The Japanese staple of the auto industry is curious just how many miles per gallon Israeli chutzpah will get them in the innovation department.

Photo Credit: PR, Screenshot

Toyota has long been the master of not surprising their customers. When it comes to these Japanese work horses, on the whole there’s no surprise breakdowns on the side of the road, no suspicious noises randomly emitting from the engine block and no sudden sticker shock when a salesman jots down the bottom line price on a piece of paper and slides it across the table.

Which is why the announcement that Toyota is partnering with Israel’s tech-preneurial community, a community hailing from a nation so teaming with surprises it has become synonymous with the word ‘startup’, is a very intriguing development for all parties involved.

The oriental express

This October 23-24, the Japan Innovation Center, in conjunction with the Japan Chamber of Commerce and Samurai Incubate, will be hosting a hackathon in Israel intended to provide local Israeli entrepreneurs with a platform to do what they do best; disrupt norms and conventions, in this case applying to the current state of global automotive technology.

It’s important to note that innovation is not a new concept for Toyota. The longtime staple of Japan’s automotive industry invests 1 million dollars per day in R&D, and files 1500 patents yearly. However there’s innovation, and then there’s Israeli disruption.

For Israeli tinkerers, being offered the opportunity to hack away at auto tech with the full knowledge that the industry leader in standards and reliability is firmly behind them, should serve to foster an environment of creative freedom capable of generating some groundbreaking concepts.

The event, to take place at Lool Ventures in Tel Aviv, is limited to 50 participants with an expected makeup comprising of entrepreneurs, designers, UX people and product managers. Even students of those stated fields are encouraged to sign up if they share a passion for innovation.

Kazunari Okada, CEO of Japan Innovation Center spoke to his expectations for the event, both in terms of the specific day’s agenda and what HackCars might bode for future cooperation between the two countries:

“Participants are going to hack and create new services. This could be the icebreaker with Israel and Japan working together to do some amazing things. I firmly believe that the relationship between both countries will soon grow significantly.”

Should fresh concepts emerge from this Hackathon, Okada can rest assured both both the Israeli and Japanese tech communities will be making an offer to one another along the Toyota lines of, ‘Let’s go places.’