iCreate (International Centre for Technology and Entrepreneurship) and Start-up Nation Central, the global champion of Israeli Innovation organized a demo day for the five start-ups that were onboarded to the accelerator programme.
An innovation bridge was inaugurated by the Prime Ministers of India and Israel in September 2017 with the aim of identifying cutting-edge Israeli innovations, and adapting them to the requirements of the Indian market. Continuing the journey, iCreate started collecting problem statements from Indian companies. In all, 93 problem statements from 25 companies were identified as challenges that needed to be addressed using world class innovations. After a rigorous shortlisting process, iCreate and SNC onboared five innovators for the first India Israel Innovation Accelerator (i3A) which was kicked off on 22 February.
Anupam Jalote, CEO iCreate, said it is very rare for intent and delivery to come together in such a short timeframe, especially when working internationally with culturally diverse stakeholders. “SNC is a dream partner to work with and Israeli and Indian innovators and entrepreneurs have collaborated brilliantly in this programme. The innovation bridge that our two PMs built in 2018 has traffic flowing across it and I am confident more and more two-way traffic will ensue.”
Siddharth Pareek, Manager, Programme and Alliances at iCreate, said their endeavour to collaborate with the best strategic minds to identify some excellent solution providers for the Indian industry has been successful. “India is slated to grow at a significant pace and the integration of these technologies formulated by some of the best creative minds will only bolster its development.”
Prof. Eugene Kandel, CEO of Start-Up Nation Central, said Start-Up Nation Central has rich experience in connecting tech start-ups with large corporations. “It takes time to earn the trust on both sides, thus it takes even longer time to get to the POC stage. The speed with which iCreate Start-Up Nation Central partnership facilitated a number of deals is beyond expectations and indicates that these two organizations already enjoy the trust of both sides, the commitment of the corporate, and the quality of technologies chosen.”
Kandel added that they have observed how both sides learned from each other. “As a result of this program and the collaboration start-ups sharpened their focus in addressing the real challenges presented by corporations, allowing them access to one of the world’s biggest markets.
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Over six weeks, i3A prepared the participating Israeli innovators for the challenges and opportunities offered by the Indian market. With personalized attention and deep local insights, iCreate mentors helped the participants understand Indian culture, get clarity on their product-market fit, and identify the right partners for collaboration. This resulted in an average of five corporate connections getting established per start-up, and a total of 20 meetings to explore synergies between them.
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