Israel, while located in the oil-rich Middle East, lacked natural resources which results in limited opportunities for growth. To address this problem, Israel turned their efforts toward investing in their people and focusing on the development on innovation industries.
With the world’s highest number of startups per capita and the second highest number of registered patents per capita, Israel has been dubbed the Startup Nation – the innovation capital of the world. World Bank statistics show that Israel spends 4.27% of their GDP on research and development, the highest in the world. Almost every Forbes 500 company has an R&D team based in Israel, a testament to the progressive and globally-trusted research and development atmosphere in the said country.
In the July edition of TechUp Pilipinas held recently, the tech communities of the Philippines and Israel birthed a collaboration and knowledge partnership to be principally led by the Israeli Chamber of Commerce in the Philippines and the Blockchain Association of the Philippines.
Justo Aboitiz Ortiz, the President of the Blockchain Association Philippines and Chairman of UnionBank, opened up the session by encouraging the community to learn from one another and build that ecosystem. “We have a tendency to play in our own sandbox and test and learn by ourselves. But we know that blockchain and other technology is moving very quickly and we need more innovation rather than less. We need to encourage the community to learn from the best practices happening in other countries and industry players and take inspiration from that.”
Tech enthusiast, Amor Maclang, moderated a panel which included Itamar Gero, the President of the Israeli Chamber of Commerce in the Philippines, who discussed the environment and situation in Israel which allows for innovation and startup culture, Gilbert Camasura, President and CEO of Asia Select, who discussed the need to invest more in people, especially in tech, to make the Filipino workforce ready for the advances in technology, Miguel Cuneta, Co-Founder of Satoshi Citadel Industries, who discussed how quickly blockchain in the Philippines is growing and how Filipinos have a chance to be leaders in this field, and Mary Rose Magsaysay, the Chairman Emeritus of the Philippine Association of Digital Commerce and Decentralized Industries and Fintech Advisor to CEZA, who talked about how the community is formalizing and coordinating with the SEC and other regulators for the guidelines of this evolving economic financial tool.
Along with the partnership between TechUp Pilipinas and the Israeli Chamber of Commerce, the event also saw the joint announcement of the TechUp Pilipinas in Tel Aviv trip. TechUp Pilipinas in cooperation with the Israeli Chamber in the Philippines will be sending a delegation to the DLD Tel Aviv Innovation Festival (https://www.dldtelaviv.com/) in Israel this September. Fintech companies are welcome to apply to join the delegation. Aside from representing the country as a member of the Philippine delegation, the group will meet with tech companies in Tel Aviv for business matching.
For more information on TechUp Pilipinas, future TechUp Tuesdays, and the delegation to Tel Aviv, please contact info@techuppilipinas.com
