The International Cooperation Council (ICC)’s first mission this year will be to the Sophia-Antipolis Science and Technology Park in Nice, France Feb. 21-24. A joint U.S.-French ICC delegation is scheduled to visit India in March.
The ICC, headquartered in Atlanta, was created in September 1993 as a holding company with affiliate organizations in France and India, which are locally financed and governed by their own board of directors.
The ICC is an offshoot of the Atlanta Council for International Cooperation, which was chaired by Georgia Governor Zell Miller, former Atlanta Mayor Maynard Jackson and Dwight Evans, executive vice president of Georgia Power Company.
Its executive director is James C. Ram, who led three delegations to India last year resulting in numerous joint ventures and contracts, including providing Southern Company and Georgia Power introductions to Tata Sons, India’s largest company with annual sales of $8.5 billion, and to Tata Sons’ subsidiary Tata Consultancy Services. ICC also assisted Atlanta-based Big River Industries in receiving a large purchase order from Premier Housing Ltd. of India to provide low income housing.
ICC is supported by worldwide corporate sponsorships costing $5,000 annually in cash or in in-kind services. Since the Council’s launch last year, 25 companies have joined including the following from the Southeast U.S.: Georgia Power, Coca-Cola, Delta Air Lines, Equitable Real Estate, Big River Industries, Ivex Corporation, EZE Products, Arnall Golden & Gregory, Tailored Awards, The Portman Companies and National Furniture Liquidators.
Companies joining the mission from India include Tata Consultancy Services, NIIT and Datamatics.
The delegation will arrive Feb. 20 at the Nice-Cote d’Azur airport and then visit Sophia-Antipolis Technology Park which provides a site for companies primarily engaged in the fields of information technology and electronics; telecommunications; health and biotechnology; new energy sources and the environment.
The delegation will promote Indian and American software capabilities for specific projects to companies located in the area including: Telesystemes, Telemecanique, Air France, Amadeus, Thomson Sintra, Digital Equipment, Compass Design Automation, NCR, Poqet, Rockwell International, Sequent Computer Systems, Aerospatiale, ETSI, France Telecom, IBM and Texas Instruments.
For more information concerning ICC’s activites or the mission, call James Ram or Rebecca Childs at (404) 577-2991.