Israeli VC Fund Disruptive AI Expands Israel Arab Ties with AI-SQUARE Forum
The project brings Israelis and Emiratis together.
Yorai Fainmesser, Founder & Managing Partner of Disruptive AI Venture Capital. (pr pic)
Disruptive AI, an Israeli venture capital fund which specializes in artificial intelligence, is expanding its operations into Turkey as part of its work bringing Arab and Israeli businesses together. To that end, it has established AI-SQUARE Forum, which began operations in January of this year as a virtual open meetup platform.
The new platform is funded by firms from both Israel and the United Arab Emirates.
It will focus on Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies and ventures in various sectors and domains where AI is the center and most relevant for its disruption. So here we have yet another example of Israel and its business community benefitting from the peace agreements made last summer between Israel and the Arab Gulf states of the UAE and Bahrain. After decades of hostilities, in the end capitalism won out. As the saying goes, money talks and …
The world is moving more and more towards alternative and renewable sources of energy. Many countries, like China, have already established new policies to require that all cars soon be electric. As such, gasoline is on its way out and the oil industry can be expected to bottom out in the near future. The Covid crisis actually caused a situation where oil had a negative price; people rushed to dump oil contracts to the extent that they paid others to take their futures contracts off their hands. This clearly means that the oil rich Gulf States need to find new industries for their countries and some like the UAE have already begun making the move into high tech.
And Israel and Turkey have had a strained relationship in recent years. While the two countries have a strong and lucrative commercial trading ties, their governments have not been so friendly to one another. So any new business moves which include Turkey could help lead to thaws in the Israel-Turkey relationship.
With a focus on the common challenges for MENA’s innovation ecosystems, Arabic and Israeli, the AI-SQUARE forum is welcoming business and tech leaders, influencers, and members that are enthusiastic about AI. The new firm points to the many similarities between UAE and Israel, such as the fact that they are both small and well known for their technological innovations and startup successes. The forum is about cultivating a mutual AI ecosystem, established in collaboration with Israel’s most prominent tech leaders. It facilitates casual networking events, startup lectures, and online pitching events, leveraging concrete opportunities for entrepreneurs, investors, and stakeholders.
The AI-SQUARE forum is managed by Mr. Mohamed Al Madhaani data & AI evangelist, Ori Donner, tech expert, entrepreneur, and founder of #ApacheKafkaIL meetup group, and Yorai Fainmesser, Founder & Managing Partner of Disruptive AI Venture Capital.
Founded in 2020, Disruptive AI describes itself as a unique venture capital firm that is focused on investments in early-stage startups in the broad field of Artificial Intelligence (AI).
“We are constantly looking for innovations in AI technology in key industries such as banking / insurance, telecom and retail / commerce,” said Yorai Fainmesser. “Turkey is a potential growth market for Israeli startups, and Israel is a potential innovation booster for Turkish corporations searching for artificial intelligence (AI) technologies and products. From the AI talents aspect, we see a growing AI skilled workforce in Turkey that may help with the Israeli AI human resources shortage.”
Read more about: AI-SQUARE Forum, Disruptive AI
