The program aims to bring together Israeli and Indian entrepreneurs and start-ups to collaborate on innovative projects, the embassy of Israel in India said in a statement.

India’s International Centre for Entrepreneurship and Technology (iCreate) and Israel’s Start-Up Nation Central on Tuesday signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to work together on a bilateral program to accelerate innovation and technology cooperation between start-ups and corporates from both the countries.

The program aims to bring together Israeli and Indian entrepreneurs and start-ups to collaborate on innovative projects, the embassy of Israel in India said in 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.

Dr Ron Malka, Israel’s ambassador to India and Yaakov Finkelstein, Israel’s consul general attended the event in Mumbai while Professor Vijay Raghavan, principal scientific advisor to the government joined through video-conferencing.

Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani also sent his best wishes for the program through a video message.

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

The program will define a set of challenges which 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, it added.

The embassy noted that growing Israel-India ties have developed into a strategic partnership in the 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, Dr 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 start-ups 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,” she added.

Prof. Eugene Kandel, CEO of Start-Up Nation Central termed the singing of the MoU an important step in realizing the potential of the India-Israel relations in the field of innovative technologies.

“I’m confident this partnership will pave the way for more Israeli start-ups 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,” Kandel said.