Last week Sam Pitroda signed a cooperation protocol with the Setúbal municipality to locate the first project in that city. But two other Knowledge Cities are already in view. One in the North of the country and another in the Metropolitan Area of Lisbon.
The Pitroda Group, led by Indian millionaire Sam Pitroda, has a plan for the construction of three Knowledge Cities in Portugal. For now, only one is advancing, in Setúbal, but the group is in negotiations with an autarchy in the North of the country “that we do not yet want to identify because it is in a very embryonic state”, said Sam Pitroda to Negócios.
The physicist, who made his fortune in the US in the telecommunications sector, worked for the Indian government in developing a technology plan. Now he is committed to attracting investment to Portugal. “The plan is to mobilize global resources. I will not invest 800 million euros [the estimated global cost of building a Knowledge City]. My job is, with the help of several people who, like me, have the right contacts, to attract investment. And there are already interested parties ”, he guarantees.
In a conversation in Lisbon, where he spent just one day to formalize the understanding with the Setúbal City Council, he explained that “there is a lot of money waiting for good investment opportunities”, in all sovereign funds, namely in the Middle East, where there is “Good contacts”. Major investors in Singapore and Japan, as well as US investment funds, are also looking forward to good investment opportunities at a time when interest rates are low. “But they will not be low forever,” he warns. “This is the right time to move forward.”
Sam Pitroda believes that “Portugal has not been able to sell itself” to the “cream” of international investment. For this to happen, he argues, the country needs projects like the one it now brings to Setúbal and which it has already built in India and Mexico. The model “is not an experience”, he stresses.
What cities are these?
A Knowledge City is “an integrated complex” where “knowledge workers” live and work. Basically, he adds, “it is a city where talent comes together”. In Setúbal this city will be born in Vale da Rosa, very close to the facilities of BlueBiz Global Parques and the campus of the Polytechnic Institute of Setúbal. The project should include offices, a residential area, a hotel, a conference center, a hospital, schools and universities, commerce, parking lots and entertainment, art and culture spaces.
A team was created, which brings together people from the Pitroda Group and the local authority, which will jointly define which cluster this City of Knowledge will focus on and only then will it be possible to determine which infrastructures are most appropriate.
The strategic plan for Setúbal will be made by a Portuguese company specialized in these long-term projects used to working for municipalities and the Government. It will also count on the contribution of a local committee of scholars made up of relevant people from the most varied areas.
“The idea is to create a vision and project big enough to interest the most important investors in the world,” he says. “We want a project of excellence.”
Only after the strategic plan is approved, which should happen in the summer, do contacts with potential investors begin. “We want to bring high-level talent to do research, collaborate, innovate.”
The three Knowledge Cities will have different clusters that will respect the business, social and environmental reality. “This is an inclusive project. We are not going to create ghettos ”, guarantees the businessman.
Who is Sam Pitroda?
He was born in 1942 in a small village in one of the poorest rural areas in India. Sam Pitroda is the son of a suthar carpenter, who prospered in doing business with the English. That was how he managed to finance the studies of his eight children.
Sam Pitroda graduated in Physics with a specialization in electronics at Maharaja Sayajirao University, in the city of Baroda, in the state of Gujarat. He arrived in Chicago, USA, in 1964 to continue his studies. It was there that he used a telephone for the first time. In the land of Uncle Sam lived the American dream and enriched by building companies and registering close to 100 patents worldwide.
He is appointed as the mentor of the technological revolution in India in the 1980s. He was an advisor to the Prime Minister of India Rajiv Gandhi, where he led six technology missions related to telecommunications, water, literacy, vaccination, milk production and oilseeds. . Today, in addition to being a businessman and a millionaire, he is also a philanthropist. He is the founder and president of five nonprofit organizations.
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