From May 24 to 26, 2021, Ambassador Martin Weiss travelled to the West Coast for his first ambassadorial visit to California. The Ambassador was officially welcomed in the Golden State by California Lieutenant Governor Eleni Kounalakis and San Francisco Mayor London N. Breed.
His three-day visit to California included a stop at Open Austria, Austria’s innovation office in San Francisco, and several meetings with entrepreneurs and scientists like Meng Li, Director of Food Science at Just, a company in San Francisco that develops and markets plant-based alternatives to conventionally-produced egg products; Patricia Bubner, CEO and Co-Founder of Orbillion Bio, a cultivated meat startup based in Berkeley, as well as with Marc Rosenmayr, CFO and Executive Vice President of Operations Finance, and IT, at the Santa Monica-based North America unit of the Austrian energy drink company Red Bull.
Andreas Wendel, VP of Engineering at Kodiak Robotics, gave insights into the development of self-driving semi-trucks, during the Ambassador’s tour of the company in Mountain View.
On May 25, 2021, Ambassador Weiss attended the presentation of the Austrian Cross of Honor for Science and Art First Class to Prof. Friedrich Prinz, Leonardo Professor and Senior Fellow at the Precourt Institute for Energy, Stanford, at the Austrian Consul General’s Residence in Los Angeles.
In West Hollywood Ambassador Weiss met with Jia Yi Gu, the new director of the MAK Center for Art and Architecture which operates from the landmark Schindler House (built by Austrian-born American architect Rudolph M. Schindler in 1922).
Ambassador Weiss’ visit to California concluded with an exchange of views with Austria’s most prominent American, former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger at the USC Schwarzenegger Institute for State and Global Policy in Los Angeles.
California Lieutenant Governor Eleni Kounalakis, Ambassador Martin Weiss, former U.S. Ambassador to Austria Trevor Traina
Clara Blume (Head of the Open Austria Art+Tech Lab / Austrian), Martin Rauchbauer (Austrian Tech Ambassador / Austrian), Eleni Kounalakis (California Lt. Governor), Ambassador Martin Weiss, Trevor Traina (former U.S. Ambassador to Austria), Andreas Launer (Austrian Consul General in LA), Kylee Mebust (Communications Manager, Open Austria)
Meeting Mayor London Breed at San Francisco’s City Hall
Looking over San Francisco's South of Market district
Meeting the Open Austria team in San Francisco: Martin Rauchbauer, Ambassador Martin Weiss, Marianna Bonechi (Senior Advisor, Open Austria), Consul General Andreas Launer, Clara Blume, Kylee Mebust, George Fuerlinger (Co-Director, Open Austria / Austrian), Earl Schaffer (Deputy Director, Open Austria / Austrian), Lena Kopetzky
Visit to Kodiak Robotics: Consul General Andreas Launer, Martin Rauchbauer, Sabine Wimmer (Executive Assistant, Kodiak Robotics / Austrian), Ambassador Martin Weiss, Andreas Wendel (VP of Engineering, Kodiak Robotics / Austrian)
Visit to Kodiak Robotics: Martin Rauchbauer, Don Burnette (CO-Founder and CEO of Kodiak Robotics), Ambassador Martin Weiss, Consul General Andreas Launer, Andreas Wendel
Visit to Swissnex: Ambassador Martin Weiss, Martin Rauchbauer, Andreas Launer, Patricia Bubner (CEO & Co-Founder, Orbillion / Austrian), Samet Yildirim (COO & Co-Founder, Obillion)
Visit to Swissnex: Martin Rauchbauer, Ambassador Martin Weiss, Patricia Bubner, Samet Yildirim, Consul General Andreas Launer
Ambassador Martin Weiss and his wife, Susi Weiss, with former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger at the USC Schwarzenegger Institute for State and Global Policy