Israel Centre at IIMB

To mark 25 years of India-Israel partnership, the Israeli Consulate in Bengaluru launched the Israel Centre at IIMB on 5th November 2017. “The Israel Centre at IIMB will lead to upgrading of academic collaboration between India and Israel, and will make our countries and economies stronger,” said Chief Guest His Excellency Daniel Carmon, Ambassador of Israel to India.

Prof. G. Raghuram, Director, IIM Bangalore, gave a background of the bilateral collaboration between India and Israel and spoke of the traditional areas of partnership between the two countries, the potential in new domains, and the complementarities between the two countries. The envoy said Israeli universities, such as IIMB’s partner Tel Aviv University, are one of the forces behind Israeli innovation and its startup industry. “Not only are they centers of learning and research, but each university has a technology transfer company, meant to translate the academic knowledge to applicable technology in the real world.”

The ambassador went on to say that like Bengaluru, Israeli economy is based on innovation and the start-up industry. “Indian technology will support the Israeli system. So this is a merger of our ecosystems.”

Pointing out that a crucial part of successful academia is sharing of knowledge, the Ambassador said academic partners should be like-minded in the pursuit of knowledge, but different enough to bring in diverse perspectives.

The keynote address was delivered by Ajay Vipin Nanavati, Chairman, Syndicate Bank, and former CEO, 3M Israel and 3M India. He focussed on why the Israeli system does well and what India can learn. In his closing address, Prof. Gadi Ariav, said the Centre is an outcome of the rapidly shortening geographical distance between nations. He also pointed out that there will be challenges in this venture, which we need to overcome. Ms. Dana Kursh, Consul General of Israel in Bengaluru, was a special guest at the launch.