Naidu Visits Cisco In San Jose During USA Visit

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Nara Chandrababu Naidu started the fifth day of his US tour by visiting the Cisco office at San Jose.

John Chambers, Executive Chairman and former CEO of Cisco Systems, received the Chief Minister and the delegation, and said that he had decided to spend quality time with the Chief Minister both at the Cisco office and at the USIBC meeting scheduled to be held in the evening, owing to his commitment to India and in particular Andhra Pradesh.

He said that he had invited the Chief Minister to his residence for a meeting with 30 CEOs due to his personal admiration for the Chief Minister.

Chambers gave a presentation on how modern communications could connect the world, and as an example demonstrated how he conducted meetings from his boardroom with his executives around the world. He stated that the world was experiencing disruption brought about by digital innovations and IoT. He said, "It took 21 years for Amazon to overtake Walmart, 14 years for Tesla to overtake Ford and General Motors, and 7.5 years for us to overtake Tesla. Tomorrow a challenger might need only 3.5 years to overtake the existing leader."

Chambers said that in the United States today, 20% of the jobs were created by companies which did not exist even a year back, signifying that new actors would change the world soon. He said 95% of business and political leaders had a vision for digitization, but only 25% had a plan, which highlighted the need for a workable plan in place.

Reflecting on the observations made by Chambers, Naidu said that Andhra Pradesh was at the forefront in integrating technology in governance, and that the government was keen on strengthening the ecosystem.

He informed Chambers that Andhra Pradesh would be a suitable place to pilot all new initiatives. "We will create all the necessary conditions, and Andhra Pradesh is now ready to take off," the Chief Minister said.

In his reply, Chambers said "Let's work on how to make starting a new 'small business' easy, and how to make knowledge-sharing easy."

Senior Cisco Vice President John Kern and Vice President Guy Dietrich, and the delegation from Andhra Pradesh were present. Aruna Sundararajan, IT Secretary of the Ugovernment of India, was also present with the delegation.