Last week, the Chairman of the Israel Innovation Authority, Mr. Avi Hasson, signed an R&D cooperation agreement with his Chilean counterpart, Mr. Eduardo Bitran, Vice President of the Innovation Authority of Chile (CORFO). The South American country is among the leaders in entrepreneurship and technology in the Pacific Alliance (Mexico, Peru, Colombia and Costa Rica), in which the countries have a joint GDP of $3 trillion and 40% of the GNP of all of Latin America – the eighth largest global economy.
The agreement between the authorities will connect startups, technology and research in a variety of fields and will focus on two channels of implementation.
A. Jointly developing technological solutions for the challenges facing Israeli and Chilean traditional industries – the industry in Chile is based mainly on natural resources and agriculture. In addition to Chile’s goals of finding technology-based solutions to the challenges of climate change and to maximizing the country’s mining industry, Chile, like Israel, is also facing challenges of desert irrigation and aspires to make progress in the development of solar energy – a common interest and field of research for both countries.
B. Chile can serve as a springboard for Israel to enter global markets in a range of traditional industries – Chile is a world leader in mining, agriculture and food production. It is one of the countries with the highest export rates for wine, fishery, metals and more.
A joint call for submissions issued by both authorities is expected to be published in Q1 2017.