The United States and Israel Unite Efforts to Advance Technologies in the Cyber Resilience of Critical Infrastructure: BIRD Foundation Announces a New Cybersecurity Program

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Jul 26, 2022, 07:00 ET

Approved projects will be awarded funding of up to $1.5M, up to 50% of the joint R&D budget

TEL AVIV, Israel, July 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Cybersecurity threats to critical infrastructure pose one of the greatest risks to national security. To address cyber threats and encourage the development and implementation of innovative solutions designed for information security in critical infrastructure, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Science and Technology Directorate (DHS S&T), the Israel National Cyber Directorate (INCD), and the Israel-U.S. Binational Industrial Research and Development (BIRD) Foundation have initiated BIRD Cyber.

The objective of BIRD Cyber is to enhance the cyber resilience of critical infrastructure in the United States and Israel. The program will support project collaboration between U.S. and Israeli companies or between a company and a university or research institute (one from the U.S. and one from Israel), leading to demonstrations and pilot implementations of innovative technologies.

Project submissions should relate to technologies being developed in the following areas: secured architecture for protecting core operational processes; pilots of real-time risk assessment solutions for small-to-medium sized airports or seaports; piloting resilience centers for small and medium businesses and enterprises; and, advanced data fusion and analytics.

BIRD Cyber will provide grants of up to $1.5 million per project, up to 50 percent of research and development budgets. A full description of the program's Call for Proposals and topics can be found on the BIRD Foundation website: https://www.birdf.com/bird-cyber/

The deadline for submission of Executive Summaries is November 15, 2022. Projects will be approved in March 2023.

Dr. Eitan Yudilevich, Executive Director of BIRD said: "We are pleased that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Israel National Cyber Directorate have selected the BIRD Foundation to lead the joint U.S.-Israel cyber technologies program and are proud that we can contribute to enhancing cyber resilience in both countries."

Further information on the program can be found at www.birdf.com

About the BIRD Foundation:

The BIRD (Binational Industrial Research and Development) Foundation works to encourage and facilitate cooperation between U.S. and Israeli companies in a wide range of technology sectors and offers funding to selected projects. BIRD supports projects without receiving any equity or intellectual property rights in the participating companies or in the projects themselves. BIRD funding is repaid as royalties from sales of technology products that were commercialized as a result of BIRD support. The BIRD Cyber program provides funding of up to $1.5 million, up to 50% of a project's budget, beginning with R&D and ending with the initial stages of sales and marketing. The Foundation shares the risk and does not require repayment if the project fails to reach the sales stage.

For more information please contact:

Israel: Mr. Tal Kelem, Director of BD, BIRD Cyber and BIRD HLS Lead, Tel: +972-3-698-8304, [email protected].

U.S.: Ms. Andrea Yonah, Director of Business Development, East Coast/Midwest, Tel: +1-609-356-0305, [email protected], Ms. Shiri Freund-Koren, Director of Business Development, South, Tel: +1-512-436-1609, [email protected], Ms. Maya Vardi Shoshani, Director of Business Development, West Coast, Tel: +1-650-752-6485, [email protected].

SOURCE The BIRD Foundation