Abigail Klein Leichman
August 18, 2015

As the Ford Motor Company rolls out Sync 3 dashboard touchscreens on some of its 2016 Escape and Fiesta models, the automaker is scanning the Israeli horizon for cutting-edge technology to put in its future connected cars.

Scott Lyons of Connected Car Services at Ford in Europe came to Jerusalem’s Siftech incubator on August 16 to learn how local startups, developers and designers can get in the car with Ford.

Lyons demonstrated Ford’s new connected car device and announced that the company will sponsor AppLink Challenge, an overnight hackathon for apps to use in the car, October 11-12 in Tel Aviv.

Ford made its connection with Israel through Axis Innovation, a boutique corporate advisory firm in Tel Aviv that exposes technology startups to investors from some 40 countries, via focused events like the one in Jerusalem. Among the companies that came to meet Lyons at Siftech were  i4drive, Inpris and VoGi.

Jerusalem also is the home of Mobileye, whose collision-avoidance software is built into approximately 3.3 million vehicles worldwide from manufacturers including Tesla, Audi, Volvo, Nissan, BMW and General Motors (GM). Mobileye reportedly is collaborating with Tesla on its driverless vehicle to be unveiled next year.

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