From September 28 to October 2, 2014, Denis Coderre, the mayor of Montreal, has carried out a mission in Los Angeles and Silicon Valley to position the city of Montreal as a global leader internationally recognized in the digital sector as a smart city.
With the team at DQLA: Annick Soumare, Public Affairs Assistant, Marielle Guay, Public Affairs attachée, Harout Chitilian, vice president of the Executive committee, Mayor Denis Coderre, Alain Houde, Québec Representative in L.A., Melissa Isom, Commercial Attachée, Nathalie Rivard, Director Investissement Québec, Aurélie Brown, Assistant Investissement Québec, Jerome Alton Carney, Commercial Attaché and Rouzan Marghosian, Executive Assistant.
Mr. Coderre was invited by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg to attend the conference CityLab smart cities, which took place in Los Angeles.
He was accompanied by Mr. Harout Chitilian, Vice President of the Executive Committee responsible for Smart City and information technology.
Meetings
The Québec Government Office in Los Angeles has worked closely with the team of Mayor Coderre on a very active program.
Mr. Coderre met with some key players in the region, including the mayor of Los Angeles, Eric Garcetti, Zev Yaroslavsky, Supervisor of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors and the President and co-owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers Stan Kasten.
He also had a meeting with the representative of the Los Angeles Film and Television in Quebec (QFTC) in the studios of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM).
During the conference, Mr. Coderre met with the mayor of Seoul, Won-Soon Park and was a speaker at the closing plenary of the conference on the theme of cities and immigration.
Finally, he met with the Consul General of Canada in Los Angeles, James Villeneuve.
Silicon Valley
In Silicon Valley, the mayor had a business meeting with the leaders of Cisco, and he met with the Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer at Google, Patrick Pichette.
Finally, he met with Ken Morgan, Senior Management, Business Development, at Tesla home during a photo-op, while also testing a shiny Tesla Model S.
Let’s also point out that the manufacturer of Tesla will soon open its largest store and service points of North America in Montreal.