How come no one told me that the prime minister of Estonia, Andrus Ansip, was in San Jose last week?
Anyway, he was there to open up a new “tech embassy” downtown. (I’m assuming that this is the first of its kind anywhere in the world.)
SJBJ:
“Silicon Valley changed the world, Andrus Ansip told a small gathering of reporters and city hall officials Friday afternoon. “All of our companies would like to cooperate more with the companies in Silicon Valley.”
Estonia has been scouting the valley for two years. The prime minister officially opened an office of Enterprise Estonia, located in the U.S. Market Access Center on Market Street in Downtown San Jose. The one-person office will be headed by Andrus Viirg.
Estonia is an emerging technology center, aided in part by its proximity to Scandinavian tech centers. Skype, a software program that enables Internet phone calls, was created in Estonia, and has a big presence in Tallinn and Tartu, the two largest cities in Estonia. The company is now owned by San Jose-based eBay Inc.
Of course, Ross Mayfield got to dine with Mr. Ansip. (I’m so jealous.)
I’ll be making my pilgrimage down there to the “one-man office” sometime this week, hopefully.
