Telefónica I + D, the research arm of Telefónica, has signed an agreement with the Ministry of Economy of Israel to work together on researching and developing new technologies.
Under the agreement, the Israeli government will fund the activities of Israeli companies that collaborate with Telefónica I + D to explore “opportunities in innovation, research and development of new technologies”, according to a statement by Telefónica I + D.
Israel and Telefónica have been collaborating on R&D for several years, with Telefónica owning a stake in several companies, such as Jajah (now Telefónica Digital Israel), which developed the proprietary software for establishing calls over VoIP.
The company is also currently collaborating on the development of Telefónica Digital products, such as TU Go, Telefónica’s new platform launched in March that enables O2 post-paid customers to turn their mobile numbers into a portable identity that can be accessed on any device (see: Telefónica turns mobile number into portable identity with TU Go launch).
The European operator is also the leader of a consortium which invested almost €20 million into dynamic app platform developer Everything.me last November.
Everything.me is headquartered in Israel and focuses on HTML 5 dynamic mobile app development. Its technology has been built into the ZTE Open, a new Firefox OS smartphone that was released by Telefónica earlier this month.
“Telefónica and its integration with Israeli technology has been a priority and an important objective of this ministry,” said Yifat Alon-Perel, Economic and Innovation Attaché of Israel in the Embassy in Spain.
“The executives’ visit to Israel and the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding is undoubtedly a significant milestone with Telefónica. We hope that it shows its results in the near future in joint projects with Israeli start-ups.”