High levels of government support for innovation, research and development have attracted investors, startups and multinational enterprises to Israel over the past few years. Deutsche Telekom has also focused on this innovation location.
Alongside Silicon Valley, Israel ranks among the world's leading locations for innovation and business startups. Over 5,000 startups are currently based in the country. And established enterprises are also expanding into Israel in order to reap the benefits of the local innovation strength: most multinational enterprises and all global telecommunications providers have their own research and development departments locally or are operating in Israel through investments and partner activities, just like Deutsche Telekom has been doing for almost 10 years.
Partnering and investments: Deutsche Telekom delivers innovation strength from Israel for Europe
The Israeli market offers hundreds of potential partners for Deutsche Telekom. Five Deutsche Telekom employees are based in Tel Aviv and have already given rise to numerous active partnerships with new products for Deutsche Telekom. Take for instance Magisto, an app which automatically makes professional quality clips from smartphone photos and videos. Customers in over ten countries where Deutsche Telekom operates have been using this service since 2014. The partnership with KIDOZ was also forged in Israel. The company's app offers a child-friendly user interface for mobile devices and already comes preinstalled on the Deutsche Telekom PULS Tablet in Germany. Furthermore, a tablet with KIDOZ is also being marketed in Slovakia.
Deutsche Telekom Capital Partners, Deutsche Telekom's investment arm, is focusing in Israel on companies from the areas of cybersecurity and network technology in particular. The most recent example is the investment made in MorphiSec.
Telekom Innovation Laboratories @ Ben-Gurion University – university-based innovation research
Academics together with Deutsche Telekom experts have been working in the Telekom Innovation Laboratories at Ben-Gurion University for some ten years on further developing and honing existing security concepts as well as in the fields of cybersecurity and big data. Specific product improvements have already been realized on the back of research undertaken by some 50 employees – including with honeypots, which can be used to identify and detect attacks from the Internet.
A separate hub:raum for Tel Aviv
Many startups from Israel specialize in new technology solutions for which the European market is an equally compelling proposition. This prompted Deutsche Telekom to offer Israeli companies support: an offshoot of the in-house incubator hub:raum in Tel Aviv and the "Fit4Europe" program offer Israeli entrepreneurs specific assistance so they can establish themselves in the European market and help transform their business ideas into commercial success. The program includes financial support, coaching and the provision of free office space.