South Company Visits

Between shopping in the Souq, touring around Jerusalem, floating on the Dead Sea and hiking up Masada, our trip to the south of Israel provided the opportunity to visit some of the nation's leading companies, innovators and thought leaders.  From social venture incubator PresenTense to world drip irrigation leader Netafim, we met with a broad spectrum of business leaders whose scope and purpose truly run the gamut:


PresenTense

This Jerusalem-based incubator for social entrepreneurs fosters change in Israel and abroad by providing the right conditions, networks and education for thought leaders to be successful. From the open kitchen and beanbag chair furnished common area to their proprietary pedagogy focused on building an idea into actionable social change, PresenTense understands innovation. During our visit they put this to the test by taking our team through an "idea slam", which is a creative method to combine individual thoughts on an idea and turn them into a single plan to create change.

Yaron from PresenTense

Hadasit

Before explaining Hadasit (the biomed technology transfer company for Hadassah Hospital), one must first understand Hadassah Hospital. Perched on a massive Mount Scopus campus, Hadassah Medical Center is one of the world's leading medical research companies and certainly the largest facility of its kind in Israel, producing countless patents and innovations for improved medical treatments...which is where Hadasit comes in. The biomed technology transfer company for Hadassah selects the most promising intellectual property coming out of Hadassah and leverages the hospital's facilities to commercialize the technology in-house. With so many of our team members working on medical and biomedical technology applications, this visit showed us one of the several strategic options for our own business plans.

Netafim

From its humble roots on a Kibbutz, this company has grown to become the worldwide leader in drip irrigation and is a key part of keeping Israel green and making its deserts arable. With operations all over the globe, from India and China to the US and Argentina, Netafim is a great example of how solving a local problem can lead to a global business solution.

Cafe Ringelbloom

What's better than a delicious lunch served in a trendy cafe? Knowing that the cafe is part of a socially conscious venture that takes at-risk youth and provides them with the tools and opportunities to better their lives. With a great mission and delectable food, this place is definitely worth a visit for anyone passing through Be'er Sheva.

The team at Cafe Ringelbloom

Israel – Startup Nation

Dan Senor and Saul Singer’s Startup Nation: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle is required reading for anyone looking to do business in Israel.  In it, the co-authors describe how Israel has undergone a transformation from fledgling nation to the world’s most exciting place for technological innovation and entrepreneurship.  The reasons are varied, but all have their roots in a shared sense of survival around which this small nation has cultivated the ideal environment in which to start a business.  If you don’t believe me, just consider that Israel has:

• the highest density of startup companies in the world (one for every 1,844 Israelis)
• more companies listed on NASDAQ than all of Europe
• the greatest portion of GDP spent on civilian R&D worldwide

From the perspective of an MBA student and entrepreneur, Israel offers everything you could ever dream of.  I’m told that driving down Highway 2 from Haifa to Israel I will see offices for global leaders like Intel, HP, Google and Microsoft.  Not to mention that I will have access to Israeli startups-turned-corporations such as Teva, Given Imaging and Netafim.  And nevermind the brilliant researchers at the Technion and the venture capitalists to whom I will pitch my ideas on a weekly basis.

The concentration of multinational firms, innovative startups and funded research in an environment that encourages learning by doing and innovative approaches to problem solving makes Israel the ideal place for an internship and beyond.