startupmania

IBM has launched a new program meant to assist start-up companies around the world, and Israel is one of the seven countries in which the program will run first, along with the US, Sweden, England, France and Ireland.

The program, which will be managed in Israel by IBM’s Global Technology Unit (GTU), is meant to encourage and assist the next generation of start-ups to make the most of business opportunities in a wide range of fast-growing fields: communication, energy, water, health services and the government.

The GTU embodies and central communication hub between IBM and various high-tech and developers in Israel, who wish to do business and cooperate with the global IBM. According to GTU spokespeople it currently does business with roughly 150 Israeli companies and makes about 1.2 billion dollars a year from joint deals. Among the most successful partnerships with Israeli companies can be mentioned CommuniTake, the cloud-computing start-up Navajo and Takadu which deals in water infrastructure.

Within he framework of the program IBM, which invests over $6 billion in R&D and possess a vast knowledge in bringing new technology to the international market, will allow work with its sales, marketing and technical support sects, which are spread across the world. IBM’s “smart planet” strategy and years invested in research should especially help Israeli start-ups who wish to operate in “non-traditional” areas such as smart water systems, smart buildings and smart health services.

Michael Oran, GTU’s manager, mentioned that today, IBM is positioned in a unique position, which allows it to help start-ups with the vast resources, experience and infrastructure it possess.

Michael Oran

Oran added that the “uniqueness of the new program is in the fact that it is oriented towards industries in which IBM has the knowledge and experience that allow the young companies to understand the client’s language at the very onset and thus skip the “trial and error” phase which characterizes so many companies at their beginning in their attempt to bring their solution to the market as quickly as possible.”

Start-ups wishing to participate in this program must be young companies who are in operation no longer than 3 years, and developing a solution that works into IBM’s “Smarter Planet” focused areas. The program will give the start-up companies free access to IBM’s development tools including frameworks for various industry fields which allow significant acceleration of the development process, opportunities for exposure before IBM’s biggest clients, participation in IBM’s SmartCamp in the company’s innovation centers across the world (the event in Israel will be held at the end of June), and access to the developer network which IBM helps within DeveloperWorks, which brings together over 8 million developers and entrepreneurs from around the world.

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If you are working in a start-up which you think may fit into IBM’s program, and you would like to be introduced to GTU personnel, you can send me an e-mail and I will provide you with the necessary contact details.

Translated by Itai Rosenbaum