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Silicon Valley buzzing about Indian Prime Minister's visit

Published  September 25, 2015 9:01pm PDT
News
KTVU FOX 2

SAN JOSE, Calif. (KTVU) -- The Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi will be heading to Silicon Valley this weekend to meet with tech executives about how best to capitalize on the internet revolution going on there.

Tickets for the Prime Minister's event here at the SAP Center sold out almost immediately. His focus: startups, technology, and how Silicon Valley and India can work together.

He generates the kind of enthusiasm often reserved for rock stars, speaking to sell-out crowds, and gathering a huge following on social media.

And now Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister of India has taken his show on the road, with a whirlwind weekend planned in Silicon Valley.

Google Chief Executive Sundar Pichai posted a video online welcoming Modi and has plans to meet with him. There will be trips to Tesla and to Facebook too.

The weekend will culminate with Modi's speech at the SAP Center Sunday.

"We hope your visit will energize people in the valley, excite Indians all across the country, and renew and strengthen our partnership," says Pichai.

And tech experts say that is the point. Modi is pushing his Digital India initiative. The hope: to improve infrastructure and encourage investing in one of the fastest growing economies in the world.

"India is kind of an untapped market. It's a tremendous market for us to be able to sell products, but also to invest in," said Tim Bajarin, President of Creative Strategy.

Still, experts say expect some protests this weekend of the initiative itself.

"What they don't believe is there's enough safeguards for privacy," said Bajarin.

But for tech CEO's, like Rosen Sharma of Bluestacks, this Prime Minister represents great hope for the future of their businesses.

"He uses technology. He gets what people in tech do," said Sharma. "So it tends to grow, and you rise with the rising tide."

And he says that's why Modi's trip to Silicon Valley is generating so much excitement.

"People feel he is there to really make a difference, not to become rich or anything like that. Once you have that feeling, there is optimism," said Sharma.

The event at the SAP Center gets underway at 5:30 p.m. Sunday. You can still submit questions for a Facebook Town Hall Meeting which is set for 9:30 a.m. Sunday morning.