▎Global Outlook

NTU President Chung-Ming Kuan led a delegation of senior administrative heads, including Executive Vice President Chiapei Chou, Vice President for International Affairs Hsiao-Wei Yuan, Vice President for Academic Affairs Shih-Torng Ding, Vice President for Research and Development Pai-Chi Li and the Deans and faculty members of the fourteen NTU Colleges on a visit to Israel. Accompanied by Ya-Ping Lee, Representative of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Tel Aviv, and Jeffrey D. Schwartz, Founder of Jeffrey D. Schwartz and NaTang Jewish Taiwan Cultural Association, the NTU delegation visited Israel’s major academic and industry institutions, strengthening bilateral collaborations and exchanges.

During the visit, NTU established meaningful partnerships with several renowned universities in Israel through formal arrangements and collaborative agreements. Major achievements included the signing of university-level agreement and partner university student exchange agreement with both President Asher Cohen of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and President Uri Sivan of Technion – Israel Institute of Technology—formally continuing the partnerships between NTU and these two universities. President Kuan also signed a Partnership Collaboration Award Memorandum of Understanding with President Ariel Porat of Tel Aviv University, with both parties agreeing to further promote the international cooperation and exchange between their professors and researchers.

Israel is well-known for its technological innovations and thriving startups, thus the delegation also seized the chance to learn from Israeli style industry-academia collaboration to sustain our country’s technological advantage. They visited major industry-academia collaboration platforms, such as YISSUM, a technology transfer company of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. To date, YISSUM has spun off over 200 companies, registered over 10,000 patents, and licensed over 3,000 technologies. Another company incubated by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, MobilEye, was acquired by Intel and went public this year. The delegation also visited Seatback, a spin-off company of IN-VENTech, a startup program backed by Haifa Municipality, and Ramot, a technology transfer company established by Tel Aviv University.

The visit to Israel not only strengthened the existing ties between NTU and its partner universities there but also offered the delegation insights on how to create an innovation ecosystem. In the near future, NTU students who pass the selection procedures of NTU’s Office of International Affairs will have the chance to intern at prominent Israeli startups.