Israel’s 8th Smart Mobility Summit Happens Next Week

The Smart Mobility Summit 2021 returns for the eighth time next week following a one-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The annual conference for the smart transportation and mobility sector will take place November 8-9 in Tel Aviv. It is organized by the Smart Mobility Initiative, a unit of the Prime Minister’s Office that promotes smart mobility solutions.

This year’s conference welcomes local and international entrepreneurs, investors, industry leaders, and experts in the mobility field from all over the world, including more than 5,000 participants from 60 countries.

The event will deal with some of the biggest trends in the automotive and smart transportation industry including electrification of vehicles, artificial intelligence, and big data and its impact on the world of transportation. It will also showcase a diverse list of speakers including senior government officials like Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, Minister of Transportation and Road Safety, MK Merav Michaeli, the Minister of Energy Karine Elharrar and Minister of Innovation, Science and Technology Orit Farkash Hacohen.

Other notable speakers will include Mobileye founder Amnon Shashua, Google VP and Head of Artificial Intelligence Yossi Matias, Head of Innovation at Hyundai, Yunseong Hwang, and Arkady Wolutz, CEO of Yandex, among others.

The event will include an exhibition of some 70 startups from the field of smart transportation in Israel who will demonstrate their products and tech. Exhibitors include Hailo, a company that develops AI processors for end devices, Innoviz, the public company developing LiDAR enabling cars to identify surroundings and obstacles, Arbe, the leader in radar that recently became the first imaging radar company to be issued on NASDAQ, and GoTo Global, the operator of Ototel and CAR2Go.

The conference will be held in a hybrid format, combining the possibility of physical, face-to-face participation and the use of a virtual platform. The platform enables listening to experts in the field, and various panels as well as providing access to companies in the exhibition and B2B meetings.

“The COVID crisis that has disrupted the world over the last two years has also proved that the field of smart mobility is not a vision for the future, but a field that is emerging and leaping forward due to the required changes. As those responsible for encouraging and promoting the field of smart mobility in Israel, we are proud to host the Prime Minister, the Minister of Transport and Road Safety, the Minister of Energy and the Minister of Science and Technology, as well as senior officials in the automotive and smart transportation world who will arrive here in November,” said Daniella Gera Margaliot, deputy managing director of Smart Mobility Initiative in a statement.

The conference is expected to be attended by dozens of delegations from abroad from a multitude of countries around the globe. The delegations include a senior delegation from Germany headed by the President of the VDA, delegations from Hyundai, CEVT, VW, Honda, Taiwan, as well as a delegation of senior US government officials.

As part of this year’s conference, special emphasis will be placed on the issue of connecting academia and industry in the field of smart mobility in Israel, through a unique workshop to be held by the National Center for the Advancement of Research in the area of Smart Transportation, on the subject of sensing for autonomous vehicles. In addition, there will be a dedicated session on the subject of the National Drone Initiative, in which the partners in the project and industry executives will present the project’s achievements to date and the plans for the future (including senior representatives from AIRBUS and EHANG). There will also be a roundtable discussion on autonomous vehicle regulation, attended by senior regulators and industry representatives from around the world, including the Netherlands, Germany, the United Kingdom, Australia, Singapore, and more.

“Israel is a pioneer and an international leader in entrepreneurship and smart transportation, with hundreds of companies and development hubs. Still, in order to make technology the norm, we must actively work to assimilate the capabilities here in Israel, and not just export them. The Ministry of Transport and Road Safety is already making many collaborations with Israeli high-tech companies, and we are now planning to step it up,” said Minister of Transport and Road Safety, MK Merav Michaeli, “I am happy to absorb the Smart Mobility Initiative and to combine the efforts in this area into a single strategy.”

Michaeli noted that in an upcoming session of the Knesset, members will enact a law that allowed the performance of experiments in driverless autonomous vehicles, and support innovative pilot projects from experiments in advanced materials to traffic management systems and various ride sharing projects.

“Technology is not a goal, but a means of promoting more collaborative, more electric, less polluting, more connected and safer transportation – which reduces gaps and creates opportunities for all. I am certain that together – in the many collaborations both within the public sector and together with the private sector – we will create successes, learn from mistakes, move forward, and realize an advanced and innovative transportation vision in Israel,” she added.

“We are prouder than ever of the blue and white industry, which this year too has produced outstanding achievements, in overseas share issues, significant collaborations with giant conglomerates and in deepening the activity in this field that strengthens Israel’s unique position at the forefront of global industry. The conference will once again present the hottest issues in the field and the Israeli ecosystem. The Smart Mobility Initiative continues to support the Israeli ecosystem through appropriate regulation and dealing with barriers, as well as through a rich toolbox and support throughout all stages of the value chain, from the research level to the final product,” added

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