It is a hectic 36 hours for the Indian Prime Minister at Silicon Valley. The crowds welcomed him on his arrival at the airport in San Jose and in attendance were mayors of 10 California cities.
After a quick meeting with the Gujarati and Sikh community representatives, the PM started on the main purpose of his visit - to see the tech of Silicon Valley and to share his vision of how to use that tech to change India.
Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk took the Indian PM on a tour of the Tesla factory at Palo Alto. Musk said that he and Modi spoke about electricity generation, and how there could be a way to skip ahead with it as with cellphones.
Next up was Tim Cook. The Apple CEO emphasised on India's connection with Apple co-founder Steve Jobs and said that his meeting with Modi was "terrific."
The Prime Minister then met the top leaders of leading American technology companies including those from Microsoft, Google, Cisco, Adobe and Qualcomm.
Cisco Executive Chairman John Chambers said that Modi has the potential to be amongst the top 5 leaders in the world.
At the Digital India and Digital Technology Dinner, Adobe's President and CEO Shantanu Narayen welcomed the Indian Prime Minister as "a dynamic and development oriented leader," and stressed upon India's strong bond with the Valley and said that it was difficult to find any company there without any Indians in it.
The Cisco Chairman, who also chairs the US-India Business Council, saw Modi as an "amazing Ambassador of India."
The Hyderabad-born CEO of Microsoft, Satya Nadella, pushed forward Microsoft's cloud computing plans and how he saw it to benefit India.
Qualcomm's Executive Chairman Paul Jacobs saw India as an apt example of how mobile technology was transforming lives and announced his company's 'Design in India' initiative. As part of that Qualcomm would set up an innovation lab in India along with "a large number of design houses in India."
Google's Sundar Pichai shared his first-hand experiences of how technology transformed lives in India and said that Google shared the Prime Minister's vision of Digital India. Pichai also announced the collaboration between his company and the government of India that will provide free WiFi at 500 railway stations.
Addressing the gathering and pointing to the mix of Indian-origin and American executives on stage with him, Modi said, "here on the stage you see a perfect example of India-US partnership in digital economy."
Modi appreciated the role that the Silicon Valley companies were playing in building this new connected century and hoped that his government also becomes "a bit like you."
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