On June 11, Dr. John P. Holdren, Assistant to the President for Science and Technology and Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and Minister Shri Vilasrao Deshmukh from the India Ministry of Science, Technology and Earth Sciences will lead the second U.S.-India Joint Commission Meeting on Science and Technology Cooperation in Washington, D.C.
The meeting, held under the auspices of the U.S.-India Science and Technology Agreement, will assess progress and identify new areas for scientific cooperation. Representatives from more than 15 U.S. Government agencies and research institutions will meet with their Indian counterparts to discuss Basic and Applied Sciences, Health and Medical Sciences, and Atmospheric, Environment and Earth Sciences; policy initiatives to strengthen bilateral research cooperation; innovation and technology commercialization; Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) education; and best practices for retaining and advancing women in science.
During the Joint Commission Meeting, Dr. Holdren and India’s Prime Minister Advisor for Public Information Infrastructure and Innovation Dr. Sam Pitroda will announce the Open Government Platform (OGPL)—a bilateral effort to promote transparency and greater citizen engagement by making government data, documents, tools and processes publicly available. Making this information available on an open-source platform in machine-readable format will allow developers, analysts, the media, and academics an opportunity to develop new applications and insights, which will ultimately give citizens more information to facilitate better decisions.
