kochi entrepreneurs at the startup village in kalamassery could not have asked for more from the mayor of menlo park catherine caltron who is heading a us delegation to explore possible areas of cooperation with kochi city after her visit to the village on monday the mayor has promised to take 100 entrepreneurs to silicon valley in 2015 for global exposure further entrepreneurs from silicon valley may also visit the startup village the us delegation from silicon valley led by catherine interacted with entrepreneurs at the village earlier the delegation held discussions with kochi corporation officials and visited the government girls high school in south with civic body officials they discussed sectors in which they can work together in future catherine expressed willingness to work with kochi city in information technology and educational sectors projects focusing on it and education sectors will be designed as part of the twincity initiative between both cities more programmes will be formulated under the initiative which will help to create more job opportunities in kochi the mayor said officials such as ray mueller and mukul agarwal took part in the discussions dr rajan chedambath director centre for heritage environment and development ched in kochi corporation made a presentation on history heritage backwaters tourism potential and other aspects of the city to the visiting team menlo park officials also made a presentation of initiatives they have taken up in the california city mayor tony chammany said officials of both cities would sign a memorandum of understanding mou in the presence of chief minister oommen chandy on wednesday after the meeting with corporation officials the mayor interacted with students of government girls high school in south she also inspected facilities at the school the students seem very happy the faculty is dedicated and the library computer lab and other facilities are all functioning properly but theres always scope for improvement she said kochi has great potential for educational cultural social and economic exchanges that we are planning im sure there are a lot of people in the us especially silicon valley who would be interested in collaborating with the talented and hardworking people of kochi she added during her short visit she also took the time to visit fort kochi and mattancherry to get a feel of kochis vast history culture and heritage the american culture is just around 250 years old i visited buildings in fort kochi that were much older this is a beautiful place i plan to return here soon with my kids she said