A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between Israel’s Start-Up Nation Central and India’s International Centre for Entrepreneurship and Technology (iCreate) to initiate a bilateral program to accelerate innovation and technology cooperation between start-ups and corporates from both countries.
The aim of this programme is to bring together Israeli and Indian entrepreneurs and startups to collaborate on innovative projects.
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 Government of India was present in the event through video-conferencing, while Ron Malka, Israel’s Ambassador to India 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. Chief Minister of Gujarat, 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 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.
Ambassador of Israel to India, Ron Malka said, “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. 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.”
“This MOU is an important step in realizing the potential of the India-Israel relations in the field of innovative technologies,” said Prof. Eugene Kandel, CEO of Start-Up Nation Central. “I’m confident this partnership will pave the way for more Israeli startups to collaborate with Indian organizations 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.”
iCreate was established in 2012 to create a hi-tech start-up ecosystem.
Start-Up Nation Central is an independent non-profit organization that builds bridges to Israeli innovation.
