Israel and Bahrain Ink New Agreements at First Joint Conference on Innovation
Israel and Bahrain signed a series of memoranda of understanding Monday as their first joint conference on innovation kicked off in the Bahraini capital of Manama. The MOUs covered the fields of financial technology, manufacturing, logistics, water, energy and climate.
The conference was jointly organized by Start-up Nation Central, a non-profit dedicated to promoting Israeli innovation, and Bahrain’s Economic Development Board, which works to attract investment to the country.
Speaking at the conference, Bahrain’s Ambassador to Israel Khaled Yusuf Ahmed Aljalahma praised the Israeli approach to innovation, which he said had led to the successes that earned the country its moniker of start-up nation.
“What distinguishes Israelis is this intense culture of innovation; a constant hunger and search for problems that can be solved or solutions that can be made better or more efficient,” he said. “And when they find the problem, they come up with an idea on how to solve it, which, with the help of an astonishing ecosystem, turns that idea into a startup.”
His opposite number, Israeli Ambassador to Bahrain Eitan Na’eh, praised the ties between the two countries since they signed the Abraham Accords normalization treaty in September 2020, and compared the bilateral relationship to two interfaces learning to understand one another in order to better cooperate.
“This is why we gathered here,” Na’eh said. “To take the [Abraham] Accords from vision to reality. The relationship between the two countries are moving forward as we harness both countries’ added values of human capital, mutual quest for peace, security and prosperity, through innovation and economic cooperation and progress.”
