Aviv Ezra, Consulate General of Israel to the Midwest, Israel’s highest ranking official in the Midwest, was in Milwaukee Tuesday meeting with a number of business, city and community officials. During his stay, he met with the Milwaukee Business Journal at the Global Water Center in Milwaukee to talk about how Israel is building a water technology bridge to Wisconsin.

The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

How is Israel working with Wisconsin, and specifically The Water Council, to share innovations for each other’s water technology industries?

“The idea is to try to identify challenges that you have here in Milwaukee and try to see if we have solutions in Israel, and vice versa. There’s certain challenges we have in Israel that you have solutions to right here. How do you do that? You build a platform. How do you build a platform? You want to find a way to incentivize companies to research together. What we wanted to do is create a platform in which Israel will bring a certain budget and Wisconsin, Milwaukee and The Water Council would bring a certain budget and give these incentives to Israeli and local companies in Milwaukee to tackle certain topics and certain needs that are on the agenda. This beautiful building (Global Water Center) is the platform on the Milwaukee side.” Read the full story here.