It was a pleasant surprise to hear from a clean energy technology and renewable energy professional whom invited me to attend “The Environmental Symposium Series: Highlighting U.S.- Israel Research & Development Cooperation in Green Technology”. The event was held on December 15, 2010 at 4:00 pm in the Embassy of Israel, Washington, D.C.
The well-respected moderator was Jeffrey M. Karp, Partner and Co-Leader of Climate-Related Business and Technology Practice, ZAG/S&W, located in Washington, D.C. I estimated about 65-75 people were in attendance.
Mr. Karp began by introducing the panelists, and outlining the agenda to be discussed – green and renewable energy technology, U.S. federal programs to help nurture green technology, and an example of how an incubator in Virginia is utilizing or taking advantage of opportunities in Israel and the U.S.
Panelistsat the event included Assaf Vitman, Minister for Economic Affairs, Israel Ministry of Finance. Mr. Vitman offered a good perspective for the audience regarding the strong relationships that have been forged between the countries. Another panelist was David Lohr, Executive Director, Dominion Resources GreenTech Incubator, whom provided a perspective relating to the success and growth of a green technology incubator model that allows international partnerships between US and Israel. The third panelist was the U.S. Department of Energy representative from the Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) division - Mr. Daniel Birns.
Mr. Vitman talked about Israel’s use of green technology to reduce their dependence on oil due to lack of natural resources. “We decided many years ago to invest in our minds, and human resources, and focus on research and development in high technology.”
“We are looking forward to next year to continue our cooperation with the U.S. Department of Energy’s EERE for the third year”, Mr. Vitman said. Through the international cooperation, “$4 million is available to further green technologies between the countries”. Mr. Vitman said. He also talked about cooperation with other countries, including China and India.
Mr. Birns, an advisor for International Activities, oversees bi-national programs to facilitate the teaming of Israeli and U.S. companies on clean energy technology R&D projects. He talked about the need to conduct joint R&D on cutting-edge clean energy technologies and to successfully commercialize them, and pointed out the U.S. and Israel both face some of the same drivers of change.
“The U.S. and Israel share a great many things,” Mr. Birns said, speaking of the need for further innovation by two countries who are both leaders in global technology innovation. “One of those things is a commitment to energy security. Here in the U.S. we’re relying on eight or nine countries for over two thirds of our oil needs. Israel is even more dependant on foreign sources of energy, importing 99 percent of its oil and generating much of its electricity through coal.”
Mr. Birns stated “Another driver is shared commitment to environmental stewardship. Both US and Israel have set goals for 2020 through treaties”. “Sectors of the economy will need to be transformed nationally and globally.”
Mr. Birns also discussed the Binational Industrial Research and Development Foundation (BIRD). He went into great depth about how BIRD conducts competitive solicitation for cooperative research, development, deployment, and demonstration projects, which was well received by the audience. The projects that interest BIRD include solar micro-turbine, Smart Grid, building-integrated photovoltaic, and biocatalysts for biodiesel production.
Mr. Lohr spoke about a successful history that began three years ago that started by bringing Israel life sciences programs to the U.S. Key elements have been an incubation program, a commercialization program, and corporate appropriations. Mr. Lohr said, “Three years later, more than a dozen people and an investment fund are working with a dozen Israel companies.”
“What we are trying to do here is replicate the success we had in life sciences, and replicate that in the green technology space,” Mr. Lohr said, who is planning an upcoming trip to Israel. “The focus of our program is all things green as they relate to energy. So we’re not doing any pure environmental plays.”
Mr. Lohr added that a very broad view of energy or clean tech companies is being taken, which include wind, solar, and bio-fuels,
Mr. Vitman added comments which sparked discussion among the panelists about the use of electric vehicles in Israel. Israel has backed the adoption and deployment of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV), which in turn have been optimized by automotive manufactures and Israel technology companies.
During the question period, I had an opportunity to ask about job creation or workforce development as a result of this partnership.
Mr. Lohr addressed my question first, stating that, “We’re just starting, but our hope is to create jobs probably in the tens and hundreds,” adding that prediction is difficult. “The model in life sciences was to focus on commercialization, and leave the research in Israel. We’re probably two or three years away from meaningful job creation.”
Ann Liebschutz, President and Executive Director for the United States Israel Science & Technology Foundation (USISTF), added that the partnership is more than cooperation for cooperation’s sake, and puts job creation front and center. “There is a method to the madness,” Ms. Liebschutzsaid. The audience was then privileged to some steps involved in the method by Ms. Liebschutz - which I’ve condensed the six steps somewhat below.
Step number one – execute what has already been done. It’s called an R&D agreement between Israel and a specific state, like Virginia. Step number two – partnerships between organizations like ours and the embassy to identify institutions and programs that work with unique programs at the Office of the Chief Scientist in Israel to issue joint RFPs between the state of Israel and the state of Virginia. Step number three – work with local institutions on the ground such as incubators in Virginia in the clean tech and biotech space and many other spaces. We coordinate a joint RFP between those institutions and the Office of the Chief Scientist with the Ministry of Trade and Labor. Step number four – that leads to facilitating effective partnerships between Virginia companies (that can be any state) and companies within the state of Israel. Step number five – those companies collaborate and this develops into a working partnership and they apply for a BIRD grant. Step number six – that application leads to a BIRD grant and we hope leads to success and something I call tangible, which is a patent - valuable intellectual property for a U.S. company, which leads to stronger U.S. and Israel companies, which leads to opening a facility in a U.S. state, which leads to two, three, four jobs, and where we have companies scaling up and building jobs in both countries. This is a tangible tool which helps both companies.
In my opinion, colleges and universities are lagging in providing relevant curriculum around green technology, including know-how on how to commercialize green technology. Companies that want to do business with Israel should be able to draw on a vast, knowledgeable workforce in both countries – and find the human capital needed to make these partnerships successful. If future symposiums start to address this challenge, business attendance is likely to increase. Right now, it’s like we are still trying to get the green technology pilot off the ground, instead of investing in the workforce, which would help get the pilot off the ground.
In summary, the cooperation between the two countries represented on this panel sound promising. In my mind, these types of symposiums are great because they encourage new opportunities. But I am also interested in the next level, which to me means addressing how emerging green technologies help solve unemployment challenges from a systemic level. How do we create jobs and opportunities for individuals who may have been displaced from the industrial economy, or who are being overlooked in the knowledge economy? Where are the indicators of far-sighted public policy and workforce inclusiveness as green technology develops? None of the discussions at this event focused on workforce development or how to involve a broader segment of society in new green technology jobs. To be fair, that was not the intent of this event. But as a possible future of the 21st century, I’d like to see how international partnerships could more explicitly illustrate how the cooperation and collaboration at the corporation levels are in alignment with workforce development in both countries.
Share your comments below. Or send an email to patrick@metamorftech.com.
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