MODELS OF INTERACTION
India India’s Consulate General in San Francisco can rely on the tech diaspora in linking digital developments in the Bay Area to India. Since dealing with the Y2K25 problem, many Indian software specialists have become prominent players in the Bay Area tech sector, taking leading executive roles at Google, Microsoft, and Adobe.22 The tech diaspora has played an important role in developing cooperation between the Bay
Area tech sector and the fast-growing digital industry in India. The major Internet companies have development centers in Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune, and other tech centers in India. A future development will be increasingly determined by the growing relevance of the Indian market for the tech industry.
Early Silicon Valley experiences, 1986–1989 Ambassador Kishan S Rana, former representative of India to San Francisco ‘Looking back to my three San Francisco years (1986–1989), several strands marked our first connections with Silicon Valley. First, young Indian engineers working in IT companies made us aware of opportunities for marketing India’s emerging software expertise. They also acted as internal evangelists within their companies. Second, we worked with them in the establishment of the first lobby group, the Silicon Valley Indian Professionals Association (SIPA), led by a dynamic Prakash Chandra. They guided us towards new business opportunities. Indirectly, SIPA became a precursor to the globally renowned TiE (The Indus Entrepreneurs). Third, in September 1987, we held the first series of Software India Conferences in Sunnyvale, Seattle, Los Angeles, Dallas, Chicago, and Washington DC, bringing together nascent Indian enterprises, including Infosys, TCS, and Wipro, with potential US partners. That helped launch India’s software industry on a global trajectory.’
China China, as a rising digital power, has a wide presence in the Bay Area including the Chinese consulate, accelerators and incubators, corporate innovation centers, etc. In recent years, China’s main focus has been on investment – either through mergers and acquisitions, or equity investments.23
Trying to gain an edge on the latest tech advances, Chinese companies and venture capitalists invest to gain access to the latest developments and to advance their tech sector.24 Investments have increased, and in addition, educational and academic exchanges between Chinese and American universities in the Bay Area are thriving.
South Korea Another example of a country with a well-deve- is through a consulate and, like China, is heavily loped tech industry is South Korea, considered concentrated on specific investments in order to by many to be at the forefront of technological complement developments back home. development. The involvement in the Bay Area 18