Israel and the province of Ontario will kick in $5 million each to promote joint ventures between small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) to create cyber-security solutions for Canadian financial institutions.

Ontario Centres of Excellence (OCE) and the Israel Innovation Authority (IIA) announced last week that they are collaborating on the program, which will support innovation, jobs and potentially expansion to international markets, said Claudia Krywiak, vice-president of corporate development, planning and strategic initiatives for OCE.

Claudia Krywiak

Calls for proposals were recently sent to the industry and “there is very strong interest from a multitude of companies,” she said.

Participating SMEs are expected to match the OCE and IIA financial contributions, bringing the total scale of the program to $20 million.

According to OCE, a non-profit organization funded by the Ontario government, its mandate is to “turn ideas into income.” It is collaborating with its Israeli counterpart, the IIA, to develop a customized bilateral program that addresses challenges identified by multinational enterprises in key strategic  sectors.

OCE and IIA are managing the program under the auspices of the Ontario-Israel Research Network Program-MAGNET, which in turn was created following the memorandum of understanding signed in Israel last May by Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne.

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The cyber-tech initiative will focus on supporting the collaboration of small- and medium-sized businesses, along with academic institutions to jointly develop state-of-the-art technologies. Both Canada and Israel are among the world leaders in innovations connected to cyber-security, and the Canadian financial services industry, represented in the project by the Toronto Financial Service Alliance, is keen to acquire new technology to secure their transactions, Krywiak said.

In Israel, meanwhile, Les Abelson, the IIA program director for North America, called the joint collaboration “a significant announcement.”

“This allows us to double the amount of projects we’re able to do, and take it into a new direction,” he said.

“Israel is a country of seven to eight million people. It has a lot of technological capabilities, but it doesn’t have a market,” Abelson said. Agreements like the one announced with Ontario allow the companies to develop new, marketable technologies, scale up production and commercialize them.

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“Israel is a leader [in cyber-security] because defence is a very important aspect of society here. The defence force R & D requirements has been one of the main pillars of start-up nation’s abilities. The intelligence sector is the biggest sector within the army, and they train a lot of people, who come out with a lot of training before they even go into university,” Abelson said.

He cited the example of Check Point Software Technologies, a company started by “kids who’d been in the intelligence units in the army.”

Krywiak said the current program focusing on financial cyber-security came after months of bilateral discussions between OCE and IIA. Companies that respond to the call for proposals will gather in Toronto on May 15 at the Discovery Conference to determine areas in which they can collaborate, she added