The delegation visiting the US includes Minister of Electronics and IT Tusadrkanti Behera, MP Sujit Kumar, development commissioner Anu Garg, 5T secretary VK Pandian, principal secretary of IT department Manoj Mishra, sports secretary R Vineel Kishna and IT special secretary Manas Panda. The team will return on July 31.

During their visit to Silicon Valley in California, the delegation will hold meetings with leading IT companies of the world including Apple, Google, Meta, Visa and Chevron. The digitalisation of state administration and its application in various welfare schemes are in the agenda of the meeting.

With the state government making budget allocation for own fibrenet, the delegates will seek investment from the companies in this regard. Besides, construction of own fibrenet grid and laying its network are likely to feature in the discussion.

The delegates will attend a dinner with non-resident Odias in Crown Plaza Hotel in Palo Alto city of California state on July 28. Around 1,000 non-resident Odias have been invited to the gala dinner where the delegation will also seek their cooperation in digital drive of the government.

Singh is the founder and president of the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth and serves as the executive vice president of Sustainability at the company.

“I am deeply honored to join the group of esteemed leaders that make up the President’s Export Council. From the earliest days of my career, I’ve gravitated toward work that helps create long-lasting and inclusive prosperity for people and economies in the US and around the world,” Singh said in a statement last week.

“I look forward to bringing this perspective to the Council, serving the Administration and having an opportunity to advance America’s economic interests across the globe.”

She has drawn on over 20 years of global experience to develop a unique social impact model that leverages the assets of the public and private sector.

Her leadership has contributed to Mastercard’s global leadership and reputation of doing well by doing good, a White House statement read.

In 2018, Mastercard created the Mastercard Impact Fund with an initial $500 million investment.

Singh was named President and charged with activating those philanthropic dollars to advance inclusive growth and financial inclusion around the world.

Deeply committed to public service, Singh has held senior positions in the White House and the US House of Representatives.

She was the Executive Director of the first President’s Advisory Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, and in 2015, she was appointed by President Barack Obama and confirmed by the Senate to a six-year term on the board of AmeriCorps.

She also serves on the boards of the Anti-Defamation League and the Ann Richards School for Young Women Leaders.

She has been named to the Financial Times Top 100 LGBT+ Executives and Fast Company‘s Queer 50 lists.

Singh has studied at Harvard, Yale, Stanford, and the Indian School of Business. She earned a Bachelor of Science from Old Dominion University and a Master of Public Affairs from the Lyndon B Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, Austin.

The President’s Export Council serves as the principal national advisory committee on international trade.

The Council advises the President on government policies and programs that affect US trade performance; promotes export expansion; and provides a forum for discussing and resolving trade-related problems among the business, industrial, agricultural, labour, and government sectors.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, along with his Israeli counterpart, Yair Lapid, UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan and US President Joe Biden will meet virtually. The summit is being held during Biden’s travel to Israel from July 13-16, with stopovers in West Bank and Saudi Arabia.

In the Thursday’s summit, the ministry said the leaders will discuss the “possible joint projects within the framework of I2U2 as well as the other common areas of mutual interest to strengthen the economic partnership in trade and investment in our respective regions and beyond. These projects can serve as a model for economic cooperation and offer opportunities for our businesspersons and workers.”

Each country also has Sherpa-level interactions regularly to discuss the possible areas of cooperation.

The I2U2 group is “aimed to encourage joint investments in six mutually identified areas such as water, energy, transportation, space, health, and food security,” the external affairs ministry said. It intends to mobilise “private sector capital and expertise to help modernise the infrastructure, low carbon development pathways for our industries, improve public health, and promote the development of critical emerging and green technologies.”,

Sharing details of the visit, a senior US administration official had earlier said: “The summit called I2U2 will discuss the food security crisis and other areas of cooperation across hemispheres where the UAE and Israel serve as important innovation hubs.”

The US administration has maintained that Biden’s visit will focus on “Israel’s increasing integration into the region, both through the Abraham Accords with UAE, Morocco, and Bahrain; through deepening ties between Israel, Jordan and Egypt; and also an entirely new grouping of partners, including Israel, India, UAE, and the United States — what we call I2U2”, the official had said.

Though this will be the first summit-level meeting of I2U2, earlier, foreign ministers of four countries had met in October 2021. The meeting took place during external affairs minister S Jaishankar’s visit to Israel last year. He was joined by UAE foreign minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed, and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken virtually, while then Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid was present in person during the meeting. The ministers had discussed issues around trade, climate, and maritime security.

It was during this meet that the I2U2 group, also termed as ‘Western Quad’, was conceptualised .

By Nilanchal Naik