Bridging borders: Israel, India collaborate to shape future technology

TEL AVIV: Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) signed a strategic partnership with the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi to foster research initiatives through collaborative projects, training programs, and research consultancy.

"This collaboration underscores IAI's firm commitment to corporate social responsibility within India, resonating with the country's ethos of self-reliance," Avital Schrift, VP Core Tech at IAI told The Press Service of Israel.

"It was a match made in heaven from different perspectives," Schrift said.

"For instance, we will be promoting the technology that Professor Chetan Arora from the Institute's Computer Science and Engineering Department focuses on. He researches the field of computer vision, an area that IAI has been sponsoring for a while. During our discussions we found out that he was a postdoctoral researcher with Hebrew University in Jerusalem, so it was another delightful sign of a successful continuation of collaborations." The government-owned IAI specializes in providing state-of-the-art systems for air, ground, sea, space, and cyberspace applications.

IIT Delhi is one of 23 institutes across India created to be Centers of Excellence for training, research and development in science, engineering and technology. "We are excited about this partnership with Israel Aerospace Industries, a global leader in aerospace. This collaboration aligns with IIT Delhi's commitment to cutting-edge research and technological advancements," said Professor Preeti Ranjan Panda, IIT Delhi's Dean Corporate Relations. "Together with IAI, we aim to contribute significantly to the future of technology in India," he added.

As part of its operations in India, IAI is mandated to allocate funds towards social responsibility, which led to the collaboration. "My job is to watch out for new emerging technologies coming out. In my opinion, the best place to look for is the academy," Schrift explained. "We are doing many collaborative researches with most institutes in Israel and also working with such in India, United States, and lately also in Rabat, Morocco. We are trying not only to look for innovations in technology in Israel, but also outside."

Schrift added, "We are very proud of the fact that we can work with those researchers and to communicate with them and share the knowledge, while taking their knowledge and translating it into new technologies."