Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, this evening (Monday, 29 October 2018), in Tel Aviv, attended the Prime Minister's 6th Annual Smart Mobility Summit. As is customary, the $1 million 2018 Eric and Sheila Samson-Prime Minister's Prize for Innovation in Alternative Fuels for Transportation was awarded.

Prime Minister Netanyahu:

"We in Israel first believed that we should invest in the traditional car industry. And we did. We actually had a car made in Israel. I remember it 50 years ago when I was a young soldier and later an officer in my unit and we were given a car. It was called 'Susita'. It was made of fiber glass. Of course, we failed miserably. We couldn’t compete in scale not on chassis or engines or tires.

Now, 50 years later, cars are changing. Soon, very soon 85% of the cost of the car will be software and its derivatives. And that means that it's basically becoming, a car is becoming a computer on wheels. Now we can compete. And we do. We have about 500 startups that deal in autonomous vehicles and related technologies and we'd become one of the two or three great centers of this new technology in the world because it's all about big data, connectivity and AI and the nexus of the three. And there, we're producing new industries. It's happening in cyber. By the way, important for this too as you know. It's happening in digital health, it's happening in precision agriculture, it's happening in everything but it's happening big time in the question of smart mobility.

Because of Israel's success, because of Israel's growth as a global technological power we are reaching out to a lot of countries. Our position in the world has changed. Our diplomatic horizons are expanding beyond belief very fast. Last week, the Vice President of China was here for three days. Three days. Before that, we had the Prime Minister of India. He was here for four days. I went to reciprocate for four days. The Prime Minister of Japan was here, Abe. In a few years, the Japanese investments in Israel grew by 44 times.

Something very big is happening in Israel. The same thing we're seeing in our contacts because of technology, because of the ability to change the world: water, health, agriculture, IT, transportation, every field. Because of this, countries around the world in Asia, in Africa, in Latin America, all those countries are coming to Israel. And the reason I'm telling you that is that I have to leave this right now because a small country of 207 million people is interested in cementing ties with Israel."

Click here ​for details about Doron Aurbach and Dr. Lars Peter Lindfors, the winners of the 2018 Eric and Sheila Samson-Prime Minister's Prize for Innovation in Alternative Fuels for Transportation.