January
For
the second year in a row, Mike attended the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in
Las Vegas in early January. He worked
the International Pavilion and met with more than 30 companies from China,
Taiwan, Israel, UK, and France. During the conference, he attended three French
delegation receptions from Marseille and Nice regions. He was notified that Nice has selected
Richardson as their second recommended “soft landing” location for companies
from their region looking to expand to the U.S.
He will finalize the relationship on his next visit to France sometime
this year.
Mike
Skelton met with members of a Belgium delegation visiting DFW and has followed
up with two Belgium companies looking to expand to the US. He also met with an Italian IoT software company,
and two trade organizations from Houston, the Quebec Trade Consul and the Chief
Executive Director of Japan’s JETRO Trade Organization.
Meetings
were arranged for the Mexican and Argentina Consuls General with Mayor Paul
Voelker in mid-December. The Mayor did a
great job selling Richardson/Telecom Corridor to the Consuls as the high-tech
hub of the Dallas area and a great place for tech companies from their counties
to establish their US office. Both
Consul Generals also participated as keynote speakers at an International
Concierge luncheon on the topic to NAFTA with approximately 60 attendees.
February
The Richardson Community US Ignite
initiative (REDP/UT Dallas partnership) recently received a grant for $20,000
to use as awards for development of new ideas for gigabit or low latency
internet applications. We held a
Richardson Community US Ignite Smart Gigabit Community Application Challenge at
the Eisemann Center on February 24 to launch the effort. Proposals for such internet applications will
be due on March 31st and winners will be announced by April 21st.
A group of sixteen (16) teachers from
Xiangtan, China participated in a two week “English as a Second Language”
training session at Richland College.
Richardson’s China Ambassador, Mr. David Wong, Managing Director of the
Elite Cultural Center in Richardson worked for two years to arrange this. Each teacher paid Richland College $1500 to
participate in the event.
March
Launched new program with UT Dallas
Jindal School of Management/International Business called Center for Global
Business. Charlie Chen has offered space
at DFW Innovation Center in Richardson to house up to 20 international business
interns that will be assigned to five geographical regions and help REDP
International with FDI lead generation from the various regions, act as
ambassadors and translators for visiting delegations etc.
A delegation from Changsha County
(Hunan Provence) China, a Richardson Friend City partner, visited City Hall and
met with Mayor Voelker and City officials.
The delegation is looking to strengthen our relationship and to work
more closely on trade and investment between our two communities.
April
Richardson’s
International Economic Development program was again recognized by the Financial
Times of London, for its Foreign Direct Investment rankings of American Cities
of the Future 2017-18. For the third
consecutive rankings, Richardson was ranked in a Top Ten category of Foreign
Direct Investment. This year’s ranking
placed Richardson’s Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) Strategy in the Top Ten for
Small Cities (populations of 100,000 to 350,000) 74 out of 208 small cities
were evaluated for this category throughout the Western Hemisphere.