California governor: Silicon Valley should go to Germany

After more than a hundred years of talk about the Pacific Rim economic opportunities for California, Silicon Valley and other California businesses are firmly focused on the west rather than the east. But Thursday morning California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will be at Intel's HQ in the heart of Silicon Valley to stump for California's involvement in the massive Cebit trade fair in Hannover, Germany. Cebit chose California to be its partner in 2009. In 2008 it was France and the year before it was Russia. It is the first year that Cebit has chosen a state rather than a country. It is fitting that it chose California, which has a cachet that goes beyond the US, (plus California has a larger economy than France.) But will Arnold Schwarzenegger turn up to Cebit? That's still in the air. It wasn't clear until 4.30pm on Wednesday whether he would turn up on Thursday at Intel. That's just the way his office works, it will not confirm a meeting until less than a day before the event, I'm told by insiders. Wednesday evening I was at a California-goes-to-Germany dinner event on top of the Bank of America building in downtown San Francisco. It was very heavy on German and Californian government officials with very little private industry representation--except for Drew Clark, head of IBM's Venture Capital Group. Here is a quick video of that event:
Google and Blip.tv

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I met with:

Michael Bowman Deputy Secretary for Communications bth.ca.gov

Conyers Davis Assistant Secretary for International Trade, Business, Transportation, and Housing Agency bth.ca.gov

Jose Juarez International Trade Specialist Peralta Community College District Eastbaycitd.org

Hartwig von Sab, Deutsche Messe AG Messe.de

Jim Charos, vice president Hannover Fairs USAhfusa.com

Bill Maile Director Communications Office of the State Chief Information Officer cio.ca.gov

Press Release on CeBIT, June 2008 -- U.S. Commercial Service Sacramento

California’s Selection Marks First Time a State, Not a Country, Will Serve as Partner

CeBIT, the world’s leading trade fair for digital business solutions and information and communications technology (ICT), has announced that the State of California has been selected the Partner State for next year’s event, which will run 3–8 March 2009 at the Hannover Fairgrounds in Hannover, Germany. The invitation to participate as partner was issued by CeBIT organizer Deutsche Messe AG and BITKOM (German Association for Information Technology, Telecommunications and New Media); and accepted by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.