An agreement between the “Russian Silicon Valley” and Ariel R&D, the technology transfer company of the Ariel University Center, was signed today by Alexander Turkot, executive director of the Skolkovo Foundation’s IT Cluster, and Alexander Zinigrad, CEO of Ariel R&D. The signing ceremony was attended by the president of Ariel University, Professor Dan Meyerstein, and Michael Khoury, director of the Central and Eastern Europe Division of Israel's Ministry of Industry and Trade. Under the agreement, Ariel R&D will cooperate with the Canadian-Israeli company Martal Consulting LLC, the Skolkovo Foundation and the Ural Federal University to establish the Israel-Skolkovo Gateway centre (www.israelsk.com). It will be headed by Alexander Zinigrad, the CEO of Ariel R&D, and Vitaly Vishnepolsky, the CEO of Martal Consulting LLC. According to the signed agreement, the main tasks of the Israel-Skolkovo Gateway (IsraelSK) will be to select Israeli innovation companies and facilitate their presentation to the Skolkovo Foundation, select and prepare projects supported by the Foundation to present to Israeli, North American and other foreign investors, as well as to create international startup companies based on Russian and Israeli innovation technologies to attract funding and promoting such technologies in both countries and on the global market. Alexander Turkot, the executive director of the Skolkovo IT Cluster, travelled to Israel to formally sign the cooperation agreement. He and the Ariel R&D management held talks with Joseph Smolyar, director of the technological incubators program, in the Israeli Chief Scientist’s office. Alexander Zinigrad, the CEO of Ariel R&D, announced, “Today's signing was the first step in building a partnership between the two countries in the startup company industry. The Russian party is interested in having Israeli companies establish branches at Skolkovo. This will boost development of an innovation environment in Russia and attract highly qualified specialists with extensive knowledge and experience. This cooperation will bolster the Russian high-tech industry and allow Russian innovation companies to enter the global market. Israeli companies, in turn, will gain access to additional sources of investment under extremely favourable terms, both technologically and commercially. This format ensures a win-win cooperation situation.” Several weeks ago, Israel received a visit from Skolkovo Foundation President Viktor Vekselberg, who conducted negotiations with Israeli Minister of Industry and Trade Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, the chief scientist and senior executives from Ariel R&D, which lay the foundation for the active stage of the cooperation. The Skolkovo Foundation The Skolkovo Foundation for Development of the Centre of Research and Commercialising of New Technologies was created at the initiative of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in September 2010. Its goal is to mobilise Russia’s resources in modern applied research and create a favourable environment for academic pursuits in five key areas of technological development: energy and energy efficiency, space, biomedicine, nuclear technologies and IT. The project calls for establishing the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology (SIST), research institutions, a business incubator, a technology transfer and commercialisation centre, representative offices of foreign companies and R&D centres, residential quarters and social infrastructure, as well as for eventually spreading the effective system to other innovation regions in Russia. Special law governing Skolkovo gives its residents special economic preferences. Skolkovo Foundation Press Office Roman Shcherbakov Tel.: +7 495 967 0148, ext. 2260 Mob.: +7 916 237 9769 Fax: +7 495 967 0196 E-mail: RSherbakov@corp.i-gorod.com