David Siegel, the Israeli consul general for the southwestern United States, met with Gov. John Hickenlooper and key members of his economic development staff last week to finalize a research and development agreement that Siegel said had the potential to develop into a hugely beneficial relationship between Israel and Colorado.

“We’re filling it with content as we speak,” Siegel said in an interview with The Colorado Statesman last Wednesday. “The economic team here is truly impressive, they really know what they’re doing. It’s great to see that interaction between the public and private sector – it’s something we really believe in.”

The agreement opens the doors to chances for Israeli companies to do business in Colorado and set up cooperative relationships with Colorado companies and, likewise, for Colorado entities to work in Israel.

Israeli Consul General David Siegel talks with state Sens. Chris Holbert, R-Parker, and Morgan Carroll, D-Aurora, at the JEWISHcolorado Men’s Event on Nov. 18 at the Wings Over the Rockies Air and Space Museum in Denver.

Photo by Ernest Luning/The Colorado Statesman

Siegel accompanied Hickenlooper and a delegation of business and civic leaders on their trip to Israel last month, the fourth stop on an international trade mission that also included visits to China, Japan and Turkey.

“You’re going to see a lot of news on biotech, on aerospace and cybersecurity,” Siegel said. “And, by the way, they all interact. It’s very hard to separate between high tech and agriculture, between nanotech and robotics. I think you’re going to see convergence.”

The two share similarly arid climates and high concentrations of high-tech research and industrial communities, but Siegel noted that it’s the differences between them that could lead to some of the most robust innovation.

“Being the quick and nimble one is a good thing, benefitting from the way America does things is very beneficial to us,” he said. “We don’t tend to be as organized or as systematic as the United States. We tend to think out of the box, do things at the spur of the moment. When you bring those cultures together, it becomes very powerful.”

The opportunities include the exploding field of cybersecurity, where Israel “punches above its weight,” with an estimated 20 percent of the world’s investment in the growing industry, Siegel said. (That’s up from just 10 percent a couple years ago, still an outsized representation for a country that ranks 167th in the world in terms of size.) “It’s geometric, it’s explosive, it’s one of our biggest growth industries,” he added.

Tracee Bentley, executive director of the Colorado Petroleum Council, talks with state Rep. Lois Court, D-Denver, at a reception at the JEWISHcolorado Men’s Event on Nov. 18 in Denver.

Photo by Ernest Luning/The Colorado Statesman

“You’ll probably see cybersecurity as the No. 1 issue – in Israel and the United States, it’s becoming more of an urgent priority, and a real high-tech growth industry. It’s a huge export market already,” he said.

Likening Israel’s emphasis on innovation to efforts put in place by the Hickenlooper administration, Siegel pointed out that Israel has among the highest per capita investments in research and development. “The whole model is to come together and share resources in order to promote innovation through partnerships,” he said.

“We don’t believe innovation can be done alone, and the more partners the better,” he said. “We’re already so embedded in each other’s economies – Israel is a big foreign investor in the United States. We have a lot to learn from the United States but also a lot to offer.”

Noting that Israel has extensive trade with Asia and other parts of the world, in addition to its free-trade agreement with the United States, Siegel said there’s huge growth potential stemming from ties with Colorado.

“You can envision these partnerships – and they’re happening – on a 3D level as well, not just bilaterally.”

Josh Hanfling of Sewald Hanfling Public Affairs shares a laugh with Attorney General Cynthia Coffman at the JEWISHcolorado Men’s Event on Nov. 18 in Denver.

Photo by Ernest Luning/The Colorado Statesman

One area where the two places are already sharing technology and investment is in water, he said. “Israel is top in the world in water – smart agriculture, drip irrigation, pilotless drones, infrared ways of scanning fields, leak prevention, pressure management, reverse-osmosis on steroids.” The country recently opened its sixth major desalinization plant, leveraging a technology that provides roughly 60 percent of the household water used by residents.

“We’re a water-surplus nation in the driest place on earth, and that’s all from technology,” Siegel said. “It’s the kind of thing where you wake up in the morning and you realize the world has changed overnight while you slept.”

He noted that California is building a desalinization plant based on Israeli technology, perhaps a critical step in helping that state weather its historic drought. But a reliable water supply means more than green lawns, he argued.

“Why did the Syrian crisis start? Aside from the fact that there was a dictator there, who is still there, unfortunately. But it started because of a drought, and the farmers migrated to the cities, and then the riots began, and then the dictatorship fired back. With these kind of technologies in the Middle East, it could really help the region, but we don’t trade in the Middle East so much because of the politics,” Seigel noted ruefully.

“The future is in the hands of innovators. And that’s what the United States and Israel do very well because of our values. We value freedom, we value religious freedom – belief in the sanctity of life, in the right to pursue your own future, and freedom of thought. We criticize ourselves, and we have our internal debates, but a lot of that friction creates innovation. The Middle East needs that, and if they don’t find a way to do that, it’s going to be a very unhappy place.”

Siegel was also in town to attend JEWISHcolorado’s annual Men’s Event, held last Wednesday at the Wings Over the Rockies Air and Space Museum. The evening, touted as the largest gathering of Jewish men west of the Mississippi, featured remarks by Hickenlooper, Denver Mayor Michael Hancock and Wall Street Journal deputy editorial page editor Bret Stephens. It was underwritten by the Mizel Family Foundation.

– ernest@coloradostatesman.com