During the past 20 years, Israel has secured a leading position among the major regions in the world in terms of innovation and creativity. This is demonstrated by the dynamism of its companies, their ability to conquer international markets, an excellent level of education, the existence of efficient links between universities and the business world...

Given this background, and extending the Paris Region's efforts in inserting Paris Region talent into the major international innovation networks, PREDA has decided, during 2011, to open a representative office in Israel in order to increase business and technological relations between that country and the Paris Region economy.

The objective is threefold:

• To attract new investments to the Paris Region that have strong development and job-creation potential.
• To favour industrial partnerships in R&D that bring competitiveness cluster members together. In this regard, special attention will be given to collaborative projects involving cluster-member SMEs, especially those from Cap Digital, Systematic, Advancity and Medicen.
• To facilitate the set-up of cooperation agreements between academic entities.

Daniel Bessis, who used to be in charge of digital innovation for the Ile-de-France Regional Council, was mandated for this mission, as well as to represent the Agency in Tel-Aviv. Throughout his career, Daniel Bessis has performed international duties in the telecom sector and within international financial institutions.