About Us.
The Israel Innovation Institute (NGO) was founded in 2011 to support Israeli entrepreneurs and companies that address global challenges, and to create a base for social and economic growth in Israel.
The Institute focuses on issues with the most public impact and advances those issues through a unique methodology of building innovation communities and open innovation programs.
​
The Institute supports entrepreneurs and startups with finding resources, making connections and exchanging knowledge with industry players. The Institute also initiates open innovation processes in organizations based on identifying challenges and needs, and matching to the most relevant solutions. In addition, the Institute accompanies and supports international organizations that join the Israeli innovation ecosystem.
The Institute works in collaboration with entrepreneurs, corporate entities, academia, investors, governmental offices, policy makers, municipalities, NGO’s and service providers. This allows organizations to accelerate open innovation processes using designated tools and adapt them to real needs.

In this framework, the Institute operates three innovation communities in collaboration with the Israeli government:
HealthIL – A digital health community promoting the development and implementation of innovative solutions in health systems
EcoMotion – The biggest international community for Smart Mobility.
GrowingIL – An agtech community dealing with global food challenges while promoting innovative Israeli agri-technologies, in collaboration with Startup Nation Central.
In 2018, the Institute founded:
CatalystIL – a professional community for innovation management.
This community supports open innovation activities of all the communities in the Institute and offers dedicated workshops and trainings to develop innovation within organizations.
In 2020 two new communities joined the Institute:
DeserTech Located in the Negev desert, which promotes the development of technologies dealing with desert-related challenges on a global level, and in collaboration with the Mirage Foundation Israel.
PLANETech, which promotes the development and implementation of technologies that create both economic and environmental value, with both local and global partners.

The activities of the Israel Innovation Institute have supported the growth of Israeli and global companies and contributed to the deepening of innovation implementation in public and private entities as indicated in the following:
HealthIL promotes the implementation of innovative technologies in health organizations. The HealthIL community includes over 7,500 members, over 800 startups, over 100 corporate entities, and active day-to-day collaboration with 35 health organizations. To date, HealthIL has mapped out over 1,100 distinct challenges and has fostered hundreds of successful connections to address these needs.
With over 1,500 participants, the annual HealthIL Conference is the leading conference for healthcare innovation in Israel and serves as the ultimate meeting place for all stakeholders in the ecosystem to explore both challenges and solutions. HealthIL is part of the European EIT Health consortium, which promotes digital health and conducts an annual seminar (in Israel) for innovation managers in health organizations in the EU.
The GrowingIL community is comprised of over 3,500 members and 500 technology companies and startups in advanced agriculture. The community has initiated the first ever investors map for AgTech in Israel and holds an annual investors event. In addition, GrowingIL has created the “AgTech Marketplace”, a web platform connecting Israeli farmers and startups for POCs & pilots.
In collaboration with Trendlines and Greensoil, AgriVest is the largest conference in the Israeli AgTech community with over 800 participants from all over the world. The community works with many international companies to promote knowledge transfer and collaborations. Recently, the community developed a mentoring program to support startups in the community dealing with the COVID-19 crisis.

EcoMotion is the biggest Smart Mobility Community with over 12,000 members and 600 startups. The community was founded to position Israel as a smart transportation center globally and support startups throughout their lifetime. EcoMotion has initiated and developed strategic collaborations with leading global mobility players supporting the integration of Israeli mobility technologies worldwide. In the past two years EcoMotion has grown it’s efforts for the implementation of innovation in the Israeli public sector, and has worked to this aim with major infrastructure companies and over 45 municipalities.
In 2019, the EcoMotion Main Event hosted 4,000 participants from 41 countries that came to Israel to meet and create business connections. Due to the COVID crisis, in May 2020, the community held their annual Main Event virtually and globally where 3,000 participants from 62 countries and 400 investors from all over the world participated. On the EcoMotion Virtual Platform 170 Israeli & international startups exhibited digitally and conducted 2,200 B2B meetings to explore new markets and opportunities. Every year, the EcoMotion Main Event results in 50-60 deals made within 3-4 months after the one day event.
CatalystIL, the Innovation Management community, has more than 2,000 members, including 250 innovation managers from various companies, 90 consultants and key professionals from the ecosystem.
CatalystIL is a first-of-its-kind professional community, whose focus is to develop the knowledge and profession of innovation management within organizations, both in the public sector and in the private sector, and on a regional level. The community's mission is introducing innovation to large organizations as a basis for competitive advantage and improving performance over time.
​
The establishment of CatalystIL is directly related to the institute's vision, which includes the training of innovation management to increase the entry of innovation into companies and organizations for the welfare of Israel.

DeserTech was founded in June 2020 as a national community headquartered in Be’er Sheva for the promotion of desert technologies, with an emphasis on arid climate, agriculture, water, energy and desert infrastructure. The main goals of the community are increasing the number of entrepreneurs and technologies in the field, turning Be’er Sheva and the Negev to a center for pilots, and implementation of technologies. This, in turn, improves the services in the field and creates a competitive advantage in the region while promoting international collaborations to bring knowledge and resources for entrepreneurs in the field.
AquaculTech is a Biotechnology & Aquaculture innovation community founded in 2022 to deal with global ocean sustainability challenges.
The community is headquartered in Eilat and works to position it as a national and international knowledge center.
AquaculTech's vision is to promise the future of our oceans' resources through innovation and sustainable marine production. The community promotes innovative technologies for the development of sustainable products from the sea.
​
AquaculTech community is a joint initiative of the Ministry of Economy and Industry, the Ministry of Agriculture, the Israel Innovation Authority, and the Israel Innovation Institute.
PLANETech is the innovation community for climate change technologies with the goal of leading Israeli and global tech innovation in order to tackle climate change.
The community, established at the end of 2020, works in various sectors with the aim of:
-
Shifting the business & technological focus to solve climate change challenges
-
Supporting the implementation and development of innovative carbon footprint reduction
-
Building a global ecosystem for climate change entrepreneurs, and making Israel the global focal point for climate tech
PLANETech main focus is implementing groundbreaking technologies in Israeli and international organizations through innovative arenas, by mapping the organization's challenges and identifying Israeli startups with relevant technologies. The community promotes climate change education and ecosystem innovation activities through events, workshops, working groups and collaborations with international organizations.
PLANETech is a joint venture of the Israel Innovation Institute and Consensus Business Group.