Peres Center, City Of Chicago Sign Innovation, Entrepreneurship Agreement
The Peres Center for Peace and Innovation has signed a memorandum of understanding with the City of Chicago to foster collaborations in the areas of technology, innovation, and entrepreneurship.
It is the first such international partnership for the Peres Center, founded in 1996 by the late president Shimon Peres, a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.
The agreement was signed this week in Chicago by Chemi Peres, Shimon Peres’ son who serves as chairman of the Peres Center, and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, former President Barack Obama’s chief of staff.
The Peres Center said in a statement that the two parties are set to facilitate connections to corporate, academic, civic, and government leaders to foster economic development, share knowledge, and help with community development.
“Shimon Peres believed in the transformative power of technology and innovation as a pathway to peace, and we are proud in Chicago to foster an environment that makes agreements like this possible,” said Mayor Emanuel. “Around the country and increasingly around the world, our city is known as an emerging technology and innovation hub with the workforce and education backbone that can support it. Ultimately, a more inclusive, connected world is a more peaceful world, and this agreement will keep the City of Chicago at the forefront of those efforts.”
Peres said, “In today’s interconnected world, technology, innovation and entrepreneurship can and should be harnessed to build bridges between people and nations, promote prosperity for all, and help create a better tomorrow. At the Peres Center for Peace and Innovation we envision and work toward an Israel and a region where people from all walks of life come together in cooperation and partnership and innovatively and proactively design their future – a future of peace. It is therefore fitting to establish the Peres Center’s first international agreement in the city of Chicago, with its global outlook and reach, but uniquely American story.”
In 2017, the Chicago mayor and Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai signed a partnership to advance collaboration between the two cities on economic development efforts, innovation and research, education and river rehabilitation projects.
And late last year, Tel Aviv University became the first international partner of the Discovery Partners Institute (DPI), a new network of technology and innovation centers throughout Illinois in the coming years, set to be built in Chicago.