Israel, 13 July. The President of the Skolkovo Foundation paid a one-day visit to Israel to hold a series of meetings with representatives of the country’s scientific, business and administrative élite. The meeting between the Foundation’s PresidentViktor Vekselberg and the President of Israel Shimon Peres was the main event of Skolkovo’s Eastern “blitz tour”.
The virtually diplomatic level of the international events attended by the Skolkovo Foundation delegations reveals the genuine interest taken by the global political and scientific community in the innovation centre. The Israeli visit is part of Viktor Vekselberg’s extended foreign tour programme for July.
The official reception held by the Israeli President Shimon Peres under the motto “Science for Peace” involved discussions of future cooperation between the Israeli government and the Skolkovo project on innovations in the agro-industrial sector and in brain research (treatment opportunities and development of the human brain in interaction with computers). As Mr. Peresnoted, “Our brain has learned to produce fantastic things, like the Google search engine, but the brain itself is not yet becoming any more intelligent.”
The meeting during the official visit between the Skolkovo Foundation President and the Minister of Industry, Trade and Labour focused on establishing and developing working relations between Skolkovo and the Israeli business community. The concept of the Russian innovation town has aroused keen interest among major national companies specialising in innovative development.
Additionally, Mr. Vekselberg had a briefing with Roger David Kornberg, Co-chairman of the Scientific Advisory Council and a Professor at Stanford University, during which they discussed, among other issues, the role the Skolkovo Scientific Advisory Council is playing in setting up SIST (the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology) in collaboration with MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). The final meeting of the Skolkovo delegation’s visit was with Avi Hasson, chief scientist of the Israeli Ministry of Industry.
Overall, the Israeli side noted the importance of the Skolkovo project and their potential interest in integrating national science into the activities of the Russian technopark. Given the number of Russians who now live and work in Israel, one can easily imagine the scale of future projects that might come about in the wake of such meetings.
Press service of the Skolkovo Foundation
Seda Pumpyanskaya
Phone: +336 4590 0935
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E-mail: sedapoumo@gmail.com;
Maria Kravchenko
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Mobile phone: +7 916 633 8551
E-mail: MKravchenko@corp.igorod.com
Yulya Mosienko
Mobile phone: +7 915 049 9443
E-mail: YMosienko@corp.igorod.com