India Day 2 in the books
We awoke to a beautiful and very warm morning. Upper 80s today and the sun was very hot.
Our first meeting as a delegation was with an IT company focusing on Information Health Exchange Technology. We had been introduced to them yesterday and they invited us to their offices this morning. When we got off the elevator on their floor, I thought I was playing for the Colts and getting ready for pre-game introductions. We had a welcome line from all of their employees. We received the traditional red dot of blessing that they placed on our foreheads and then welcomed us with their version of a Lei and then proceeded to allow us to walk through the middle of their line of people and they welcomed us warmly. Very cool experience.
We then traveled to a luncheon with the CII which is the Commercial Industry of India group that represents construction, manufacturing, agriculture and education. Very good meeting. Mark Fisher sat next to an egg producer and they were talking seriously about setting up an operation in Indy. Interesting thing. Just to meet the growth of the population here they need to increase their egg production by 2.5 billion eggs every year for the next 10 years and beyond. That is a huge amount of eggs and it just keeps growing every single year and that most likely will not be able to cover the need even with that kind of increase in production. Indy could be a major help to this country.
We then went to the US Commercial services office and spent time talking with them. As our fate would have it, there is some unrest in the state we are in. We are safe and yet they are having strikes to shut the city down as they want to split their state in 2. Some protests became violent this week, as this has been building for weeks. We drove by police in riot gear and riot trucks this afternoon. All that being said, everyone we have met has been as friendly as the friendliest Hoosier. Our 2 cities have so much in common as it relates to geographical location within the countries, educational institutions, love for good food, friendly and hard working people, and similar clusters of economic development initiatives.
We then wrapped the day up with a trip to CII’s platinum Leed certified building and toured the facility to learn more about the initiatives going on here to build green.
Thanks for all that each of you are doing in Indy! Be very proud of our city. It is world class and is fun to sell all of the amazing things our city has to offer.
All the best, Namaste!
Scott
