Governor Bill Ritter led a delegation of Colorado administration officials and more than a dozen Coloradan businesspeople and community personalities to Israel for an economic development mission on 12 – 18 July 2010.  The aim of the mission was to begin to establish business and research partnerships in fields such as energy, clean-tech and water.  During the mission, Governor Ritter and the Colorado delegation signed a number of memoranda of understanding (MOU) including a bilateral agreement between Israel and Colorado; an MOU between Colorado State University and the Desert Research Center at Ben Gurion University; and an MOU between the Colorado Department of Natural Resources and the Agro Research and Development Center.  

The delegation met top business and government officials, including President Peres, Minister of Industry, Trade and Labor Ben-Eliezer and Minister of National Infrastructures Landau, who in October invited Governor Ritter to visit Israel.  The delegation also visited electric car venture Better Place, BrightSource Energy's Solar Energy Development Center in the Negev, Noble Energy, which is helping to diversify Israel's energy portfolio with natural gas, Netafim and other water-technology leaders, and geothermal energy company Ormat Industries.  

EDI arranged visits for Colorado Secretary of Commerce Dan Marostica, who arrived in Israel in advance of the Governor’s party, with companies in Israel’s life sciences sector.  Colorado has a very well developed health sciences sector and the Secretary was intent on investigating ways to make the Colorado-Israel connection in this sector significantly stronger.  To this end, Secretary Marostica visited Hadasit in Jerusalem (the tech transfer arm of Hadassah Hospital), the Binational Industrial Research & Development (BIRD) Foundation in Tel Aviv, the RAD Biomed Business Accelerator in Tel Aviv and Karmelsonix Ltd. in Haifa, a company that has just been awarded a BIRD-F grant for cooperation with a Colorado-based firm.