September 9, 2018
Ambassador Pyatt: Let me say first of all what a pleasure it is for me to be up on the stage with our partners at Cisco.
When I was over at the Startup Pavilion with Minister Pappas and his team this morning I made the point that one of the aspects at the USA Pavilion that I’m most proud of is the very strong presence from American technology companies and my interest in using the TIF to illustrate how our technology companies are ready to work with Greek partners to grow the economy, to grow opportunity, and to help move both of our countries forward.
About two years ago, very early after my arrival, one of my first road trips in Greece was to Trikala, and when I was in Trikala one of the things that really impressed me about that visit was what Mayor Papastergiou had accomplished and what he was doing with Cisco in terms of e-governance, the willingness of the Trikala authorities to experiment, to demonstrate how technology could be used to bring government closer to citizens and make it more accountable.
I was so excited about this that I wrote an editorial in Kathimerini which described the story, and I said I’m going to keep working on this.
So that’s why I’m here today. I’m incredibly honored that we have Mayor Boutaris with us and also our partners from the city of Athens. And I know that Cisco has a great story to tell.
I’m also very committed to seeing that our consulate, our embassy remains engaged with our partners in Trikala. Mr. Mayor, our new consul general is there and I’ll make sure the two of you get connected after I leave. And I’m really, really excited for Cisco, that they are now taking this program which began with our friends in Trikala and scaling it up to some other bigger cities.
So I’m very excited to hear about how this goes. I can’t stay because I’m trying to do everything at the Fair this weekend, but I wanted to congratulate Cisco for putting this together, and congratulate the city of Thessaloniki, the city of Athens, and of course Trikala for how they are moving the concept, of how the transformative power of American technology can help make Greece stronger and help Greece move forward as well.
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