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DENSO Accelerates Open Innovation with Local Startups

DENSO, a major auto parts company (Headquarters: Kariya, Aichi Prefecture), held the "DENSO Tech Day" in Tel Aviv on December 8 to promote open innovation activities through R&D bases in Israel. In addition to explaining the company’s activities and challenges, DENSO presented examples of how they are working with local startups.

DENSO has placed a representative in Israel since 2018, and has been conducting full-scale technology exploration focusing on autonomous driving, cyber security, artificial intelligence (AI), and other areas. DENSO has interviewed more than 120 startups and conducted 15 proof-of-concepts (PoCs), four of which have been turned into joint development projects. The event at this time was planned as a "meet-up" with the aim of raising awareness about the company's branding and business ecosystem.

Hiroshi Naganawa, Head of Lab at DENSO Israel Innovation Lab, explained that sensing, cybersecurity, data analysis, and algorithms have been identified as areas of high interest in Israel, and how his group is working on areas such as technology exploration, proof-of-concept, and investment. Staff from Japan, including Executive Vice President Hiroyuki Wakabayashi and staff from the Advanced Research and Innovation Center and the Technology Planning Div., came to Israel to meet the many startups and people involved.

Among the local startups, Kitov.ai, which is realizing a joint development with DENSO, introduced examples about its visual inspection automation equipment, Cognata presented examples about its autonomous driving simulation system, and Cybellum shared examples about its vehicle cyber security.

DENSO is working with startups in Israel to develop technologies, supported by the Japanese venture capital (VC) firm Global IoT Technology Ventures (GiTV).

(YODEN Tomohiro)