Israel-U.S. foundation invests in 3D printing

Tel Aviv, Israel – During its meeting on June 26, 2014, held in Washington D.C., the Board of Governors of the Israel-U.S. Binational Industrial Research and Development (BIRD) Foundation, approved $8.9 million in funding for 11 new projects between Israeli and American companies. The approved projects involve innovations in the areas of 3D Printing, Agro-technology, Information Security, Homeland Security and others. In addition to the grants from BIRD, the projects will access private sector funding, boosting the total value of all projects to approximately $25 million.

 

The BIRD Foundation promotes collaboration between Israeli and American companies in various technological fields for the purpose of joint product development. In addition to providing conditional grants of up to $1 million for approved projects, the foundation assists by working with companies to identify potential strategic partners and facilitate introductions.

 

Projects submitted to the BIRD Foundation are thoroughly reviewed by evaluators appointed by the National Institute of Standard and Technology (NIST) and by evaluators appointed by the Chief Scientist's Office of the Israeli Ministry of Economy.

 

The eleven projects approved by the Board of Governors are in addition to the 889 projects which the BIRD Foundation has approved for funding during its 37 year history. To date, BIRD's total investment in these projects has been over $308 million, helping to generate direct and indirect sales of more than $10 billion.

 

Three of the approved projects have aerospace relevance:

 

• Galileo Satellite Navigation Ltd. (Rishon Le Zion, Israel) and Cadence Design Systems Inc. (San Jose, Calif.) will develop software Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) implementation.

 

• iReveal Design Automation (Nazareth, Israel) and Alphabyte Technologies (Santa Clara, CA) will develop scalable end-to-end verification.

 

• Stratasys (Rechovot, Israel) and Graphene Technologies (Novato, Calif.) will develop Graphene enhanced 3D printing materials

 

The proposing U.S. companies on the 11 projects are from 14 States and range in size from 3 employees to 40,000. This year 75% of the proposing US companies are under 500 employees."

 

Avi Hasson, Chief Scientist at the Israel Ministry of Economy and co-Chairman of BIRD's Board of Governors said: "The United States is a leading R&D partner of Israel in the various programs of the Office of the Chief Scientist. The BIRD Foundation continues to be the central vehicle in implementing strategic cooperation between the countries in the areas of Innovation and Technology. The success of the BIRD Foundation provides a solid base for further expansion of cooperation with the United States, through Federal R&D programs and programs with various States, where the Chief Scientist has finalized agreements during the last two years."

 

The deadline for submission of Executive Summaries for the next BIRD cycle is Sept. 16, 2014. Approval of projects will take place in December 2014.