The US Delegation in Rajasthan
September 15, 2010 : Pictures and videos shared here are from Town Hall Meeting organized by TiE Rajasthan for the visiting US delegation at the SMS Convention Center, Jaipur. The delegation led by Mr. Aneesh Chopra, White House Chief Technology Officer and Alec Ross, Senior Advisor to the Secretary of State for Innovation, briefly outlined the purpose of their visit and then interacted with a gathering of about 250 citizens of Jaipur comprising entrepreneurs, business executives, NGOs, academicians and students. They answered innumerable questions from the public regarding the opportunities that lay ahead of us in technology and innovation and in scaling up efforts to take these initiatives to the masses. Mr. Aneesh Chopra praised the energy of TiE Rajasthan and said it was the perfect platform to launch entrepreneurial activities in association with the US. Mr. Naren Bakshi also offered to serve as the point of contact for further interaction with the US Government and private players in taking opportunities to tangible projects.
A Brief on the Visit :
Kanpura Gram Panchayat
After picking them up at the Jaipur airport we traveled with them by bus to Kanpura Gram Panchayat in Ajmer District where they saw a presentation on e-Panchayat by Ms. Indu Gupta of NIC and by the C-DAC people who have developed the software.
Photographs of this visit are available at http://indiatoday.intoday.in/site/Photo/3632/3/us-delegation-visits-ajmer-village.html
This was very well received by the delegation and they foresee great opportunities emerging in this direction. As the e-panchayats scale up and cover more areas there are various possibilities like application building, health services, education, skills development, mobile telephony services etc. that can be looked at from the point of view of entrepreneurs.
Tilonia Village
From Kanpura we moved to Barefoot College at Tilonia were we were taken around in small groups and shown the various vocational, educational, social and entreprenurial activities being done there. Various ideas have emerged from that including virtual vocational training, micro-finance shared distribution networks, R&D on product design, low cost educational technology, social and commercial entrepreneurship, distance learning for teachers and physicians, IT in healthcare, tracking student skills and development, green building codes etc.
Meeting with State Government Officials
From Tilonia we came to the Secretariat and had a brief interaction with the Chief Secretary senior bureaucrats from the IT, education, energy, urban development, BIP, rural development, women and child welfare, science and technology. The US delegation put forth what they want to do and the Chief Secretary appointed Mr. Sanjay Malhotra, Secretary IT and Mr. Naresh Pal Gangwar, Secretary Energy and CMD RREC as the Nodal Officers for further interaction with the US Govt.
Town Hall Meeting
The next stop was the SMS Convention Center where the delegation met up with entrepreneurs over high tea. They were visibly impressed with the current work being done by some entrepreneurs and gave definite ideas on scaling-up. Towards that end, they offered help in technology, funding, networking and mentoring.
The highlight of the visit was the Town Hall Meeting with was attended by about 250 entrepreneurs, business executives, NGOs, academicians, students. The delegation outlined the purpose of their visit and then answered innumerable questions from the public regarding the opportunities that lay ahead of us in technology and innovation and in scaling up efforts to take these initiatives to the masses. Mr. Aneesh Chopra, Chief Technology Officer USA, praised the energy of TiE Rajasthan and said it was the perfect platform to launch entrepreneurial activities in association with the US. Mr. Naren Bakshi also offered to serve as the point of contact for further interaction with the US Government and private players in taking opportunities to tangible projects.After the meeting the delegation left for Delhi by bus.
LETTER OF THANKS FROM US AMBASSADOR
The US Ambassador to India has sent us a letter praising our role and thanking us while looking forward to further interaction.
Click here to read the letter >
Appreciation from the Delegation
Aneesh Chopra and the entire White House delegation members conveyed to the entire TiE Rajasthan team their thanks and appreciation, and congratulations for all that we did to coordinate the entire day in Rajasthan. They all were very happy and and found their visit to be very enjoyable and productive. They felt that they learnt a lot about the progress that has been made and many exciting opportunities that exist in the future. The White House team was very complimentary about the professional way the Town Hall meeting was arranged. It was just world class and it clearly showed the excitement and possibility of building a great ecosystem. The fact that there were high quality people from all sectors including education sector was noticed by the delegation. TiE Rajasthan's pre-event work of sending the write-ups on the current state of Education, Infrastructure, Energy and IT in Rajasthan and the opportunities the delegation could explore, were found to be very useful and they were carefully read. It was from these write-ups that a lot of further action points have emerged.
DETAILS OF US DELEGATION MEMBERS
Government:
- Aneesh Chopra, White House Chief Technology Officer (co-lead)
- Alec Ross, Senior Advisor to the Secretary of State for Innovation (co-lead)
- Ben Scott, Policy Advisor for Innovation at Secretary of State’s office
- Maura O’Neill, Senior Counselor to the Administrator for Innovation at USAID
- Mitul Desai, Senior Advisor for Outreach in the Department of State’s South & Central Asian Bureau
- Nisha Desai, Department of State India Desk Officer at SCA
Non-Government:
- Neeru Khosla, Venture Capitalist and social entrepreneur, CK-12 Foundation - Education
- Naren Bakshi, TiE, India/US Serial entrepreneur – IT, Infrastructure, Solar energy
- Marc Porat, Venture Capitalist, Pegasus Capital Advisors - Green manufacturing companies
- Ravi Viswanathan, Venture Capitalist in IT and energy, Partner at New Enterprise Associates
- Tom Vander Ark, Private equity investor – Education, partner in Vander Ark/Ratcliff, Revolution Learning
- John Palfrey, Professor at Harvard University – IT and Internet freedom
- Sriram Viswanathan, VP, Intel Architecture Group, GM WiMAX Program Office – IT
In the Media
North America's most honored weekly Indian newspaper, India West wrote an article on the US delegation to India and its aftermath, with comments from Naren Bakshi, Atul Kapur, Jayshree Periwal, amongst others.
To see this article click here >>
