Israel & India Signed MoU for Promoting Tech Startups

India and Israel signed an agreement to initiate a bilateral program to accelerate innovation and technology cooperation between start-ups and corporates from both countries.

The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between Israel's Startup Nation Central and India's International Centre for Entrepreneurship and Technology (iCreate) with an aim to bring together Israeli and Indian entrepreneurs and startups to collaborate on innovative projects, according to a statement.

The MoU was signed by Professor Eugene Kandel, CEO of Start-Up Nation Central from Jerusalem and Anupam Jalote, CEO of iCreate from Ahmedabad. Professor Vijay Raghavan, Principal Scientific Advisor to India government was present in the event through video-conferencing, while Israel's Ambassador to India, Ron Malka, and Yaakov Finkelstein, Israel's Consul General in Mumbai were physically present.

Others who were present virtually were Sanjeev Kumar Singla, India's Ambassador to Israel. Gujarat Chief Minister, Vijay Rupani sent his best wishes through a video message.

iCreate and Start-Up Nation Central will initiate a unique Online Acceleration Program for market penetration to work with relevant technologies that match up with requirements originating from Indian corporations.

The program will begin by defining a set of challenges that will then be shortlisted to the most relevant solutions and technology providers. This will be followed by a matchmaking mechanism that will be developed by leveraging both countries' networks to support the process of adaptation and piloting these solutions in India, the statement said.

The Israel-India growing partnership has developed into a strategic partnership in recent years, and since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the two countries have collaborated on a number of joint ventures such as Operation Open Skies and integration of Israeli medical equipment and technologies in Indian hospitals. Speaking during the occasion, Ron Malka called the agreement an important milestone in the growing innovation collaboration between Israel and India

"Today we close a circle. A circle that started in 2018 when PM Modi and PM Netanyahu inaugurated this important incubator, iCreate, and now, two years later, we are signing, on the very spot where they stood, an MoU on innovation between Israel's Start-Up Nation Central and India's iCreate," he said.

"This agreement is an important milestone in the growing innovation collaboration between Israel and India and stands in line with the visions of the Prime Ministers. Israel has the most startups per capita worldwide, and India is the top innovation destination in Asia. Together, both countries continue to form partnerships and collaborations in technology and innovation to solve a range of global issues like COVID-19, renewable energy and more, implementing high-end technologies like AI, big data analysis and more," he added.

Meanwhile, Professor Kandel said that the MoU is an important step in realising the potential of the India-Israel relations in the field of innovative technologies

"I am confident this partnership will pave the way for more Israeli startups to collaborate with Indian organisations and firms to develop and implement cutting-edge Israeli technologies that address India's and the world's most pressing needs. We look forward to collaborating with i-Create, identifying Israeli partners to jointly develop solutions to the current challenges in India," he said.

iCreate was established in 2012 to create a hi-tech start-up ecosystem with the active support of Narendra Modi, who was serving as the Chief Minister of Gujarat at that time. It roped in leading industrialists and academicians as mentors.

It has been working with Israeli universities and accelerators from the year of its foundation. The new campus of iCreate was inaugurated by Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on January 17, 2018.

Start-Up Nation Central is an independent non-profit organisation that builds bridges to Israeli innovation. It connects business, government, and NGO leaders from around the world to Israeli innovation that can help them answer their most pressing needs.

The organistion allows free access to Finder, Start-Up Nation Central's online discovery platform that maps more than 6,600 Israeli start-Ups and Hi-tech companies, including in-depth insights about Israel's innovation sector.