U.S. Ambassador at International Management Institute

Convergence in the 21st century: Ambassador David A. Gross

U.S. Ambassador David A. Gross visited the International Management Institute’s (IMI, New Delhi) campus and gave an engaging hour long talk on, “Convergence in the 21st century”. This was the Ambassador’s first visit to the IMI campus and he paid glowing tributes to IMI. “This is my first visit to your campus and I am extremely delighted to see the bright future of India,” said the Ambassador. His visit coincided with the ongoing Silver Jubilee celebrations of the Institute.

In his distinguished career, Ambassador Gross has served as the U.S. Coordinator for International Communications and Information Policy in the Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs; he was nominated by President George W. Bush and confirmed by the Senate. Ambassador Gross began his career in communications more than twenty years ago. He is a graduate in Economics and then went on to study law at the Columbia University Law School. After graduating from the law school he joined the law firm of Sutherland, Asbill & Brenna. While at the law firm, he became a partner specializing in communications and telecommunications issues. Year 2000, Ambassador Gross joined the Bush-Cheney presidential campaign as the National Executive Director of Lawyers and since his joining of the Department of State he has addressed the United Nations General Assembly and led US delegations several times. Ambassador Gross is also a member of the UN Information and Communications Technologies Task Force.
“Convergence in the 21st Century”, said the Ambassador; was a multi dimensional phenomena, involving politics, technology, sociology, psychology as well as culture. The beauty about the process of convergence at various levels, he said, does not compromise the underlying diversity among nations. He implored students to take advantage of the situation they find themselves today in due to the Internet Revolution and use their knowledge to make the world a better place to live in for their future generations. ‘Never have we been so empowered in terms of access to knowledge and information’ and this according to him was the single biggest achievement of the digitized era. In answering questions that spanned an expectedly wide canvas, the Ambassador defended America’s foreign policy because of what it had achieved in the Middle East and elsewhere. “It has empowered people and hopefully history will recognise the U.S.’s role in bringing freedom and democracy in Iraq.” Some of the audience appeared doubtful, but one thing was clear that whether it was WMD or nuclear rogue states, the Ambassador provided coherent answers to all the googlies thrown to him.

The guest lecture was attended by leading academicians, senior government officials and of course the students. Among those present on the occasion was the Former Secretary of Department of Information and Technology (DIT), Mr. Brajesh Kumar. Although there were many more questions that the audience wanted to ask the Ambassador, paucity of time drew the lecture to a close, with everyone in much the same vein as Oliver, asking for ‘More’. Perhaps another visit by the Ambassador is justified stated Prof Ashoka Chandra in his vote of thanks. The Ambassador readily agreed. It will be well worth the wait.