AP & Applied Materials will work towards creating an ecosystem
The Chief Minister and the delegation on the 5th day of their week-long visit to the United States of America today visited the Applied Materials Headquarters in California. Mr. Gary Dickerson, President and CEO, Mr. Om Nalamasu, Senior Vice President and other representatives from Applied Materials were present in the meeting.
Mr. Gary Dickerson who extended a warm welcome to the Chief Minister said that the world is undergoing a tremendous change in aspects such as life, entertainment, communication etc and that the base for all these changes is materials. All innovation will be based on the materials, he added. The Chief Minister in his reply said that India is a happening country with a potential to grow at a double digit, besides this, it also has strong political leadership and a huge market the Chief Minister added.
Elaborating on the advantages Andhra Pradesh has, the Chief Minister said that," Our State has advanced human resources. Even in US our people are prospering, they came as professionals and now they have become entrepreneurs." He added that AP is new and that it has immense opportunities to offer. Mr. Gary informed the Chief Minister that a lot of talent in the field of semiconductor and applied materials comes from India and that it can transform India while Indians transform the world. We are a fifty year old company and we are still going, Mr. Gray stated. He highlighted that clean water and uninterrupted power are very essential to which the Chief Minister replied saying that both of them are abundantly available in the State.
The Chief Minister proposed that a group of six people, three from AP and three from applied materials should be formed to draw a roadmap for applied materials to involve in Andhra Pradesh. The group will study and draw an implementable plan on the ways in which material technology companies can be brought into AP, identify the customers who manufacture applied materials in India and then create an ecosystem in Andhra Pradesh for this industry to grow.
In addition to these, both the groups will work towards upgrading facilities in materials research in the universities of Andhra Pradesh. Later, the representatives from applied materials accompanied the Chief Minister and the delegation to their research center.
Later the Chief Minister met Mr. Dheeraj Pandey and his colleagues of Nutanix. Mr. Dheeraj informed the Chief Minister that about 50 % of the engineers in Nutanix are Telugus to which the CM expressed immense satisfaction. Mr. Dheeraj informed that they are keen to collaborate with the Andhra Pradesh government to make the State a ‘cloud hub’. They promised to prepare a clear road map and a project report in two months from now to create cloud infrastructure.
Chief Minister held a couple of bilateral meetings with companies like Patro Corp, Visa and Mobility Infra before his address at the USIBC. Patra Corp an American BPO is already present in Vishakhapatnam and the representatives told the Chief Minister they were interested to expand their operations in Vishakhapatnam but could not, given the space constraint. Vizag facility has 1500 employees and Mr. John S. Simpson CEO of the company said that they will recruit another 500 in Vizag if space is available. The Chief Minister immediately asked APICC to make Tech Mahendra buildings available to them.
The Chief Minister met Mr. Ravindra Varma, Chairman and Managing Director of Mobility Infrastructure group. The group was established in 2000 for the development, financing, implementation, management, and operation of multi-modal transportation, logistics and urban infrastructure projects. The company has shown interest to collaborate in the construction of Amaravati, Bangalore-Annatapur-Amaravti National expressway and also take part in the construction of Raipur-Vizag highway.
He also held a meeting with Ambassador Demetrios Marantis, Senior Vice President of the VISA group.
Bell Curve Labs gave a presentation to the Chief Minister which highlighted that there is a massive skill gap in the world and in India also. To bridge this gap they suggested a concept called work ready communities which are already being implemented in US. They said that they are keen on bring the same initiative to Andhra Pradesh.
Mr. Vinod Khosla, the founder of Khosla Ventures called on the Chief Minister today at San Jose. The Chief Minister asked Mr. Khosla to help in structuring the initiatives to encourage start ups in Andhra Pradesh. The Chief Minister said that he is keen on creating ecosystem which is similar to Silicon Valley to encourage innovation.