Chemi Peres: "Technology is changing the way we build infrastructure"
Peres, a managing partner and co-founder of Pitango VC and chairman of the Peres Center for Peace & Innovation, added that "there is no field that we cannot reach through technology"
"Just before I went up to speak, I was asked how the high-tech industry can be harnessed to the world of infrastructure. This is a surprising question because the high-tech industry is mainly concerned with infrastructure," said Chemi Peres, managing partner and co-founder of Pitango VC and chairman of the Peres Center for Peace and Innovation, speaking at the National Conference for Trade Infrastructures and Innovation organized by Calcalist at the Port of Ashdod.
Peres stated that one of the examples of this is the investment in the Israeli water sector: "When the state was established, we drew water from the Sea of Galilee through the national carrier from north to south. A simple technology called water desalination changed reality and led to independence in the water sector. There is no field that we cannot reach through technology with the help of innovation. Whether it is water, energy or any other field."
According to Peres, through science and technology we need to change the way we build infrastructures: "For example, the Tomorrow.io company that deals with weather forecasting and which Pitango has invested in. This company's system knows how to cover almost the entire planet up close - it will be the first company which knows how to give a complete picture of all the weather in every corner of the earth."
According to Peres, this is especially essential because today 70% of the earth is not covered in terms of forecasting, and 70% of the global product is affected by the weather: "We saw how a ship that blocked the Suez Canal as it got stuck due to low sea level - led to a crisis that caused $10 billion in damage."
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Peres dedicated his speech to Dr. Shimrit Perkol-Finkel, who founded a company called ECOncrete, which won a startup competition at the Peres Center four years ago for developing eco-friendly marine infrastructure that is currently in use outside the center. Dr. Perkol-Finkel was killed last year in a scooter accident.
