More than a half-dozen countries have pavilions this year, cooperative efforts between their various commerce departments and tech companies in their homelands.
Among this year’s newcomers are Holland and Israel. Both said representatives had attended last year, taken the temperature and decided to come in this year with showcase booths.
“The feedback we got from a lot of people who attended last year was positive,” said Israeli Consulate spokesman Ariel Roman. “Miami is at the beginning," he said, and is making progress explaining that the city more than a sun-and-fun destination. "We see eMerge expanding tremendously.”
While response to the companies in the booth varied, Deputy Chief of Mission Revital Malca said last year’s connections already resulted in a tech-oriented mission by a Miami group to Tel Aviv and an R& D agreement with the Space Coast thanks to Enterprise Florida. “The networking here is very, very good.”
Companies featured in the booth included Digisense, which creates a sensor for caregivers of babies and the elderly; EZface, which allows women to virtually “test” makeup shades from eight major cosmetics companies including Loreal and Cover Girl; and Mobileye, which created the collision avoidance systems used by car manufacturers including Jaguar and Nissan and commercial fleets including FPL.
EZface founder Ruth Gal is using eMerge to launch the app in the U.S. The app itself is free; a woman takes a photo with her smart phone and then scans the bar 
code on the product to see how the color appears on her face. Gal said she eventually expects to make money through product coupons and personalized advertising. Though the app has been available for several years, she previously marketed as a business-to-business service. Now she hopes to attract funding to sign up new brands and retailers and take the service direct to consumers.
In Holland’s booth, five companies showcased tech products for e-learning, warehouse logistics, unobtrusive wind power generation, micro training for companies and health and education games. Barbara Staals, senior commercial officer, said she expected Holland would come back again next year. “The media exposure and the type of people coming through” made the effort worthwhile, she said.
“As a consulate, our job is to get Netherlands on the map of Miami. eMerge wants to get Miami on the map of the Netherlands”– making them good partners, she said.
Jane Wooldridge