San Jose: Modi would also meet members of the Sikh and Gujarati communities. Sunday morning, Modi will visit the headquarters of social network giant Facebook, where he will hold a town-hall meeting with Zuckerberg.
He will then head to Google, part of his strong push to drive technological innovation in India. Modi will also have bilateral meetings with US Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, California Governor Edmund Brown.
He will also meet Salman Khan, the founder and CEO of Khan Academy, a free online education platform that produces thousands of video lessons on diverse subjects for students. He will also attend a roundtable on renewable energy and an India-US start-up meet.
The Prime Minister decided to visit Silicon Valley to experience and learn firsthand the success story of iconic companies and leaders here with the sole objective of building a similar ecosystem of innovation and entrepreneurship in India, said Indian Ambassador to the US Arun K Singh.
"Of course, Prime Minister Modi's visit is about more than deepening our commercial relations. It's about building ties between the people of our two countries. There is no better bridge between our two countries than the Indian American community, and I applaud the Prime Minister for his outreach to this thriving community," Royce said.
Ravi Kiran, co-founder, Venture Nursery, India's first angel-backed start-up incubator, said Modi's visit must transcend symbolism and he should envision 30-40 Silicon Valleys in India.
"I hope PM Modi picks up deeper reasons why the Silicon Valley is the Silicon Valley and what role regulation plays in creating a genuine culture of innovation and risk-taking," said Kiran.
"I sincerely wish the visit inspires PM Modi to create a vision of building 30-40 Silicon Valleys in India through genuine transformative change of culture," said Kiran adding that attributing 'Silicon Valley of India' sobriquet to Bangalore is cheap, lazy and short sighted.
