Foreign Affairs Committee Members Leave for Coast to Coast US Trip
Following closely on President Ilves's trip, members of Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee are heading to the United States for their first working visit in four years to meet entrepreneurs, researchers, experts and politicians on both coasts.
The West Coast part of the trip will be based in the Bay Area and include visits to companies in Silicon Valley and Stanford University.
The members - chairman Marko Mihkelson, and members Sven Mikser, Imre Sooäär and Vladimir Velman - will call at Fortune 500 tech Symantec, meet investor Steve Jurvetson, and put in an appearance at a seminar on Estonian-US relations at Stanford.
Next week, the committee members will travel to Washington to meet representatives from the White House, State Department and Department of Defense.
In Congress, Chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs Ileana Ros-Lehtinen will meet the Estonian legislators. Meetings are scheduled with a number of other influential congressmen: Joseph Lieberman, Mike Turner and Dan Burtan.
In Washington, they will also visit IMF and World Bank, and Mihkelson will speak at a public governance and internet freedom seminar organized by the Estonian Embassy in cooperation with the Washington European Society, Wikimedia and the Bertelsman Foundation.
Kristopher Rikken