Modi is eager to bring to India.
"Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Prime Minister Modi discussed Tesla's developments in battery technology, energy storage, and renewable energy and the positive implications of this innovation for India," Tesla spokesman Ricardo Reyes said.
Much of Modi's agenda has focused on connecting with Silicon Valley's Indian diaspora.
On Saturday, he attended a dinner with 350 business leaders where Indian-born chief executives Satya Nadella of Microsoft, Sundar Pichai of Google and Shantanu Narayen of Adobe Systems moderated a panel.
Modi used his speech at the dinner to sell technology executives on his "Digital India" initiative, which aims to connect thousands more Indian villages to the internet, create more tech jobs and move more services online.
"We must bridge the digital divide and promote digital literacy in the same way that we seek to ensure general literacy," Modi said. "We have the talent, enterprise and skills to succeed. We also have the strength of the partnership between India and the United States."
Yesterday he was due to take questions from some of Facebook's 1.5 billion users at a "town hall" meeting in San Jose, after visits to the headquarters of Facebook and Google.
Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg announced Modi's visit on his Facebook page earlier this month and invited users to post questions.
More than 37,000 comments were made, with questions ranging from internet expansion in India to calls for Modi to address his human rights record.
