A group of forty Russian scientists has received a week of on-the-job training in the commercialization of hi tech projects at Israel’s Ariel University, the innovation news portal Venture Business News reported last week.
The university, which is located in the Israeli settlement of Ariel in the West Bank, was upgraded just two months ago from a university center to the status of a full-fledged university. It is generally referred to in Russia as the Israeli analog of Skolkovo, the largest state-sponsored innovation hub in the outskirts of Moscow.
The on-the-job training for the Russian scientists was orchestrated by the local Israel-Skolkovo Gateway Center and the Skolkovo Foundation.
According to Vitaly Vishnepolsky, one of the managers of the Israel-Skolkovo Gateway Center, the Russians have already visited the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa and the University of Tel-Aviv, and the group was also invited to attend a closed seminar conducted as part of the International Entrepreneurship Week.
“Their Russian colleagues at Skolkovo are very interested in having their scientists visit Israel to learn how to monetize their inventions,” Vizhnepolsky said.
Like other settlements in the Israeli-occupied territories, Ariel is considered illegal under international law. The city has been boycotted by leftist Israeli academics, intellectuals and artists, The New York Times noted two years ago. But successive Israeli governments have insisted that Ariel, with its sizable population and strategic location, must remain within Israel’s borders under any final peace accord.
