PDF: 2962 pages, 5.2 MB - Bay Area Council Economic Institute

A Diverse, Vibrant Community
(RANA), the city recently hosted a well-attended forum honoring
Rajasthan Home Minister Shanti Dhariwal.
Sister city exchanges are meant to be largely cultural in nature but
larger cities, especially those that are key industrial or research
centers often expand their charters to include economic exchanges
of some kind. Several of India’s largest cities are already involved in
sister city programs (Chicago/New Delhi, Los Angeles/Mumbai,
Long Beach/Kolkata, Riverside/Hyderabad). In 2008, San Francisco
sealed the region’s latest sister city agreement with Bangalore, the
capital of Karnataka state in southwestern India.
The San Francisco-Bangalore relationship is built on a network of
connections. Like the Bay Area and known as the “Silicon Valley of
India,” Bangalore is a center for aerospace, software and information
technology. Bangalore hosts the R&D centers of many
Bay Area technology companies, and it also hosts a major
concentration of universities and research institutes.
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom decided to pursue the
Bangalore connection during a 2006 trip to China with Senator
Dianne Feinstein. Citigroup private banker James Herlihy—who
had been active in two of the city’s other sister city committees
(Cork, Ireland and Haifa, Israel) and had accompanied Newsom to
China—eventually became the Mayor’s point person for launching
a Bangalore relationship, in partnership with sister city committee
co-chair Madhav Misra.
Herlihy, now with Deutsche Bank, notes the compatibilities between
the Bay Area and greater Bangalore, including opportunities for exchanges
in biotechnology, clean energy, wastewater and sewage
treatment, and public transit. The initial focus of the committee is on
education, health care and the arts. In May of 2009, a memorandum
of understanding (MoU) for the exchange of students and teachers
was signed between Indus Schools (a private system in India
founded by board member and founder of Brocade Technology
Kumar Malavalli) and the French-American International School in
San Francisco, both of which offer the international baccalaureate.
Future items for the agenda may include water purification, waste
management, and exchanges between Bangalore’s airport and
San Francisco International Airport. (Updated information on the
committee’s programs can be found at www.SFBangalore.org.)
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