India Israel Innovation Bridge: Government Invites Startup Proposals

Earlier in July this year, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Israel, among other agreements, the two countries also two countries also launched a bilateral innovation challenge for startups in Israel and India – India Israel Innovation Bridge.

The India Israel Innovation Bridge is managed by the Israel Innovation Authority and the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP), Ministry of Commerce & Industry, Govt. of India. The programme will be jointly managed by Invest India (on behalf of DIPP).

The India Israel Innovation Bridge is a tech platform to facilitate bilateral cooperation between Indian and Israeli startups, tech hubs, corporations and other key innovation ecosystem players.

The platform is slated to host a bilateral innovation challenge for Israeli and Indian Startups to combine forces to develop solutions for critical challenges agriculture, water and digital health.

The applications are now open for startups to apply with their proposals.

What’s In It For Startups?

The participating startups will be selected by a joint panel of judges to give an opportunity to further develop their solutions through a unique programme managed by Invest India and Israel Innovation Authority.

The startups have access to a cross-border mentorship and incubation/acceleration prizes. The participating startups will get $7820 (INR 5 Lakhs) cash prize, mentorship opportunity from the government bodies and additional support from Corporate & Investor Partners. Apart from this, Indian startups will get a two-week all expense paid trip to Israel, market access, and an invitation to pitch at the Demo days. The startups will also get a working space for six months in the partner incubator.

iCreate (Ahmedabad, India), T-Hub (Hyderabad, India) and Pears Program for Global Innovation (Israel) are the incubation partners. They will be joined by Israeli and Indian corporate partners.

The online challenge is envisioned to be an annual event. Within each of these areas, two problems statements have been identified:

Health Challenge

1. Solutions for real-time health monitoring, home care, remote care, periodic counseling and advice on health management for NCDs (Non-Communicable Disease) – The challenge is looking for high quality, innovative solutions that are affordable, accessible and sustainable, focusing on constant and real time health monitoring, home care, remote care, periodic counseling and advice on health management. This needs to take into account the existing technology and infrastructure in India, demand creation and service delivery.
2. Solutions Innovative, inclusive, low-cost diagnostics and predictive solutions in rural areas – In this regard the Israel-India Innovation Bridge is looking for proposals that offer “low fidelity, high frequency” solutions for diagnostics in rural India. The solutions will be focused on cheap, low fidelity hardware that can capture recurring diagnostic data at a high frequency, and use machine learning and algorithmic data manipulation to accurately diagnose and predict conditions.

To know more about the health challenge, click here

Agriculture Challenge

1. Solutions for reducing post-harvest loss and improve market linkages – To this end, the India-Israel Bridge is seeking technological solutions to increase the efficiency of the agricultural chain and ultimately reduce waste while increase farmers’ earnings.
2. Affordable easy-to-use solutions to enhance agricultural productivity and increase farmers’ earnings – The India-Israel Bridge is seeking affordable, accessible, easy-to-use technologies, products or services to enhance agricultural productivity in India.

To know more about the agriculture challenge, click here

Water Challenge

1. Low energy and cost effective sustainable solutions for wastewater treatment/ desalination/recycling or purifying large water sources and surface water – The startups solution should be focused on seeking innovative, low energy, cost effective sustainable solution for wastewater treatment/desalination/recycling or purifying large scale water sources and surface water. These solutions should be targeting B2B (business to business) and B2G (business to government) framework and their model must be affordable for servicing low-income populations while conforming to quality standards.
2. Innovative and affordable solutions that produce potable drinking water at point of use in both rural and urban areas – In this regard the India Israel Bridge is looking for Innovative, affordable, effective sustainable solution that produces potable drinking water at point of use in both rural and urban areas. Target price point under $0.01 per liter. This can be done on individual, family or village scale. The solution should consider constraints obtaining to weather (wet areas with misplacement of water v/s drought), infrastructure, connectivity, ease of use etc.

To know more about the water challenge, click here

The applications are now open for innovators. The deadline to submit the solution for the India Israel Innovaltion Challenge is November 10th 2017. The next move will be by the Israel Innovation Authority to confirm the problem statement, corporate partners.