Russia's Dmitry Medevedev today visits Silicon Valley for the first time, eager to reinvent his country's outmoded, oil-dependent economy _ and lure talent and money from the high-tech capital, according to Reuters. Two years into his presidency, the 44-year-old tech-savvy Kremlin chief still lives in the shadow of his predecessor Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, but that hasn't stopped him from strenuously pursuing pet projects, the most grandiose of which is the creation of Russia's own Silicon Valley outside Moscow. But to succeed, Medvedev knows he needs to attract some of the best minds and investors in the United States to a project that many Russian businessmen are already skeptical about. «The future of our country, and its competitiveness on international markets, to a large degree depends upon the results of cooperating with foreign companies and universities,» the Russian president told an international business forum in St. Petersburg last week. While in California, Medvedev will meet Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Google CEO Eric Schmidt, and will give a speech at Stanford University. He will then fly to Washington to meet President Barack Obama, and from there the two will go to Toronto for the G-8 and G-20 summits. -- SPA
