The Chief Scientist of the Ministry of Economy of Israel, Mr Avi Hasson, and the Chairman and CEO of Telefónica I+D, Carlos Domingo, in the presence of Secretary of State for Commerce, Government of Spain, Jaime García-Legaz, signed an important collaboration agreement between Telefónica I+D and the Ministry of Economy of Israel to work together on researching and developing new technologies.
This consolidates Telefónica’s commitment to working with the leaders who are currently leading the way in innovation, as is the case of Israel.
Specifically, through this agreement, the government of Israel will fund the activities of Israeli companies that work in collaboration with Telefónica I+D and it states that the two entities will collaborate to explore opportunities in innovation, research and development of new technologies. Similarly, it establishes bonds between Israeli start-ups and large corporations in the sector.
As Carlos Domingo stressed during the signing of the agreement, “we are extremely proud to collaborate with the start-up nation par excellence and this agreement will allow us to learn important lessons in how to convert a complex environment into an opportunity thanks to its enterprising culture and global vision.”
Furthermore, Yifat Alon-Perel, Economic and Innovation Attaché of Israel in the Embassy in Spain, said that “Telefónica and its integration with Israeli technology has been a priority and an important objective of this ministry. The executives’ visit to Israel and the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding is undoubtedly a significant milestone with Telefónica. We hope that it shows its results in the near future in joint projects with Israeli start-ups”.
Gil Gidron, President of the Spanish-Israeli chamber of Commerce, indicates that the public-private-partnership, a notion well developed in Israel, has been important in the relations between Israel and Telefonica. In that respect, the Chamber has been instrumental to advance and achieve this signature.
Israel and Telefónica have been collaborating on R&D for several years. In fact, Telefónica already holds a stake in some companies in the country. The most noteworthy example is Jajah (recently renamed Telefonica Digital Israel), which developed proprietary software for establishing calls using the “voice over IP” (VoIP) system and which currently collaborates on the development of Telefónica Digital products, such as TuGO. Furthermore, Telefónica has invested in Everything.me, a company headquartered in Israel that has developed an innovative dynamic mobile app platform based on HTML5, which has been built into Telefónica’s Firefox OS handsets.