Samuel Wong L’23 recently shared his experiences in the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School’s Global Research Seminar, “Israel: The High-Tech Nation,” through which he gained new perspectives on how countries can support clean technology and how project failure can stimulate future success.
The following is an excerpt:
While the conflict in Israel and Palestine persists, the world races to find adequate solutions to fight the climate crisis. One parallel lesson we have learned from the pandemic and the climate crisis is that one conflict does not wait for another.
It is with this knowledge that I enrolled in a Penn Law Global Research Seminar called “Israel: The High-Tech Nation,” to research how the United States and Israel’s model for jointly funding cleantech collaborations between U.S. and Israeli companies.
My research focused on the Israel-U.S. Binational Industrial Research and Development (BIRD) Energy program. The program is jointly administered by the U.S. Department of Energy, the Israel Ministry of Energy, and the Israel Innovation Authority to provide grants of up to $1 million to projects created through U.S. and Israeli partnerships. The program has funded approximately $47.5 million to over 60 cooperative projects. Projects have ranged from innovations in boosted EV charging, lithium batteries, HVAC energy efficiency technology, and self-learning climate intelligence systems for hotels… .