India-Israel Innovation Centre Launched At IoT India Congress In Bengaluru

With an aim to give a boost to the entrepreneurs in the technology sector, Ramanan Ramanathan, mission director at Atal Innovation Mission, Moshe Porat, founder and CEO at Mesh Labs, and Varad Krishna, founding partner of IIIC, launched country's first India-Israel Innovation Centre (IIIC) in Bengaluru on Wednesday. The announcement was a part of a two-day event called IoT India Congress. Speaking at the launch, Dana Kush, Consulate General of Israel to South India told the audience, "We are proud to witness the launch of IIIC, which reinstates that the formula of 'India + Israel= Innovation' works. Our role as diplomats is to find the best possible ways to connect India to the Israeli ecosystem and vice-versa, especially while both nations are focusing on startups. I wish IIIC to be another productive milestone in connecting the countries and pave the way for many more successful businesses to grow and transform. There would have been no better place than having this launch in India’s Silicon Valley — Bengaluru." The IIIC is a significant step towards facilitating penetration of Israeli companies in India and aims to bring local partnerships and joint ventures between the companies from the two countries. It will also provide an ecosystem to support entrepreneurship, partnership with vendors, mentoring and non-formal community development that will assist the growth of the companies in different verticals and covers business, technology, investors and customers. Krishna said that their aim was to meet the long-pending need to connect the startup ecosystems in Israel and India, and to improve the quality and survival rate of these startups. IoT India Congress attracted participation from over 2,000 delegates over the two days. Marc Jones, Chairman and CEO, Aeris delivered the keynote address. Industry leaders like Ramanathan, Juergen Hase, CEO at Unlimit, Dr Gopichand Katragadda, CTO at Tata Group, Ravi Ramaswamy, Senior Director and Head, Health Systems at Philips Innovation Campus and VS Sridhar, Senior Vice President and Head, IoT Business Initiative at Tata Communications Ltd, were some of the dignitaries present at the event.