Interview | Israel Aerospace Industries will support Indian defence startups: Senior official

In an exclusive interaction with ETV Bharat, Danny Lauber, Chief Executive Officer of Aerospace Services India, a wholly owned subsidiary of Israel Aerospace Industries, said the company would support Indian startups in defence and aerospace sectors in developing new solutions for the ministry of defense.

New Delhi:Israel’s state-owned defence company, the Israel Aerospace Industries, will identify those Indian startups in the defence and aerospace sector that would seek to offer solutions to the challenges posed by the ministry of defence, and will support them with technical know-how and experience of the Israeli defence giant, a senior official told ETV Bharat.

In an exclusive interaction with ETV Bharat, Danny Lauber, Chief Executive Officer of Aerospace Services India, a wholly owned subsidiary of Israel Aerospace Industries, said the company would support Indian startups in defence and aerospace sectors in developing new solutions for the ministry of defence.

“One of the programmes I am planning to establish is for startups and entrepreneurs, seeking to provide solutions through the MoD’s list of challenges. MoD’s list of challenges is available,” said Danny Lauber. He said the IAI will select several candidates, several startups and other entrepreneurs to help them in the process of introducing their solutions.

“We will help them with our experience, capability and resources. Certainly, this is one of the key goals of ASI to become part of the community in India,” Lauber told ETV Bharat. “We don’t want to be just one of the foreign countries working in India. We want to be an integral part of Indian culture, Indian economy and Indian community.”

About a question about regular interaction with the Indian startup community, he said that the Israeli defence company is certainly planning to do this in the near term. He, however, refused to share the outlay for the startup support programme at this stage. "I don’t think it’s only about the budget and financial support. It is more about the know-how, the experience. With the might of the IAI, we can have many things besides financial support," he said.

Israel Aerospace Industries works closely with the Indian defence establishment, including the Defence Research and Development Organization and the Indian military among others. IAI has helped the country in the development of several high-end defence technologies, including cooperation in India’s missile programme.

Recently, IAI set up a wholly owned subsidiary Aerospace Services India to provide maintenance support services to the Indian military with regard to the newly inducted Medium Range Surface to Air Missile (MRSAM).

Indian engineers in high demand in defence sector

Danny Lauber said the company has been focused on recruiting human capital and it has already recruited dozens of local engineers, and local talent and it is certainly planning to continue with the recruitment. “The biggest evidence that I have seen here is that it is amazing the kind of human capital present here in India, highly educated, highly talented, highly experienced, highly motivated and that is really heart-warming for us, an encouraging sign as one of the most difficult thing to develop is the human capital,” he said. “You can build infrastructure, you can build offices and factories but without human capital, you don’t have much.”

Lauber said with the talent pool available in the country, the kind of capacity, the kind of commitment available here, the company believes that India can not only become a very strong base for internal customers but also for exports. “Second thing we are focusing on is actually setting up facilities, meaning our laboratories, our repair centres, spare parts and warehouses and so on. So this is about investing new capital to build new infrastructure which will allow us to serve our customers for the next few decades,” he said.

In response to a question that whether Israel will also follow in the footsteps of other foreign original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) that are increasingly relying on Indian talent, Indian engineers to serve their global operations, IAI executive said: “I think it is a natural step.”

“There is a 30-year long relationship and there is a 30-year long presence of IAI in India. And the fact that we are investing heavily in India, moving capabilities to India in terms of know-how, in terms of facilities and in terms of responsibilities will eventually evolve our facilities in India to a centre for exports as well,” said the senior IAI official in India.

Several top-notch foreign defence and aerospace companies have been heavily investing in cities such as Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Chennai and also in Delhi and NCR, among others to establish large engineering and capacity centres to leverage Indian engineering and scientific talent in the defence and aerospace sectors.

For example, US aircraft engine manufacturer Pratt & Whitney recently opened its India Engineering Centre (IEC) in Bengaluru subsequent to opening of its India Capability Centre (ICC) in the same city. Similarly, French defence and high-technology company Thales has large engineering centres in Bengaluru and also in the NCR region.

Medium Range Surface to Air Missile (MRSAM) programme

The IAI official said the company is focusing on the MRSAM programme at the moment to start with, it is one of the most advanced strategic programmes for the company and for India as well.

Talking about the Israeli defence giant’s plan to jointly manufacture weapon systems in India, the IAI executive said that IAI has already entered into a joint venture with state-owned Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL).

“It is a true partnership between an Israeli government company and an Indian government company. I think this will be a very very solid platform for joint development,” he said. “We are fully supportive of the Make in India initiative. You will be hearing new announcement, new steps soon. We are investing heavily in India.”