India is Best at Building Big Businesses: Ambassador of Israel to India at Maiden ‘India Israel Deep Tech Summit’

Mumbai, India – At the first India Israel Deep Tech Summit, leading technologists, investors, and CXOs echoed the importance of Deep Tech in optimizing technology to drive innovation among Indian businesses. The inaugural edition was organized by Israeli Deep Tech SaaS consultant Onnivation, the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), and the Embassy of Israel in India. Over 30 speakers and over 2000 delegates attended the two-day Summit from March 10-11, 2022. Dignitaries attending the event included Professor K VijayRaghavan, Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India; Salil Singhal, Chairman Emeritus, PI Industries; and H.E. Naor Gilon, Ambassador of Israel to India, as well as Saket Agarwal, Founder & CEO, Onnivation Ventures aka #yourisraelguy.

The event, which commemorated 30 years of India-Israel relations, featured eight roundtables on topics such as Agritech, Fintech, D2C brands, Acquihire, Modern Data Apps, Web 3.0, and more. Furthermore, three masterclass sessions led by leading Israeli experts focused on how companies are moving beyond traditional analytics to leverage Cloud, Data Engineering, Cyber Security, Testing, Observability, Martech, Fintech, and Gaming. Last year, Indian startups raised US $47 billion in funding, with US $15 billion expected to be spent on technology. The session’s roundtables discussed the benefits of Deep Tech and SaaS in addressing tech industry concerns such as the talent shortage, high operational costs, and a lack of Big Data solutions.

Prominent Israeli tech leaders included Amiram Shachar of Spot by NetApp, Oded Zehavi of Mesh Payments, Asaf Ezra and Udi Tizan of Granulate. Eminent VCs included Judah Taub of Hetz Ventures, Ravinder Pal Singh of Kalaari Capital, Roy Gottlieb of Cardumen Capital, Uriel Peled of Revault Network, Eran Bielksi of Entrée Capital, and Tal Yatsiv of Pico Venture Partners.

Panel discussions on how machine learning and automation can precisely meet application needs to optimize cloud costs, as well as the possibilities that Web 3.0 can create for tech companies, were also held during the event. Furthermore, the event included a discussion on acquihiring as an effective talent acquisition strategy to help companies scale their tech capabilities, given the growing demand-supply gap for tech talent.

Professor K VijayRaghavan, Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India, stated, “The new capabilities of the Indian health sector will allow startups, health organisations, bigger industries, hospital chains, and individuals to be consultants at the high-end, globally. The horizontals of technology that go across sectors combined with the verticals of deep expertise will allow the scaling of Deep Tech.”

H.E. Naor Gilon, Ambassador of Israel to India, commented, “There is a lot of similarity between the Indians and the Israelis in terms of culture, and I think that it’s a very natural combination for us to work together. Israel has great tech capabilities, and India has a huge market. So I think that by all standards India is better at building big businesses.”

Saket Agarwal, Founder and CEO, Onnivation Ventures, added, “The ties between India and Israel are a match made in heaven. India stands to gain tremendously by leveraging Israel’s strong expertise in solving issues around Cloud, Data and Security. This gives our engineers a chance to focus on doing what they do best—innovate and solve for scale, and in the process, offer a great customer experience.”

Image Source: Onnivation