By Cindy Mindell

A robotic exoskeleton that helps paraplegics “walk,” a respiratory therapy app that uses games as treatment, non-invasive neurosurgery technology – these Israeli inventions were introduced to a Connecticut audience last month as part of the first-ever Connecticut-Israel Innovations Showcase at UConn Health Center in Farmington.

Organized by the Jewish Federation of Greater Hartford and MetroHartford Alliance, the event was the latest in a collaboration that was created to grow business opportunities between Connecticut and Israel.

Launched at a boardroom table in 2011, the partnership quickly grew into the Connecticut-Israel Technology Initiative. The following year saw the first of three annual technology summits that attracted representatives from hundreds of regional businesses who came to meet visiting entrepreneurs from Israeli start-up companies. In 2013, MetroHartford Alliance, Jewish Federation, and community leaders participated in a business mission to Israel led by Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development Commissioner Catherine Smith.

After that trip, the partner organizations realized that they had accomplished their initial goal of bringing Israeli innovation to the attention of the Connecticut business community, and decided to concentrate on a specific industry.

Jewish Federation of Greater Hartford’s Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) and MetroHartford Alliance’s International Business Council (IBC) took the lead.

With the construction of the new public-private $1 billion Jackson Laboratory facility underway on the UConn Health Center campus, the biomedical device sector seemed like an appropriate focus. Working with the Consulate General of Israel in New York, Laura Zimmerman, vice president of Jewish Public Affairs for the Jewish Federation of Greater Hartford, and Rebecca Nolan, vice president of Business Development at MetroHartford Alliance, were provided a list of Israeli companies that had developed biomedical technology and were looking to enter the Connecticut market.

“In the past, we’ve had CEOs and C-suite executives from The Hartford or Pratt & Whitney and it was just about collaborating and trying to bring some businesses together,” Zimmerman says. “Now, we concentrated on highlighting four different Israeli companies that are within that sector. The goal was to bring those companies to the Greater Hartford area and see if we could make some collaborations.” Unlike past technology summits, which drew Israeli start-up companies, only one of the four showcase presenters is a start-up.

UConn Health Center offered to host the event. Zimmerman and Nolan invited representatives of the regional business and medical community – insurers, financial services, hospital administrators, physicians – interested in learning about new devices designed to provide non-invasive surgery, respiratory therapy, clinical decision-support, and robotic exoskeleton technology.

Participants had an opportunity to network and ask questions of the presenters. “There was such a buzz in the room that it was hard to get people to stop talking to each other, which is a good thing,” says Nolan. “In our debriefing, we realized that we need to set up future events with more networking opportunities because that’s where a lot of the collaboration is happening.”

JCRC and IBC will continue to work together to expand jobs in the state. “One issue we have is that people say, ‘I drive through Connecticut to go to Boston’ or ‘I drive through Hartford to go to New York,’” Zimmerman says. “So we are trying hard to help economically develop Connecticut with Israeli companies and to start a buzz so that Israeli companies know that the lifestyle here is wonderful. They have access to the whole East Coast, it’s less expensive here, they have a lot of wonderful resources in the way of technology and staffing, because we have a lot of smart people who work here.”

The Jewish Federation and MetroHartford Alliance plan to do a follow-up biomedical-device showcase later this year.