“We would like those disruptive technologies that people still don’t believe in,” he said. “The founders themselves still did not prove anything. But they have a great idea.”
The India-Israel Industrial R&D & Technological Innovation Fund (I4F) is a cooperation between India’s Department of Science and Technology (DST) and the Israel Innovation Authority with a commitment of $40 million. This has been developed to promote and support joint industrial R&D projects in focused sectors such as water, healthcare, agriculture, energy and information and communication technology. The startups will have to convince the experts to get the funding from the agencies.
“At the end of the day, they (founders should) have a true product that is disruptive that can change the world. That’s our philosophy. So it’s a huge opportunity, but it’s a much bigger risk. Well, in many cases VC will not take bigger risks, big risks, even a large corporation will not take the risks. We as the government are willing to fund it, actually looking for them,” said Amiram. “Unless you put a proof of concept to them (VC), they will not put money. Then where do you go? If you have a crazy idea where do you go? So we believe that if there is a need for money that can eventually grow and there are no funds available, that is where the government can help in terms of the initial investment.”
Global Innovation & Technology Alliance (GITA) is appointed to implement the I4F program in India, while Israel Innovation Authority is the implementing agency in Israel.
According to Dr Appelbaum, who is also a chief scientist at the Ministry of Economy and Industry in Israel, technology is like a high-speed train and the ticket to get on that train is getting more and more expensive and that is where the government comes in picture to help startups to provide those technologies of high power computing and building quantum computing that costs billions of dollars.