PM @ Silicon Valley: Modi to showcase India's social start-ups

Some of the big Indian names might not attend

Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, Apple's Tim Cook and Google's Sundar Pichai have blocked their calendars to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his US visit starting next week, but marquee Indian startups are unlikely to be present in large numbers at the series of Silicon Valley events.

Sachin Bansal and Kunal Bahl, chief executives and co-founders of Flipkart and Snapdeal, respectively, the biggest start-ups in India, are unlikely to travel to the US to be with the prime minister. Flipkart did not respond to an e-mail and an executive at Snapdeal said the company's chief product officer, Anand Chandrasekaran would travel to the US instead as part of a delegation of the National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom) and The Indus Entrepreneurs (TIE). The invitations to startups were drawn up in consultation with the prime minister's office and functionaries of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Some of the big names are not able to travel because the plan for them was finalised late, an industry source said. "There are prior commitments to be kept," he added. Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma and Zomato chief executive Deepinder Goyal are expected to attend the events where Modi will speak, including at the SAP Centre in San Jose, a CEOs' interaction and a diaspora function. Sharma confirmed he was set to go but Zomato could not be reached for comment.

Sources pointed out Modi wanted to showcase startups with social impact rather than taking along companies that had replicated western e-ecommerce. Around 30 Indian startups have been lined up, many of which are neither celebrated names nor courted by international investors. "The team putting together the list of startups the prime minister wanted to showcase faced a tough task. Modi wanted to tell the world about startups from India that had helped society at large," a source said. While the Nasscom list was limited to technology startups, the prime minister's brief was something else.

"He wanted to build on his Start-up India, Stand up India vision by showcasing those that had helped society at large with their innovations rather than those that were mere replicas of similar startups in the US," the source said.