The family and I enjoyed dinner at the Nepalese Embassy this evening, spending time with Nepalese Ambassador Sharma. We were delighted to catch up with him and he and I discussed the next steps to put together a Sister Cities or partnership between Morrisville and the Triangle and Nepal.

The next step for this partnership will be for us to wait until the elections are over this November in Nepal, at which time the Ambassador will lead this effort, working to identify the local Nepali government, which we will partner with. Apparently, there has been a transition government in place over the past few years so we need to wait until there is a

One critical piece of this effort will also be to engage as many Nepalese and Morrisville citizens, on what the goals of this partnership will be, and to have these citizens provide input to us on what benefits they would like to see from this type of program. I will be organizing a meeting with the community in the next few months, to begin this process and am pleased to be working with Ambassador Sharma on this.

Finally, I will be bringing the Ambassador back in September with some more focused meeting with Commerce, the new Mccrory administration, and most importantly, the North Carolina Community College System, as there could be an opportunity for our Community Colleges to offer campuses and have some type of presence in global markets, like Nepal and India.

A great evening and I am looking forward to cultivating the relationship with Nepal in the near future.