New Delhi, Jan 19 (FN Bureau) Experts from India and Israel deliberated on widening the scope of the India-Israel Industrial R&D and Technological Innovation Fund (I4F) and also approved three joint R&D projects worth $5.5 million and suggested measures to create a broader bilateral collaborative ecosystem. “The I4F programme has a lot of potential. This board meeting will give us new thoughts, new directions on how to go forward,” said Dr. S Chandrasekhar, Secretary, DST & India Co-Chair, acknowledging the contribution made by Israel to Science and Technology, at the 8th Governing Body meeting of I4F. “So far, the priority areas have been Agriculture, Security and other important areas. There is further scope of increasing the quantum of projects received, which calls for the need to conduct more online meetings amongst the startup eco-system of Israel and India,” he said. He mentioned that 16th January has been announced as ‘Innovation Startup Day’ by PM Narendra Modi, which is a big beginning for India. “Given that this is the 50th year of operations of DST, it will be a great year with more and more Industries coming forward,” he added.
The discussions took place in virtual mode on Tuesday in the presence of officials from the Department of Science & Technology (DST), Govt of India, Israel Innovation Authority (IIA), GITA and various Industries partners, an official statement said. Dr. Amiram Appelbaum, Co-Chair, Israel and Chairman of the Board, IIA (Israel Innovation Authority), said that despite the difficult times of the pandemic, it is critical to continue the efforts of collaboration. “I4F is one of the examples of collaborations which we want to carry forward. We look forward to go through interesting applications of projects submitted in this programme,” he stressed. The governing body ratified the Minutes of the Seventh Governing Board Meeting, which was followed by approval to three joint R&D projects with an overall budget of $5.4 million. The projects were ‘Centrally Monitored IoT Nanosensors for Molecular Diagnostics in Healthcare and Screening Applications’, ‘NoMoreMos- a mosquito control biological solution’ and ‘IoT enabled satellite communication for real-time collection of agriculture and environment data across India’.
The members discussed the status of ongoing projects under the I4F since 2018. The Israel side introduced the new I4F website and matchmaking platform developed as a measure to increase the popularity of the joint programme and presented a list of programmes planned for 2022. The members mutually decided on a strategy for the new phase of I4F 2.0. Vishvajit Sahay, Additional Secretary & Financial Adviser DST, S Gopalakrishnan Chairman, Axilor Ventures & Co-Founder, Infosys, R. Ramanan, Former Mission Director & Additional Secretary, Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog, Government of India, Dror Bin, CEO, Israel Innovation Authority, Israel, S K Varshney Adviser & Head, International Cooperation (Bilateral) Division, DST were among the members present in the meeting. India-Israel Industrial R&D and Technological Innovation Fund (I4F) fund is a cooperation between the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India, and the Israel Innovation Authority, Government of Israel to promote, facilitate and support joint industrial R&D projects between companies from India and Israel to address the challenges in the agreed ‘Focus Sectors’.