Why is Israel known as the startup nation?

Israel is renowned for its startup ecosystem, contributing significantly to global tech.

What role does Gaza Sky Geeks play in Gaza?

Gaza Sky Geeks fosters tech innovation in Gaza, creating opportunities despite challenges.

What challenges do entrepreneurs in Israel and Palestine face?

Both Israelis and Palestinians face political and economic challenges that impact entrepreneurship.

What is the idea behind a startup region between Israelis and Palestinians?

It proposes creating a unified region where innovation transcends political borders.

How does the conflict influence innovation in the region?

The interplay of constant external conflicts drives a survivalist innovation spirit.

Holy Land: Startup Nations (Full Documentary) | Future Cities

01:29:21

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5h8GfxIWVY

Summary

TLDRThe video examines the dynamic and complex landscape of innovation and technology in Israel and Palestine. It highlights Jerusalem as a shared city with overlapping claims and delves into the differences between technological advancements in different regions. The Israeli tech scene, known as the 'Startup Nation,' has a robust ecosystem fostered by military innovation, while Palestinians are carving their own niche against the backdrop of challenging political realities. It further captures the essence of entrepreneurship, across borders, fueled by necessity and survival, especially in areas like Gaza. The ongoing occupation presents barriers, yet there's a growing push for technology-driven economies and bridging divides via startups. The narrative showcases how innovation transcends political, cultural, and physical divisions, with a focus on how both Israelis and Palestinians can leverage each other's strengths to build a thriving technological region despite historical tensions. The idea of a startup region is emphasized as a means to strengthen economic ties and foster peace through mutual technological advancements. The role of traditional values, education, and military technology as components of Israel's tech success are also explored.

Takeaways

📍 Jerusalem is a uniquely shared city, crucial for both Israelis and Palestinians.
💡 Israel's tech scene thrives due to its innovation and startup culture.
🌍 There's potential for a technological partnership between Israel and Palestine.
🕊️ Innovation can be a bridge between political and cultural divides.
🚀 Gaza shows resilience with its innovative spirit despite challenges.
🔗 Technology offers opportunities to bypass traditional obstacles.
🏗️ Building a 'startup region' offers economic growth for both communities.
📈 Military-driven innovation significantly bolsters Israel's tech industry.
🤝 Fostering broader collaborations can pave the way for peace.
⚙️ A tech-friendly atmosphere is essential for an ecosystem to thrive.

Timeline

00:00:00 - 00:05:00
Jerusalem is a shared city between Palestinians and Israelis, known for its religious diversity. A Palestinian entrepreneur discusses the tech disparity between Palestinians and Israelis, inspiring a vision of creating a startup region involving Arabs, Palestinians, and others from the Middle East to drive tech innovation.
00:05:00 - 00:10:00
The video discusses Israel's reputation as a "startup nation," birthed from necessity and driven by a history of conflict and resource scarcity. Israeli innovation thrives on global orientation and creative adaptability, transforming challenges into opportunities across various sectors, including agriculture and tech.
00:10:00 - 00:15:00
There is commentary on the unique potential of the region despite ongoing conflict. Emphasizing that innovation overcomes restrictions, Palestinian efforts highlight mobile technology's role in economic transformation, pushing against the limitations imposed by occupation.
00:15:00 - 00:20:00
Technological advancements drive a "permanent revolution," offering vast potential for innovation across sectors like immunotherapy and artificial intelligence. Israel is positioned well due to its history of blending military innovation with civilian applications, fostering a culture of entrepreneurship and tech proliferation.
00:20:00 - 00:25:00
The book "Startup Nation" highlights Israel's entrepreneurial spirit, fueled by cultural dissatisfaction and a drive to overcome adversity. This spirit led to establishing Israel as a global tech hub, despite constant geopolitical challenges, by emphasizing economic collaboration for regional prosperity.
00:25:00 - 00:30:00
Palestine's emerging tech scene is outlined, emphasizing the challenges posed by occupation but noting growth in digital economy ventures. Palestinians are urged to adopt an active role in economic innovation, leveraging high mobile penetration and a young workforce to expand into global markets despite geopolitical pressure.
00:30:00 - 00:35:00
Tel Aviv emerges as the epicenter of Israeli tech innovation, attracting creative talents with its liberal environment. High-tech startups like "Healthy.io" illustrate the city's vibrant ecosystem, turning smartphones into medical tools, symbolizing the ongoing digital health revolution.
00:35:00 - 00:40:00
The culture of tech innovation in Israel is compared with global environments, highlighting a higher tolerance for failure as key. Events like "Failure Nights" encourage open discussion of failure, bolstering resilience and motivation among entrepreneurs. Cultural values of questioning and creativity drive innovation forward.
00:40:00 - 00:45:00
Israel's tech ecosystem is deeply entwined with military advancements, fostering skills and technologies later adapted for civilian use. Military experience accelerates tech careers, with young soldiers gaining leadership and practical innovation experience applicable to startups, reinforcing Israel's tech prowess.
00:45:00 - 00:50:00
Entrepreneurial initiatives show promise amidst political complexities. However, they are hindered by municipal and geopolitical challenges, as seen in East Jerusalem's tech movement. Efforts to blend cultural divisions reflect the desire to foster cross-border tech collaborations and economic independence.
00:50:00 - 00:55:00
Discussion on Palestinian identity challenges vis-à-vis Israelis, highlighting day-to-day life difficulties without recognized nationality. There's a push for regional identity and collaboration among Middle Easterners to advance tech innovation, despite systemic barriers and conflicting identities.
00:55:00 - 01:00:00
Israel's tech ecosystem thrives on diverse human capital but struggles with inclusivity, needing to bridge gaps with Arab Israelis and ultra-Orthodox Jews. Initiatives aim to integrate these groups, fostering shared economic growth and tapping into untapped talent to benefit the broader Israeli society.
01:00:00 - 01:05:00
Insights are provided into how Israeli innovation capitalizes on unique cultural and historical conditions. The narrative highlights emerging collaborative efforts with international players like China to leverage global markets, positioning Israel as a nexus of global tech development and exchange.
01:05:00 - 01:10:00
The impact of military experience on Israeli tech development is examined, showcasing the skill adaptability and collaborative culture of units like 8200. Drones and other innovations developed for defense find civilian applications, exemplifying the cycle from military to commercial technology.
01:10:00 - 01:15:00
Israel's evolving narrative balances entrepeneurship with infrastructural challenges. Education and military service cultivate an entrepreneurial environment, yet small population sizes challenge scaling. To thrive, Israel's ecosystem must integrate minorities and collaborate globally, expanding beyond traditional limits.
01:15:00 - 01:20:00
The role of the Palestinian tech sector is highlighted, focusing on collaborative efforts to build a sustainable knowledge economy in the face of political and economic barriers. Innovations in tech provide a path for socioeconomic progress, fostering cooperation and adaptation amidst adversity.
01:20:00 - 01:29:21
The intertwined destinies of Israelis and Palestinians suggest potential for tech to bridge divides, though political challenges remain. While societal advancements emerge, sustainable peace and collaboration depend on shifting perceptions and policies, integrating mutual aspirations for prosperity.

Mind Map

Video Q&A

Why is Israel known as the startup nation?
Israel is renowned for its startup ecosystem, contributing significantly to global tech.
What role does Gaza Sky Geeks play in Gaza?
Gaza Sky Geeks fosters tech innovation in Gaza, creating opportunities despite challenges.
What challenges do entrepreneurs in Israel and Palestine face?
Both Israelis and Palestinians face political and economic challenges that impact entrepreneurship.
What is the idea behind a startup region between Israelis and Palestinians?
It proposes creating a unified region where innovation transcends political borders.
How does the conflict influence innovation in the region?
The interplay of constant external conflicts drives a survivalist innovation spirit.

View more video summaries

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Subtitles

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00:00:05
so Jerusalem the holy land where
00:00:07
Palestinians and Israelis are sharing
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the same city I think it's the only city
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in the world where you have all the
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religions in one
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city here we are in the French Hill
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french hill it's on the eastern
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mountains of Jerusalem where from the
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other side we can see now the Jordan
00:00:25
Valley and we can see Aman and
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Jordan then we have here Mount scopus
00:00:30
Mount of Olives and on the right have we
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have here the amazing ER City
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Jerusalem you can see the two parts The
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Old City and the new
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city there is huge differences between
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the tech sector in Palestine and in
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Israel we as a Palestinian living in
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East Jerusalem I I can't be as a part of
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the startup Nation I want to be but I'm
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not of that Nation
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so my idea was if we can be a startup
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region by giving
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others the Arabs the Palestinians the
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jordanians and everyone from the Middle
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East and yes we can do it here take the
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Holy Land again on the technology level
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and how we are going to change the
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[Music]
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world the best startup which was created
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in this part of the world is the state
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of Israel which was a fantasy which made
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no Financial or no economic sense
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whatsoever in many ways Innovation for
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us has always been a necessity we had to
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be Global before the world global
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existed just like you have mining cities
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fabrication cities we are startup Nation
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that's what we
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are Gaza is amongst the most Innovative
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that I've seen you know when the fuel
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shortages start they start running their
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their cars on cooking oil I think
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because of the repeated shocks of
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conflict they're innovating to
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survive for Tech startups there's many
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many challenges the majority of them I
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can say are due to the
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occupation we don't have to wait for the
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end of the occupation to start improving
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the economy we could start earlier the
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occupation is going to
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end if this conflict someday is resolved
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the potential of what this region can
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build together is nothing short of
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massive
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[Music]
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I truly believe we live in a unique time
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in history from a technological
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perspective because of the convergence
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of exponential computation growth and
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decline in prices and because of the
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fact that the capital required to get in
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the game is very low we no longer have
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paradigms we live in an era of a
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permanent revolution cost of certain
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types of sensors has gone down so much
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and their capacity has exponentially
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grown because of phone makers having the
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pressure to make amazing cameras that
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are so tiny so that we can take selfies
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and send to to our friends this pressure
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creates situation that this sensor that
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was created for the camera of the iPhone
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now can play a role in the ecosystem
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now a guy in Israel can look at that
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sensor say hey 4K capability in a $7
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chip I can revolutionize agriculture cuz
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if I can look at the variance of color
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of an apple in different stages instead
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of losing 30% of the produce I'll lose
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10% of the
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produce another person in India looks at
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exactly the same thing and says hey $7
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chip I can generate an innovation in
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Automotive two years ago Kickstarter
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provided liquidity of half a billion
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dollars in one year without taking
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Equity from anyone the biggest Venture
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Capital funds in the world don't do that
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you have this era of permanent
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revolution on the technological sense it
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meets massive reduction in price and
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then everyone can afford it at least at
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the entry
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level this is a tremendous period and
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that's where you see immunotherapy and
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you're seeing so many interrelated or
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converging Fields I I think Israel is
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very very well positioned to leverage
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the opportunities of the IR permanent
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revolution it's not going to get slower
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from here on
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in Israel is second only to Silicon
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Valley in terms of startups and VC
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investment I think there are several
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main factors that lead to Israel today
00:05:01
being known as the startup Nation as
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this nation of
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entrepreneurs my name is Saul singer I'm
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the co-author of startup nation which is
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the book about what made Israel
00:05:16
Innovative Shimon perz of course is the
00:05:19
person we quote most in the book
00:05:21
entirely but perhaps my favorite quote
00:05:23
is defining Israelis or Jews in one word
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and that word is dissatisfied
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used to call Israel for time to time to
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dissatisfaction nation and when you look
00:05:34
at the history of the country it makes a
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lot of sense because we were the
00:05:36
Builders of the country there were
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people who were dissatisfied from where
00:05:40
they were they had to flee and they came
00:05:42
here and that they had to make this
00:05:43
place work because this was their final
00:05:45
station this was our final stop this
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were the The
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Refuge the people here the very small
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community which was decided they want to
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create a country which they had in their
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mind will need buildings and pipelines
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and electric lines and railroads and
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roads but not only that they understood
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the importance also of sociology and
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philosophy Etc so they created not only
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the techon and the Hebrew University
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they created the philarmonic orchestra
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so they went and decided just to go and
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do it you know to go and build a state
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and actually the best startup which was
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created in this part of the world is the
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state of Israel which started as a
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crazy Fant
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and this was by creating by many many
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startups not in the high-tech not in the
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internet but in agriculture in job
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creation in developing
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cities the founding of the state in 1948
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by David benan Israel's first prime
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minister the first thing he was worried
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about is the survival of the country so
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that required a military that was going
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to defend against five other countries
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around it with much bigger militaries
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much better equipped so the only way to
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do that was with Superior motivation and
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better
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technology throughout history the
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military and unfortunately Warfare has
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been such a driver of Civilian
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technology so for example you know
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computer vision to find Intruders who
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are trying to get through to your
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borders uh eventually trickles through
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to the civilian space and that leads to
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for example autonomous vehicle
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technology uh companies like Mobil ey
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and auto which is a driverless truck
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company which was uh recently acquired
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by Uber drones computer intelligence
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artificial intelligence a lot of what is
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driving the tech industry starts in the
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military one thing that's interesting
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about Israel's Innovation story is a lot
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of factors converging together the fact
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that the whole country is a startup the
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military aspect the the fact that we're
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a country of immigrants all these things
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feeding together are important when we
00:08:08
wrote startup Nation first of all we
00:08:10
didn't realize we were branding a
00:08:12
country but we also didn't realize that
00:08:16
we were touching sort of a global nerve
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we're living in a world that's changing
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all the time and not only changing but
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the the pace of change is
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increasing and this is kind of quietly
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causing a a panic I think in companies
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individuals in countries where they say
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we have to become Innovative that's the
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only way we can keep up and they're
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right but the tendency is to think okay
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we want to do that we want to be like
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Israel we want to do it like Israel did
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but Israel kind of has a unique
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story we have our
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story but what's happening actually
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what's exciting is that around the world
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everybody is doing this but they have
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their own
00:09:01
story benan once said in Israel in order
00:09:05
to be a realist You Must Believe In
00:09:10
Miracles sometimes the greatest Miracle
00:09:13
is recognizing that the world can
00:09:15
[Music]
00:09:16
change through talent and hard work
00:09:20
Israelis have put this small country at
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the Forefront of the global
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economy already we see how that
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Innovation could reshape this region
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over 100 high-tech companies have found
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home on the West Bank which speaks to
00:09:34
the talent and entrepreneurial Spirit of
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the Palestinian people you one of the
00:09:39
great ironies of what's happening in the
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broader region is that so much of what
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people are Yearning For Education
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entrepreneurship the ability to connect
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to the global economy those are things
00:09:49
that can be found here in
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Israel this should be a hub for thriving
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regional trade and an engine for
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opportunity
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[Music]
00:10:09
for most people who are in the
00:10:10
technology space if you talk about
00:10:12
startups Palestine is not at the top of
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the list it's probably not on the list
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at all right we were starting to think
00:10:19
about something that for all intents and
00:10:21
purposes was impossible to do start a
00:10:24
venture capital Fund in a place where
00:10:27
something like this has never even been
00:10:29
comp of you layer on top of that sort of
00:10:31
the political and geopolitical
00:10:33
complexities of the place and we really
00:10:35
have the official definition of Mission
00:10:37
Impossible over the last five plus years
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there has been explosive growth in what
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will become the Arab digital economy we
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raised $30 million to create these
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business opportunities despite
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occupation at the end of the day we as
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Palestinians need to stop thinking of
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ourselves as victims and we need to
00:10:59
think of ourselves as people who despite
00:11:01
of our situation can actually offer
00:11:03
something to the world you've got this
00:11:06
opportunity in the Middle East mobile
00:11:08
devices are being used at some of the
00:11:11
highest rates in terms of penetration
00:11:14
across globally even compared to
00:11:16
developed markets in e-commerce in media
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gaming busines to business so the
00:11:22
startups that we are actually investing
00:11:23
in are looking at these markets welcome
00:11:28
this is suit
00:11:30
well we have staff in Jordan in Berlin
00:11:33
in Washington DC and we have staff in
00:11:35
Canada but the developers sits here so
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the tag is actually Palestinian TCH and
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they sit over there in 2006 there were
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jobs out there and there was at the same
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time a 40% unemployment rate among youth
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the first solution that we developed was
00:11:51
a platform matching job Seekers to job
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providers now suit has has developed
00:12:00
such that we design and deliver digital
00:12:02
solutions from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe
00:12:05
spanning some 30 countries so for
00:12:08
example using a basic mobile phone
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Syrian refugees living in Turkey can
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text in questions to lawyers to get
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legal
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advice we have also last month uh six of
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us were actually in Egypt for 10 days
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working with Farmers now we're building
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a platform that would help deliver
00:12:28
messages to these Farmers to try to
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enhance their productivity and
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yield of course Palestinians have faced
00:12:37
a variety of challenges and great
00:12:40
adversity so it makes perfect sense to
00:12:42
me that we're using Palestinian
00:12:44
technology to answer these same
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questions for people
00:12:49
globally I've spent about 19 years
00:12:52
abroad and um among my my circle of
00:12:55
friends a lot of people would be talking
00:12:57
about coming back but there's always the
00:12:59
question of you know what would I come
00:13:00
back and do right now that has
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completely changed our portfolio is
00:13:06
employing 200 people about 33% of that
00:13:11
are female employees that are primarily
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in technical positions and you know
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we're beating those percentages in
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Silicon Valley so Palestine has been
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able to to beat Silicon Valley on one
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end at least
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the great thing about Innovation is that
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it transcends borders it transcends
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cultures it transcends religion you can
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basically be sitting across the table
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from somebody who you've never met who
00:13:42
comes completely from a different
00:13:43
background and almost instantly speak a
00:13:46
Common
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Language not to say that if a
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Palestinian sits across the table from
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an Israeli that means oh you know now we
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have peace and everything is fine and
00:13:56
dandy and we can you know hold hands and
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sink on by us it's it's not about
00:14:02
that the funny thing is that if you were
00:14:05
talking to somebody from Europe or from
00:14:08
the states and they would come here and
00:14:10
are positively surprised by what's
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happening here because they never see
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some something like this in the news you
00:14:17
can understand this but when it's
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somebody that's less than an hour drive
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from
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you you start understanding that the
00:14:26
political situation is standing in the
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way
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we are at the heart of rosch child
00:14:32
Avenue also known as the tech mile of
00:14:35
Israel about 100 years ago we would have
00:14:37
been standing on a sand dune cuz there
00:14:39
was nothing here you could have seen
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jaffa's gates from here two buildings to
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the right is Israel's independence Hall
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where about 70 years ago founder of the
00:14:49
Country David benan decided to declare
00:14:51
the state of
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Israel uh within 100 years we've been
00:14:55
able to get to a point that in the
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skyscrapers we have the world's top R&D
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companies Facebook and Google and
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Autodesk and other companies in
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buildings at the heart of Tel Aviv a lot
00:15:06
of the Israeli Talent Finds Its way to
00:15:08
center around here this is where the top
00:15:11
of the startup industry is it speaks
00:15:13
highly that the energy of the city is
00:15:16
here the creative guys which are doing
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all the startups don't want to live
00:15:21
outside of the city they want to live in
00:15:23
downtown they want to have urban life
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they want to have coffee shops they
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looking for cities which are liberal
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which are embracing people with all kind
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of taste you know T Aviv you can be male
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you can be female you can be gay you can
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be lesbian you can be transgender nobody
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give a
00:15:42
[Music]
00:15:49
[ __ ] Tel Aviv is providing this kind of
00:15:52
atmosphere it's an open City liberal
00:15:55
City embracing City celebrate the divers
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C add to it you know the Blue Sky the
00:16:01
great restaurants the beaches The
00:16:03
Beautiful People and this is why we have
00:16:06
such a concentration of creative
00:16:09
people you see more and more young
00:16:12
people becoming involved in high-tech
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aspiring to develop their own startups
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they're doing really fantastic
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jobs all right so first of all welcome
00:16:22
to healthio we are based at the heart of
00:16:25
Tel Aviv on rild Avenue and this is
00:16:27
where we turn smartphone cameras into
00:16:29
clinical grade medical
00:16:31
scanners every day millions of people
00:16:34
across the globe get their urine tested
00:16:36
pregnant women diabetics people with
00:16:39
high blood pressure urine testing is the
00:16:42
world's second most frequently conducted
00:16:44
diagnostic test but now there's a new
00:16:47
way we use image recognition and
00:16:50
artificial intelligence to transform
00:16:52
smartphone cameras into clinical grade
00:16:56
scanners the way to transform an
00:16:58
embedded smart camera into a clinical
00:16:59
grade scanner goes obviously through two
00:17:02
big buzzwords big data and neural
00:17:04
networks we built a very uh
00:17:07
sophisticated way of generating well
00:17:09
tagged data we design we bring in phones
00:17:12
we put them in a system we then get the
00:17:14
data the data is very well tagged we see
00:17:16
we allow for the neural network to
00:17:17
improve different layers of the
00:17:19
algorithm I think we we possess now a
00:17:21
set of big data which is unparalleled uh
00:17:26
worldwide This Is Us in different
00:17:28
generations and we have a lot of jokes
00:17:30
about you know where smartphones were
00:17:32
about 10 15 years ago and we're super
00:17:35
happy to have that huge bulky device in
00:17:37
our hands so we can call
00:17:39
wherever you know if you think about uh
00:17:41
the fact that an iPhone is only 10 years
00:17:43
old you know it baffles you it's a
00:17:45
pretty exciting Revolution to be to be
00:17:47
part of we no longer live in an era
00:17:49
where there are subsequent Paradigm
00:17:52
shifts cuz healthcare for me working for
00:17:54
the president on you know Israel's
00:17:56
Neuroscience bioinformatics was always
00:17:57
like this big fear field where you know
00:18:00
big penicillin moments are going to
00:18:02
happen in the 21st century right before
00:18:04
and after immunotherapy is going to kill
00:18:06
cancer stem cell research is going to
00:18:08
create organs for transplant big things
00:18:11
they might happen but I was really
00:18:13
shocked that the Dynamics we see in this
00:18:15
era of permanent revolution also operate
00:18:17
in
00:18:21
healthcare as the Healthcare System goes
00:18:24
into being heavily weighed up against
00:18:27
because of obesity because of that I
00:18:28
abetes because of a kidney disease it is
00:18:31
recalibrating its path towards
00:18:33
urine that's a standard urine test
00:18:35
that's done today in the lab we wake up
00:18:38
in the morning stand in line we give the
00:18:40
prescription we get an old cup we go and
00:18:42
pee in a cup and then at the end of the
00:18:44
day they dip a stick which is 30 35y Old
00:18:46
technology changes colors accordingly 10
00:18:49
different parameters measured in our
00:18:50
urine very important ones tips and put
00:18:53
it in this big scanner and does the scan
00:18:57
um and we get very accurate reads
00:18:59
150 million people in the US are doing
00:19:02
this test every year why on Earth are we
00:19:05
still consuming it in the same in
00:19:06
efficient way instead of waking up in
00:19:09
the morning and going to the lab the Box
00:19:11
gets to your home and in the Box you
00:19:13
have the same dipstick we don't know the
00:19:15
lighting condition we don't know the
00:19:16
phone the camera but the interaction
00:19:18
between the phone camera and the kit and
00:19:22
ultimately the cloud obviously delivers
00:19:24
clinical grade accuracy scanning with a
00:19:27
phone within the app and you're good to
00:19:29
go this company is not about urine
00:19:32
testing it's about generic color
00:19:34
reconstruction in the service of
00:19:36
healthcare right the idea of
00:19:38
transforming embedded smartphone cameras
00:19:40
into clinical grade scanners it will be
00:19:42
relevant for skin care it will be
00:19:43
relevant for eyes to urine and others so
00:19:46
the vision behind what we do is to have
00:19:47
people uh who consume it on a mass scale
00:19:50
enjoy highly simplified version of
00:19:53
exactly the same test
00:19:57
[Music]
00:20:03
when you think about what an
00:20:04
entrepreneur is it's basically someone
00:20:06
who sees the world with slightly
00:20:08
different eyes most of us often we don't
00:20:10
even see the big problems around us CU
00:20:13
we take them for
00:20:14
granted if you have to ask what is the
00:20:16
main trait of a startup ecosystem it's a
00:20:20
different attitude towards failure than
00:20:22
exists elsewhere failure is the only way
00:20:25
to success if you can't fail you can't
00:20:27
succeed
00:20:30
nobody like to fail I cannot tell you
00:20:32
it's very pleasant you know from my
00:20:34
experience I will tell you a secret
00:20:36
don't share it with everybody it's much
00:20:38
nicer to win than to
00:20:40
lose but if you don't fail you limit
00:20:43
your downside but you also limit your
00:20:46
upside you know these things are coming
00:20:48
together otherwise everybody would be in
00:20:50
the industry where the upside is high
00:20:52
and the downside is low doesn't
00:20:56
exist you know I was part of the Israeli
00:20:59
negotiation team to cemp David so uh is
00:21:01
this a big enough [ __ ] up to share with
00:21:04
you how do I talk about failer how do we
00:21:07
do it in a way that it's
00:21:09
fun 97% of startups fail we keep talking
00:21:13
about the 3% that actually did it they
00:21:15
made it they made the exit somebody
00:21:17
bought them they made a big sale they're
00:21:19
now in stock exchange but we're not
00:21:21
talking about the 97% that fails
00:21:24
basically we bring four entrepreneurs
00:21:26
once a month to talk about the biggest
00:21:27
failure and it's kind of incredible we
00:21:30
said like it's going to be extremely
00:21:31
ironic if we fail cuz then we can say
00:21:33
that we failed at [ __ ] of night but
00:21:35
somehow it's just really
00:21:38
successful there's this yish word called
00:21:40
kutah which I think also exemplifies a
00:21:44
lot of the Israeli Spirit if you meet
00:21:47
Israelis they are very honest some
00:21:50
people would say brutally honest it can
00:21:53
come off as a little bit Brash but a lot
00:21:56
of Israelis have it it's this attitude
00:21:58
that I can be my own boss and do their
00:22:01
own
00:22:03
startup that was question why didn't
00:22:11
just I like to believe modern Israeli
00:22:14
culture is certainly influenced by
00:22:16
Jewish
00:22:18
culture we studied the Hebrew Bible here
00:22:21
and we also devote time to talmud study
00:22:23
talmud is really composed of two
00:22:25
documents one is this code developed in
00:22:28
the third Century called the mishna and
00:22:31
the discussions that built around that
00:22:33
text and the 200 years after what we
00:22:35
call the
00:22:38
Garra the relevance goes on we have to
00:22:41
constantly reapply and rethink but
00:22:44
there's wisdom there that seems to
00:22:47
transcend time the tud itself is a 600e
00:22:52
argument of the rabbis where they argue
00:22:55
about what the law should be based on
00:22:57
the Bible
00:22:59
and then how you study that argument is
00:23:01
through argument you definitely feel it
00:23:03
that there is some type of it's between
00:23:05
two entities when it happened then that
00:23:07
seems to make more complicated the issue
00:23:10
of the schore being the one is speaking
00:23:13
through them they're still speaking to
00:23:14
the to the community and I when you come
00:23:17
from a textual tradition that says well
00:23:19
read it differently read it a new way
00:23:21
what else can we learn we're not going
00:23:23
to assume that the guy who's been here
00:23:24
for 40 years has all the answers we're
00:23:26
not going to assume that my job is simp
00:23:28
to do what I'm told we're not going to
00:23:30
say that as long as we all say the same
00:23:33
thing then we'll be okay but we're going
00:23:34
to bring those values of questioning and
00:23:37
complexity and
00:23:39
creativity the process of debating and
00:23:41
arguing was partly how do you apply
00:23:44
these ideas to the world as it gets more
00:23:47
modern the seeds of it are in the Bible
00:23:51
itself let's say just for example the
00:23:53
story of Abraham God's about to destroy
00:23:55
Sodom and gomorra just wipe them out
00:23:58
kill everybody and Abram starts arguing
00:24:01
with him what you know you're going to
00:24:03
destroy these cities what if there were
00:24:05
50 righteous people and God says oh no I
00:24:08
wouldn't do it if there were 50 well
00:24:10
what what if there were 40 and so and
00:24:11
they keep not just arguing which itself
00:24:14
arguing with God that's pretty radical
00:24:16
but but over morality I mean God is the
00:24:19
source of morality here he's arguing
00:24:21
with God over morality so Abraham can
00:24:23
argue with God so of course we're going
00:24:25
to argue with the CEO from Intel or
00:24:27
whatever you know we won't be afraid of
00:24:29
that he says that thing why you just it
00:24:32
makes perfect sense to me that there's
00:24:34
this marriage between Innovation and
00:24:36
ideology because I think people need a
00:24:39
vision they're not just doing something
00:24:41
for themselves but they're helping build
00:24:42
the country there's a vision of making
00:24:45
Society better of improving life of
00:24:46
doing something meaningful making money
00:24:48
is not
00:24:51
enough hey you know people are trying to
00:24:53
explain what's going on in Israel
00:24:55
referring to the technology or to the
00:24:58
military or to budgets or education all
00:25:02
of it it's true but all of it are the
00:25:05
fuel the question is what is the spark
00:25:07
plug because you have all these
00:25:08
components all over the world you know
00:25:10
you have them in Germany you have them
00:25:11
in Japan it's not enough something you
00:25:14
need something else and the something
00:25:17
else has to do with things like
00:25:20
culture virtues
00:25:23
aspirations the human
00:25:25
component and I think this is something
00:25:28
which is very special to
00:25:31
Israel they wake up in the morning they
00:25:34
have Madness in their eyes so when you
00:25:37
look on the startup Nation or when you
00:25:39
look on the explanation you this is part
00:25:42
and
00:25:43
parcel of our
00:25:46
DNA and our neighbors from behind the
00:25:50
green line the Palestinians they also
00:25:52
going these routs and I think it's very
00:25:55
good very important for their Economic
00:25:57
Development
00:26:06
the mixture of nationalities in Israel
00:26:08
and the diaspora who came back The
00:26:10
Talented who came back from the state
00:26:12
and all worldwide to Israel to build
00:26:15
this
00:26:16
ecosystem we have the same opportunity
00:26:19
now on the Palestinian side we are
00:26:21
counting on the the asper to come back
00:26:23
and to start their ideas from here and
00:26:26
creating an equal ecosystem
00:26:31
ramala has become a de facto Capital
00:26:34
right so you have the incubators and the
00:26:36
accelerators and the training programs
00:26:38
right uh and so that I think also led to
00:26:40
a hub for Tech startups in Palestine for
00:26:43
our investors today 80% of them are
00:26:46
Palestinians both within and outside
00:26:48
Palestine I think there's certainly a
00:26:50
desire to to show that this can be done
00:26:53
in
00:26:54
Palestine Palestine by nature is an
00:26:57
agricultural Community we all came from
00:26:59
farming families but what happened with
00:27:00
rala is that when the political
00:27:02
situation changed more work
00:27:04
opportunities occurred within the city
00:27:06
and the young people came to live in the
00:27:09
city where we ended up with an
00:27:10
environment which is less conservative
00:27:12
more open to New Opportunities and
00:27:15
people who would like to live in a less
00:27:17
traditional way than other cities within
00:27:19
Palestine Mala is mostly a city for the
00:27:22
young people the gyms the night life the
00:27:26
theater the art everything
00:27:30
think this generation they're at a point
00:27:33
where they want to see changes you know
00:27:35
history repeats itself and I think that
00:27:37
there are some things that do need to
00:27:38
repeat themselves and some things that
00:27:39
we need to avoid we know that there's
00:27:41
not much we can do for the political
00:27:43
situation or the economy but we can do
00:27:45
something with our own two hands and
00:27:47
create a
00:27:48
product Mash viser is basically a
00:27:50
platform that helps Real Estate
00:27:52
Investors um in America looking for a
00:27:54
property so that investors can see okay
00:27:57
where are the best cities for Real
00:27:59
Estate Investments and then where are
00:28:00
the best neighborhoods and then where
00:28:01
are the best properties would I make
00:28:03
more money renting out the property
00:28:05
traditionally like with a one-year lease
00:28:06
or as a vacation rental by listing out
00:28:08
an Airbnb a research process that should
00:28:11
take 3 months now takes about 20 minutes
00:28:14
15 minutes and we also minimize the time
00:28:17
it takes for them to calculate their own
00:28:19
returns people are a little bit
00:28:21
surprised to know that we serve the US
00:28:22
economy and the US market because we're
00:28:25
completely based in newa as you've heard
00:28:27
before all you need is you know good
00:28:29
internet and a laptop and there you
00:28:34
go if thear looks to invest in web and
00:28:37
mobile based businesses also given again
00:28:40
the limitations happening in Palestine
00:28:42
Tech and internet is a good way to
00:28:44
answer
00:28:46
that our companies so far are really
00:28:49
exciting I think uh our first investment
00:28:52
as a mash viser but we also have Red
00:28:54
Crow I started working in rala after I
00:28:57
got my degree in the in the US and in
00:29:03
201 and I started this project in our
00:29:07
Market what we look at is how Threat
00:29:09
Level is rising in a specific location
00:29:12
hour by hour in a very complex political
00:29:16
situation you used to look for the one
00:29:18
contact person that can confirm a
00:29:20
specific piece of information to know
00:29:22
what's happening in Syria for example
00:29:24
today it's millions of people reporting
00:29:26
constantly
00:29:29
what we rely on is the information that
00:29:31
people put on their accounts like
00:29:32
Twitter Facebook the variation between
00:29:35
these people are extremely marginal that
00:29:37
you can actually take the exact alert
00:29:39
from the people that have entered it on
00:29:41
their social media we created a system
00:29:43
that collects this information
00:29:45
simultaneously it goes through them and
00:29:47
ranks them is it a reliable source or
00:29:49
not and makes it easier for us to put it
00:29:51
on the map and pinpoint exactly where
00:29:53
the incident is happened for example we
00:29:56
have a specific event Happening Here so
00:29:58
you have the location within 2 kilm it's
00:30:00
a high threat which means might be very
00:30:03
violent and affect Safety and Security
00:30:06
the last Circle here is only security
00:30:08
complications so you might be facing
00:30:10
checkpoints and high security measures
00:30:12
within a specific area and it would be
00:30:14
harder for you to move these are the
00:30:16
locations of all the clashes that
00:30:18
happened since the beginning of
00:30:20
September in the West Bank there was for
00:30:22
instance um 74 in Gaza 2 in uh Israeli
00:30:27
controlled area is zero and Jerusalem 29
00:30:31
clashes our target market consists of
00:30:33
non-governmental organizations in both
00:30:35
the Developmental and humanitarian
00:30:37
sector who operate for example in the
00:30:39
medical sector and not being stuck on a
00:30:42
specific checkpoint is very important
00:30:44
today they can just open their mobile
00:30:45
and see where incidents have been
00:30:47
happening during the last 10
00:30:48
[Music]
00:30:53
minutes I'm very proud of what's
00:30:56
Happening Now in ramala and you can and
00:30:58
see that real Community Real ecosystem a
00:31:01
very powerful ecosystem it started to
00:31:04
bring the people back to start creating
00:31:06
their startup and start
00:31:08
succeeding from their
00:31:12
Homeland working on Palestine is not
00:31:14
easy uh for anyone really and definitely
00:31:17
not for Tech startups or a fund like
00:31:19
ours um there's many many challenges and
00:31:22
those the majority of them I can say are
00:31:24
due to the occupation uh and I think we
00:31:26
have to be completely honest and and
00:31:28
forthright about those
00:31:30
challenges in terms of you know people
00:31:33
getting in and out uh Peter who is a CEO
00:31:36
of mash fiser you know last time spent
00:31:37
two days just trying to get back into
00:31:39
the country we don't have 3G still and
00:31:42
honestly I don't think it's going to
00:31:43
happen soon uh you know so that
00:31:45
technology when we're developing apps is
00:31:47
really hindering us right if you can't
00:31:50
test it easily then you know it's very
00:31:53
hard to develop an
00:31:55
app the legal system is not much
00:31:58
oriented with the with the Venture
00:32:00
Capital culture and the startups culture
00:32:03
therefore most of the investors ask
00:32:06
startups to register their companies in
00:32:08
the
00:32:09
US when you exit all the tax money that
00:32:12
you have paid you haven't paid an enti
00:32:14
your country they paid it somewhere else
00:32:15
just because the laws of your country do
00:32:17
not apply to your company which is a
00:32:19
Pity hopefully they'll be able to fix it
00:32:21
before we
00:32:24
[Music]
00:32:25
exit is there a reason why you've chose
00:32:28
to do it in rala specifically because
00:32:30
obviously it's you know there's
00:32:31
limitations to working
00:32:34
here I don't know
00:32:36
home home home I wish we had a more
00:32:40
interesting answer interesting answer
00:32:41
simply home yeah
00:32:45
[Music]
00:32:52
[Music]
00:32:58
Israel and the world are honoring Shimon
00:33:00
Perez as a Visionary and a fighter for
00:33:03
peace the Nobel prize winning former
00:33:05
president and Prime Min of Israel died
00:33:12
overnight President Obama gave this
00:33:15
tribute a light has gone out but the
00:33:17
hope he gave us will live and burn
00:33:26
forever in my first meeting with
00:33:28
President Paris when I first went into
00:33:29
the office we had a conversation about
00:33:31
the power of fantasy and he said
00:33:33
something that stuck with me he said
00:33:35
remember Yoni people without fantasies
00:33:38
don't do fantastic
00:33:42
things president Perez in a recurring
00:33:45
manner was able to look 10 15 20 years
00:33:48
into the future see the developments and
00:33:50
then ask very tough questions and then
00:33:53
taking very tough actions in making sure
00:33:56
that Israel is well equipped to reach
00:33:58
that goal so in the ' 50s you know there
00:34:01
were hardly 10,000 cars on the road he
00:34:04
would already imagine the aeronautic
00:34:06
industry of Israel so that Israel in
00:34:08
1970 would have its own airplane
00:34:10
capability its own electrooptic
00:34:12
capability things that at the time
00:34:14
really seemed like
00:34:18
fantasies so he did it with Aeronautics
00:34:20
that was industry number one he did it
00:34:22
with nuclear capability and nuclear
00:34:23
research he realized that having a
00:34:25
strong nuclear research capability is
00:34:27
something that Israel cannot afford
00:34:28
itself to to leave
00:34:32
behind his third understanding I think
00:34:34
was when he is a prime minister in
00:34:36
Israel has a 400% inflation per year and
00:34:39
so president Paris understands that you
00:34:41
know as they say a crisis is a terrible
00:34:43
thing to ways and puts Israel so
00:34:45
repositions reframes Israel on a path to
00:34:48
growth and essentially paves the way to
00:34:50
the tech industry as we know today I
00:34:52
mean what is a tech ecosystem ultimately
00:34:54
it's not that Israel is the best in the
00:34:56
world in universities it's not that it
00:34:57
has the best IP law or the best access
00:34:59
to Capital it crosses the critical mass
00:35:01
on all of those dimensions of the
00:35:03
ecosystem and there aren't many
00:35:04
ecosystems like that in terms of culture
00:35:06
in terms of willingness to fail in terms
00:35:07
of access to Capital a lot of those were
00:35:11
born in 1985 when again he paid
00:35:14
political Capital to put in place very
00:35:18
Innovative public policy initiatives
00:35:20
like backing VC Venture Capital losses
00:35:23
to attract venture capital in the late '
00:35:25
80s
00:35:27
that's where nanotechnology started
00:35:29
playing a role bioinformatics
00:35:31
Neuroscience sort of he was smart enough
00:35:34
and an incredible Visionary to
00:35:36
understand things that we didn't even
00:35:37
conceive of as younger people who who
00:35:39
you know live in the industry how does
00:35:42
exponential growth in computation allow
00:35:44
us to understand the brain better
00:35:46
understand neural networks then design
00:35:48
AI artificial intelligence that would
00:35:51
then learn better about the brain he saw
00:35:53
it he he he somehow understood it
00:35:57
who is what you'd call the serial
00:35:59
entrepreneur and this country is very
00:36:00
grateful for
00:36:02
that so think about it a country which
00:36:05
is 70 years old with 8 million people
00:36:07
which 70 years ago had barely a
00:36:09
university here has three of its six
00:36:12
which are publicly funded three of the
00:36:14
Israeli universities are in the top 100
00:36:16
most Innovative universities in the
00:36:17
world I think that's a that's a fantasy
00:36:21
that was that was realized
00:36:23
[Music]
00:36:29
we're here at the media Innovation Lab
00:36:31
at IDC herzelia we're looking very
00:36:34
honestly and directly on the 21st
00:36:36
century and we understand the trends and
00:36:38
we understand what's going to happen and
00:36:39
we believe that if we're not going to do
00:36:41
what we do you know it's not going to be
00:36:43
the type of world that we want to live
00:36:45
at we have ba we have ma computer
00:36:48
science communication and uh psychology
00:36:51
students they work in collaborative
00:36:53
groups and they produce uh projects
00:36:55
throughout the year uh in an interative
00:36:58
uh process where they produce something
00:37:00
they quickly test it and then produce
00:37:01
something more advanced one of the
00:37:04
trends that is already happening for
00:37:05
many many years is a physical digital
00:37:07
interaction so we think about digital
00:37:10
technology we all know what it is we
00:37:11
think about the physical world we all
00:37:13
know what it is but what is the
00:37:14
convergence between them what we do here
00:37:16
is what's called humanistic Technologies
00:37:19
and yes technology is great and
00:37:20
technology is fun and we love Innovation
00:37:22
but technology is just technology it's a
00:37:24
means to an end and we believe that that
00:37:26
iot or this type typ of smart objects
00:37:28
should become you know active
00:37:29
participants in our lives they should
00:37:31
behave and that's why we look very much
00:37:33
on gestures that if we're not going to
00:37:35
make sure that these objects of the
00:37:37
future are going to be more intimate and
00:37:39
more empathic and you know communicate
00:37:41
with us in this very social way it's
00:37:43
just going to become a very depressing
00:37:45
21st
00:37:46
century this is the greeting machine we
00:37:49
purposely designed it in the simplest
00:37:51
most abstract form that there is in
00:37:53
order to show through expressive
00:37:55
gestures and movements how
00:37:58
just a simple movement can communicate
00:38:00
so much so the idea comes from for
00:38:02
example if if we have pets at home who
00:38:04
are waiting for us and they're shaking
00:38:05
their tail so our idea is to have this
00:38:07
on at one's table or in the entrance to
00:38:10
one's home and welcoming you making you
00:38:12
feel wanted basically if something is
00:38:15
closely resembles a human but is not
00:38:17
exactly moving like a human it start to
00:38:19
looks very creepy and you know we have
00:38:22
enough lovely humans around and we think
00:38:24
that we should give this you know
00:38:26
abilities to object not trying to
00:38:28
imitate humans but makes these objects
00:38:30
become you know more expressive in that
00:38:32
way exactly we have our own mythology
00:38:35
that uh really emphasizes on going out
00:38:38
to the field to really go into details
00:38:40
this is really important for us so we
00:38:43
believe Innovation is in the details we
00:38:45
set with animators and theater experts
00:38:48
actors choreographers so it's not
00:38:50
something that's scientifically based on
00:38:52
some other discipline but it's inspired
00:38:54
from people that already deal with
00:38:55
expressive motion all of their lives
00:38:58
and we asked people to tell us which
00:38:59
emotions they see in each of the
00:39:01
gestures whenever it looked forward the
00:39:05
perception was of a positive emotion and
00:39:07
whenever the robot was withdrawing there
00:39:10
was perception of a negative emotion
00:39:12
very clean and interesting
00:39:16
results this humanistic way of thinking
00:39:19
comes from social science it comes from
00:39:21
many other you know disciplines it's
00:39:23
about philosophy and how you know people
00:39:25
interacted with technology over the
00:39:27
years and what does it mean to give away
00:39:29
agency to the technology and let the
00:39:31
technology make a decision for me they
00:39:33
can't just say you know no technology is
00:39:35
just technology it has no you know
00:39:37
responsibility in the world the user
00:39:39
makes their own decision and that's not
00:39:41
true that's very naive to think this way
00:39:43
technology is very influential and we
00:39:45
have to put much more thinking into the
00:39:47
type of technology that we're
00:39:52
creating one of the aspects of our
00:39:55
startup culture is kind of a of
00:39:57
hierarchy we don't like discipline we
00:40:00
don't like we don't respect authority
00:40:02
and that's I think a very important part
00:40:04
of the Israeli ethos that I think just
00:40:06
plays out all the way going through the
00:40:09
Army the military would seem to be the
00:40:12
opposite of startups the opposite of
00:40:15
innovation very big very structured very
00:40:18
hierarchical very top down not
00:40:20
Innovative and yet the military has been
00:40:22
a huge part of our
00:40:25
story basically these Israeli Defense
00:40:28
Forces look at hierarchy different than
00:40:30
other militaries around the world to
00:40:32
begin with specifically with regards to
00:40:35
um Tech I think we had to understand
00:40:37
that we could still tell people where to
00:40:39
go but many times we cannot tell them
00:40:41
how to get there simply because nobody
00:40:44
has done it ever uh or even worse
00:40:47
sometimes you have to tell people to try
00:40:49
to achieve something that somewhere in
00:40:51
the back of your mind you think is
00:40:53
almost impossible in this kind of
00:40:55
environment uh h ke has to
00:41:05
change can you work in a collaborative
00:41:07
environment can you control your ego so
00:41:10
that you can achieve things with a
00:41:12
larger group of individuals and so in
00:41:15
many ways organizations like 8200 are
00:41:17
the closest to meritocracy that I've
00:41:20
seen and when you create this kind of
00:41:22
environment sometimes magic happens
00:41:25
[Music]
00:41:33
the Army here doesn't look like the Army
00:41:34
in the movies we're giving them a lot of
00:41:37
responsibility and they know that they
00:41:38
have the freedom to say to me anything
00:41:41
and almost in any way they can tell me
00:41:44
that I talk [ __ ] and they can tell
00:41:47
me that I'm wrong and I accept it and
00:41:50
this what makes this place so
00:41:55
great I never really knew what it meant
00:41:59
for me until I was like 17 years old
00:42:04
like I wasn't really excluded from
00:42:07
social life I just had a rough time
00:42:10
fitting in I felt like I should be able
00:42:14
to do this why am I not able to do this
00:42:17
it was really frustrating for
00:42:20
me as someone who is uh diagnosed with
00:42:23
Aspirus syndrome on the autism spectrum
00:42:26
I was Exempted for my mandatory military
00:42:29
service but despite the exemption I did
00:42:32
still want to serve my country um that's
00:42:35
the standard and I wanted to not stick
00:42:37
out or be different than anyone else
00:42:40
having aspur syndrome there are uh
00:42:43
disadvantages and difficulties that are
00:42:45
involving that um there are also other
00:42:48
things other strengths is very high uh
00:42:52
Precision attention to detail analytical
00:42:55
skills that is very Val valuable and
00:42:58
important when you're doing uh this this
00:43:01
kind of
00:43:03
work to me it was very much insane it
00:43:07
was a completely different experience
00:43:09
from what I went through until then
00:43:11
because
00:43:13
suddenly I felt like I had a social life
00:43:17
it's very refreshing it's an absolutely
00:43:20
great
00:43:21
[Music]
00:43:24
experience the people that really make
00:43:26
the the difference in Innovation the
00:43:29
people that really make the difference
00:43:31
in cyber in artificial intelligence in
00:43:33
big data and so on and so forth are
00:43:35
pretty unique people they're difficult
00:43:37
to
00:43:38
[Music]
00:43:39
find these young people 2122 are being
00:43:43
given tremendous amounts of authority
00:43:45
that there's no way they could get them
00:43:47
civilian life and you come out and
00:43:49
you've had all this management
00:43:50
experience and dealing with real world
00:43:53
dilemmas and decisions so you're ready
00:43:56
to take on the challenges of
00:44:01
startups I had no background in drones
00:44:04
whatsoever I just uh I went into an
00:44:07
electronic shop in Toronto to buy a
00:44:09
juicer and I saw this drone toy this was
00:44:12
like I don't know 7 or eight years ago
00:44:14
so I bought it instead of the
00:44:16
juicer ended up to be the best
00:44:18
investment I ever
00:44:19
made there is a definite Advantage
00:44:22
hiring an engineer that has a background
00:44:25
in the Army and almost everybody in this
00:44:27
goes to the Army you know the person is
00:44:30
responsible you know they're independent
00:44:32
they can work in a team those are the
00:44:34
things that you look for in a personis
00:44:36
and we get those things for
00:44:39
[Music]
00:44:44
free we saw that there was a big gap
00:44:47
that could be fulfilled and you know
00:44:49
maximizing the potential from these
00:44:51
aircrafts if we took it in and made it
00:44:53
out into a tool where this thing
00:44:55
actually does work
00:44:58
one of our big projects was a giant oil
00:45:00
spill in Israel very quickly we were the
00:45:03
ones managing the entire operation
00:45:06
because we could fly Non-Stop and we
00:45:09
just took regular pictures of the area
00:45:11
and send it to everybody's phone and the
00:45:14
surveyors in the field would walk around
00:45:16
with this fresh aerial of what's going
00:45:18
on and they could better manage what was
00:45:20
going on was a good example of how
00:45:23
drones are used for good things and not
00:45:26
bad
00:45:28
our vision was to create a box that sits
00:45:31
somewhere and you know can launch and
00:45:34
land missions by itself not just in
00:45:36
security or mapping or emergency
00:45:38
response but everything
00:45:42
combined the docking station serves
00:45:45
several purposes it protects the Drone
00:45:48
from the outside environment whether
00:45:49
it's really hot really cold or it's
00:45:52
dusty or it's corroded or it's
00:45:54
raining second is replacing the
00:45:57
batteries and also the sensors thus
00:45:59
creating different applications that can
00:46:01
be used in different scenarios if you're
00:46:03
flying on a mission and you're running
00:46:05
security with a video camera and then
00:46:07
you want to switch and go to do mapping
00:46:09
with the Drone lands itself in the
00:46:10
docking station and then you have the
00:46:12
sensor replaced and then you have a
00:46:14
different
00:46:18
tool turning it from a toy to a tool
00:46:22
there's a lot of Technology involved and
00:46:24
most of the components in the market
00:46:25
today are not fitted for for an aircraft
00:46:27
that does real work but everybody's an
00:46:30
engineer in Israel I mean we don't
00:46:32
really have anything else to do here if
00:46:34
you're in the desert we don't have a lot
00:46:36
of Natural Resources so that's our
00:46:38
resource
00:46:50
Innovation if you're able to find the
00:46:52
people who are entrepreneurial in spirit
00:46:56
then there really can do this almost
00:46:59
anywhere in the world because if you
00:47:01
think about it entrepreneurship is about
00:47:03
solving problems and the bigger the
00:47:06
problems are the more substantial the
00:47:09
[Music]
00:47:13
solution I've been saying this for years
00:47:15
and I I I totally believe that because
00:47:17
of the characteristics of Palestinian
00:47:20
society that for me it's obvious that
00:47:22
the economy of the future here should be
00:47:24
a knowledge-based technology focused e
00:47:28
economy there's a 99% literacy rate high
00:47:31
percentages of people who speak foreign
00:47:34
languages the fact that people are very
00:47:36
techsavvy and and
00:47:38
capable and so we've been steadily
00:47:40
working at that you know since
00:47:43
2007 Mercy Corp is a global relief and
00:47:46
development organization that that works
00:47:48
in about 40 countries around the world
00:47:50
helping out in the post crisis response
00:47:53
area and helps to transition things
00:47:55
toward development we've been here since
00:47:57
the mid 1980s and in Gaza since uh about
00:48:03
2006 in both places they have a lot of
00:48:06
challenges but you the most obvious ones
00:48:09
are
00:48:10
political you know in the West Bank you
00:48:12
you tend to have constant uh friction
00:48:15
and often clashes inside of the West
00:48:16
Bank between
00:48:18
cities uh whereas in Gaza it's a totally
00:48:21
closed economy there is the threat of
00:48:24
War
00:48:27
every two years or so we tend to have a
00:48:29
large scale conflict between the
00:48:31
Israelis and the factions inside of
00:48:33
Gaza you know there is that but you can
00:48:36
be in Gaza City and you feel at times
00:48:38
like you're in any other place any other
00:48:41
city in the
00:48:42
[Music]
00:48:45
world young people in Gaza are hungry
00:48:48
for opportunities they're hungry to have
00:48:50
some possibility for creating a better
00:48:52
future for themselves and yeah Gaza is
00:48:55
amongst the most innov that I've seen
00:48:57
you know when the fuel shortages start
00:48:59
they start running their their cars on
00:49:01
cooking oil right so I mean they're
00:49:03
innovating to
00:49:05
survive I think because of the closure
00:49:08
because of the repeated shocks of
00:49:10
conflict because they've been
00:49:12
disconnected from the world for the last
00:49:13
10 years and because of certain
00:49:16
structural issues in the education
00:49:18
system they're several years
00:49:20
disconnected from what's happening at
00:49:21
The Cutting Edge of
00:49:22
Technology beyond that it's things like
00:49:25
you know electricity shortages are major
00:49:26
challenge in Gaza um internet is
00:49:28
surprisingly not one of the the
00:49:31
challenges we sit on top of a a
00:49:34
high-speed internet line and so all of
00:49:36
the people inside of our community you
00:49:39
know are able to access Internet
00:49:42
[Music]
00:49:48
consistently so Gaza Sky Geeks is an
00:49:51
initiative that we started back in 2011
00:49:53
together with Google we did lots of
00:49:55
events hackathon on Startup weekends to
00:49:57
really generate buzz and energy around
00:49:59
the idea of creating opportunities for
00:50:01
yourself we saw that technology would
00:50:04
create this this window to the world
00:50:07
around them and create opportunities for
00:50:09
income and for a more sustainable future
00:50:11
for
00:50:14
[Music]
00:50:16
themselves what has been done with Gaza
00:50:19
Sky gigs is nothing short of defying
00:50:21
that possible they will challenge the
00:50:24
limits of what entrepreneurship can do
00:50:26
in some of the toughest places in the
00:50:29
world I think they want to prove that
00:50:33
they can succeed and they want to prove
00:50:35
that they have the rights to be part of
00:50:38
this Global World so they know now what
00:50:41
this technology gave them the ability to
00:50:43
bypass all the siege and all the
00:50:45
barriers from the Israeli
00:50:48
side you know the vast majority of the
00:50:50
people in Gaza which is a tiny territory
00:50:52
most people have never left it and have
00:50:54
no Prospect ever of doing so so you you
00:50:56
can imagine when you can visit websites
00:50:58
or engage on social media and something
00:51:00
held in the palm of your hand that's a
00:51:01
massive
00:51:03
change at the same time as it's become
00:51:06
more possible for people to talk to each
00:51:08
other virtually it's become actually
00:51:10
more difficult for them to have
00:51:11
day-to-day contact one thing that
00:51:13
Palestinians will accuse other
00:51:15
Palestinians of sometimes is talking
00:51:17
about
00:51:20
normalization normalization is making
00:51:23
the relation between the Palestinian and
00:51:25
the Israeli as normal
00:51:27
so as there's no conflict there's
00:51:29
nothing you can do business you can deal
00:51:31
with you can go with you can shop with
00:51:34
this is not accepted there is a conflict
00:51:37
with is we are not dealing with them we
00:51:38
are not doing business with them but if
00:51:40
you are living the same city what are
00:51:42
other opportunities do you
00:51:47
[Music]
00:51:51
have this is the area where you can say
00:51:54
East and West mix this is the imaginary
00:51:58
boundary on the right are the Arab
00:52:00
neighborhoods let's
00:52:02
say and on the left is the Israeli
00:52:04
neighborhoods you look at the buildings
00:52:06
look at the streets here you can see a
00:52:09
huge
00:52:11
difference we and Israelis pay the same
00:52:14
Municipal Taxes we do pay the same taxes
00:52:17
on work everything we receive the same
00:52:20
benefits in terms of health but not in
00:52:23
Municipal
00:52:24
Services the situation is getting better
00:52:27
great efforts are being achieved from
00:52:31
the current Jerusalem municipality but
00:52:33
it's not enough it's complicated Beyond
00:52:36
description residents of East Jerusalem
00:52:38
should receive the Guin World Book of
00:52:40
Records of
00:52:42
surviving and now we've arrived our
00:52:45
destination let's
00:52:49
jump the community in East Jerusalem
00:52:52
they are Palestinians and they are
00:52:54
staying in Jerusalem as residents and
00:52:57
not citizens we don't have an Israeli
00:53:00
passport we are living with travel
00:53:02
Document and the same time we have a
00:53:04
kind of Jordanian passport where the
00:53:07
nationality at that passport is none you
00:53:10
are not a Palestinian you are not an
00:53:11
Israeli and you are not a
00:53:13
Jordanian so this is why Palestinian
00:53:16
community in East Jerusalem felt between
00:53:18
the cracks you can't get support from
00:53:21
the Palestinian government CU they can't
00:53:23
support you and the Israelis they can't
00:53:25
support you cuz you are not an Israeli
00:53:27
resident like a Palestinian trying to
00:53:30
contact an Israeli company or Israeli
00:53:33
venture capitalist you get asked a
00:53:35
question and it was asked to me did you
00:53:37
serve in the Israeli Army like come on
00:53:39
seriously is that a question you ask a
00:53:41
Palestinian so the answer was no and
00:53:43
they said sorry we can't fund you we
00:53:45
went also to ramala Tri with the VCS in
00:53:47
ramala which is the West Bank in
00:53:49
Palestine and we got the same nice
00:53:52
answer every time you're not a
00:53:53
Palestinian resident how can we help you
00:53:55
how can we support
00:53:58
you so among the years there was
00:54:00
pressure on this community in Jerusalem
00:54:02
and yes all the talented all the capable
00:54:05
or the investors or the professionals
00:54:07
they are not here anymore they just left
00:54:09
the
00:54:11
city we as a Palestinian living in East
00:54:14
Jerusalem I I can't be as a part of the
00:54:17
startup Nation I want to be but I'm not
00:54:20
of that Nation I'm not part of that
00:54:21
Nation so my idea was if we can have the
00:54:25
second edition to be a startup region by
00:54:28
that the whole nation and all other
00:54:31
parties like Palestinian we can all
00:54:32
start now working together to boost and
00:54:35
to develop the
00:54:36
region today for them just is the home
00:54:40
so if you want any kind of support he
00:54:41
will go to his home and will ask for the
00:54:44
service and there is someone will try to
00:54:46
do his best to help him giving them the
00:54:48
capacity building opportunity and the
00:54:50
training and the professional trainers
00:54:52
to be part of an ecosystem and giving
00:54:54
them the network so he can go and join
00:54:56
any activity in the western part of the
00:54:58
city and they will ask him from where
00:55:00
you are I'm coming from just so he said
00:55:02
now I have an identity to go and to join
00:55:05
and to
00:55:07
succeed only 17% of women in East
00:55:10
Jerusalem are participating in the
00:55:12
workforce I was very frustrated all my
00:55:15
colleagues they don't work so I started
00:55:18
the idea of my pink Electronics To Train
00:55:21
women on certain skills that will allow
00:55:23
them to work from home even men did not
00:55:26
succeed in this city to to take their
00:55:28
chance from just I had now a mentor
00:55:32
who's mentoring my my business and
00:55:34
helping me to grow and this will help
00:55:36
them in their own businesses
00:55:39
too today we can feel that the community
00:55:42
is more connected they are looking at
00:55:46
the Israeli Market how they can succeed
00:55:48
in the Israeli Market how they can
00:55:50
integrate in the Israeli market and how
00:55:52
they can expore their capabilities to
00:55:54
the Israeli Market
00:55:58
[Music]
00:55:59
Israel is known as the startup Nation
00:56:02
it's not because of the army or because
00:56:04
they're smarter or anything I think in
00:56:07
my mind because there is a like a huge
00:56:09
ecosystem of encouragement they have so
00:56:11
many accelerators in the west side we
00:56:13
don't have an accelerator we have an
00:56:15
incubator one just and and that's
00:56:20
it unless we show some success stories
00:56:24
then things will change but you cannot
00:56:26
show success unless you have an
00:56:27
ecosystem and you cannot have an
00:56:29
ecosystem unless you have success so
00:56:32
that's that's the
00:56:37
deal the idea whether you can actually
00:56:41
kind of plan an ecosystem is something
00:56:43
that many countries in the world are
00:56:45
grappling with there's a fundamental
00:56:47
kind of contradiction because government
00:56:49
operates top down and startup ecosystems
00:56:52
come from the ground up they're they're
00:56:55
organic I think we had gone through
00:56:57
enough iterations on the critical path
00:56:59
of how ecosystems are built where is the
00:57:02
fine line and balance between planning
00:57:04
and ecosystem from a government
00:57:05
perspective and then trying to quote
00:57:06
unquote own
00:57:09
it Ben guran said that the the ultimate
00:57:12
test of designest movement will be in
00:57:13
the negative and so the country is now
00:57:15
trying to face up to that
00:57:18
challenge we're taking a lot of best
00:57:20
practices from the last 30 years
00:57:21
starting from 1985 and trying to
00:57:24
leverage them in uh in b in
00:57:29
the one of the strengths that we have as
00:57:31
a nation is the fact that the military
00:57:34
is very Central to everything that we do
00:57:36
and so if you take that organization and
00:57:38
put it in this other place that will
00:57:42
push everything from Beyond the probably
00:57:45
10 km radius that has about 80% of the
00:57:48
startups in Israel right now which
00:57:50
doesn't make sense from a national point
00:57:51
of view
00:57:56
the plan is to leverage the fact that
00:57:58
top down there's things that we can do
00:58:00
like health and education and housing if
00:58:04
you put all that together you'll get a
00:58:06
new Excellence Innovation Center around
00:58:10
Beva which is essential to Israeli live
00:58:14
view increasingly the Israeli government
00:58:16
is trying to trickle this startup Nation
00:58:20
effect into other cities but it's it's
00:58:23
very difficult most Israelis who work in
00:58:24
high-tech and in the startup World
00:58:26
prefer to be in Tel Aviv and its
00:58:31
environs what's interesting is this need
00:58:35
to build a place from an idea is very
00:58:38
related to startups and Entrepreneurship
00:58:41
for the first you know 40 Years of our
00:58:43
history we weren't startup Nation our
00:58:46
our big Pride was we grew oranges we
00:58:48
made the Desert Bloom and there was a
00:58:50
lot of innovation in that but it wasn't
00:58:53
high-tech it wasn't what we think of as
00:58:54
startup Nation
00:58:56
the ethos of the country was very much
00:58:59
socialist and they were trying to manage
00:59:01
this whole thing from the top down in a
00:59:03
way it was totally apossible in a modern
00:59:05
economy people say well you know the
00:59:08
Russians were communist that wasn't real
00:59:10
communist so the real communism in a way
00:59:13
was the
00:59:16
kabut so the kabut is basically a
00:59:19
radical social experiment they were
00:59:21
primarily agricultural only later they
00:59:25
started getting involved D in startup
00:59:29
Nation this kabut was one of the three
00:59:33
settlements in the south of Israel this
00:59:36
is a shared Community we act like a
00:59:41
Cooperative so we don't own anything all
00:59:45
the cars are for the kibo members and
00:59:49
when we need a car we just come and we
00:59:50
take a
00:59:51
car basically that's how things run here
00:59:57
you have an apartment and you have free
01:00:00
education for your kids and Health Care
01:00:04
everything you need
01:00:08
basically we'll stop here for a
01:00:16
second we need to remind ourselves all
01:00:18
the time that we're in the middle of the
01:00:20
desert we are very far from the city I
01:00:23
lived in New York I lived in Tel Aviv
01:00:25
for many years years I've been in
01:00:27
advertising uh companies and I had a
01:00:30
startup and I understand the pressure
01:00:32
and I understand all the [ __ ] that
01:00:36
you need to deal with in the city it's
01:00:38
all around you so you deal with that and
01:00:41
you deal with that and you go to that
01:00:42
and you in this sces and you take out
01:00:44
money and at the end you don't take out
01:00:47
your product you don't do what you have
01:00:49
to do so coming here and setting up my
01:00:52
business here I realized that we have a
01:00:56
big Advantage being apart from all the
01:00:59
what I call the
01:01:03
[ __ ] the idea of the Hatchery one of
01:01:05
the main point of the Hatchery is to get
01:01:08
entrepreneurs isolated a bit to get them
01:01:11
away from the city away from temptations
01:01:14
that the city holds get them in a
01:01:18
isolated environment where they can
01:01:20
really really concentrate on what's
01:01:23
important hey startup maker if you're
01:01:25
still in college or just graduated and
01:01:27
got an idea that you think will conquer
01:01:29
the Galaxy that's great you can join the
01:01:32
Madara a 3month technological boot camp
01:01:35
in Israel get rid of distractions and
01:01:38
daily concerns get expert guidance on
01:01:40
all aspects you need and essential
01:01:42
skills even Bakery if needed all you
01:01:45
need for your idea to conquer the
01:01:48
Galaxy getting here it's not like a
01:01:51
regular accelerator it's not like a
01:01:52
course if you come to the Hatchery you
01:01:55
move here and you live here and you stay
01:01:57
here you don't go to traffic you don't
01:01:59
stand you don't waste time so if you
01:02:01
need a mentor he comes here what I'm
01:02:04
selling is peace of mind if you know
01:02:07
that you have breakfast lunch dinner you
01:02:11
have laundry you have a house you don't
01:02:12
need to pay bills my mind is not
01:02:16
distracted for a startup it's worth more
01:02:19
than money
01:02:22
[Music]
01:02:28
part of the miracle of the Israeli Tech
01:02:30
scene throughout the years is even more
01:02:32
impressive when you understand how small
01:02:34
of a group it is Israel ultimately is
01:02:37
about 8 million people these days out of
01:02:40
which almost million people is above the
01:02:42
age of 65 the population here under the
01:02:44
age of 22 23 is also pretty big around 2
01:02:47
and a half million people 3 million
01:02:49
people so they don't participate in the
01:02:50
workforce they don't participate in the
01:02:52
creative class as you would call it and
01:02:54
so you end up with work working class if
01:02:56
you will of about 4 and a half or 5
01:02:57
million people out of which the
01:02:59
participation rate is around 60% a very
01:03:02
small part of that is actively engaged
01:03:04
in high-tech and science what do we need
01:03:07
to do for this to
01:03:09
[Music]
01:03:10
scale initially in the book one of our
01:03:13
big questions was is startup Nation
01:03:15
sustainable is it here for good I think
01:03:18
that the the Big Challenge going forward
01:03:20
is a growth challenge this is a Jewish
01:03:23
country but say 80% Jewish 20% Arab and
01:03:29
they're basically two big minorities
01:03:31
that are less connected to Startup
01:03:33
Nation Arab Israelis don't serve in the
01:03:36
military generally and the ultra
01:03:38
religious Jews they kind of opt out they
01:03:41
believe they should be studying and not
01:03:43
take time off going forward it's
01:03:45
critical to bring in these these
01:03:47
minorities and not have them left out
01:03:50
just cuz they're not serving in the
01:03:54
military the Israeli Hightech today
01:03:57
lacks over 6,000 engineers and it is
01:04:01
consensus today that the main human
01:04:05
capital resource for to to to bridge
01:04:07
this Gap is the Arab community and the
01:04:09
ultra Orthodox
01:04:11
Jews since this country established we
01:04:14
are citizens of Israel and have an equal
01:04:17
rights here in Israel but the Arab
01:04:20
Community don't involve into the Israeli
01:04:24
military so we don't have the culture of
01:04:27
the technology industry in the Arab
01:04:31
Community the infrastructure in the Arab
01:04:33
cities and Villages is like 20 30 years
01:04:36
behind the Jewish cities Arab family
01:04:38
earns half as much as as Jewish Family
01:04:41
earns 68% of Arab kids in Israel live
01:04:44
under poverty line and out of
01:04:47
120,000 Engineers working in hech in
01:04:50
Israel only 4,000 are
01:04:54
Arabs in 20 7 I met smab and ji cottin
01:04:58
we are three founders and we built the
01:05:01
toen
01:05:02
organization the idea of sofen was we
01:05:05
should build Share Society between the
01:05:07
Jewish and the Arab through
01:05:10
technology in terms of our objective we
01:05:12
are seing about integrating 10,000 Arab
01:05:16
Engineers by the year 2025 and having
01:05:19
four high-tech centers in Arab cities
01:05:22
today we are located in Nazareth there
01:05:24
we have an accelerated of startups and
01:05:26
today employ over 900 Engineers more
01:05:30
than 100 of them are Jews that are
01:05:32
coming every day to work in Nazareth for
01:05:35
a non-israeli this may sound very normal
01:05:38
but here this is a real Revolution if we
01:05:40
can bring it together I think it's
01:05:42
that's the next Hightech
01:05:48
boom I grew up here in neor K the ultra
01:05:51
Orthodox education system uh all girls
01:05:55
uh no SATs or any exam that would allow
01:05:58
you to go into higher education we have
01:06:01
a very unique way of life there are a
01:06:03
lot of guidelines a lot of ways of
01:06:05
things that we do keeping the Shabbat
01:06:07
from Friday night to Saturday night um
01:06:10
you don't use electricity very often in
01:06:14
in the last few uh decades uh it will be
01:06:16
the men will keep on going to learn and
01:06:18
then the the women would take care of
01:06:20
the income and uh actually
01:06:23
working I started writing for mag azines
01:06:25
in Israel one publisher told me I don't
01:06:29
believe that if you believe in God you
01:06:30
can be an intelligent human being so
01:06:34
being an entrepreneur and K and and a
01:06:37
woman and a mom is uh I guess it's
01:06:42
challenging so this is my home
01:06:45
office this is actually a prototype we
01:06:48
did for Met Life which was really cool
01:06:51
we really try to help companies provide
01:06:54
mentoring and advice on demand from
01:06:57
employees from all levels and all
01:06:59
backgrounds inside the company so we
01:07:01
just create internal apps for them that
01:07:03
help them get the most relevant people
01:07:05
specifically relevant to your issue you
01:07:08
can go into it you can ask a question or
01:07:10
just write about the situation you'd
01:07:12
like advice with and get some really
01:07:14
good advice from
01:07:16
them kch is an amazing organization
01:07:19
started by Moshe fredman kch is
01:07:23
integrating Kim inside sta established
01:07:25
Hightech companies like Google and
01:07:27
Microsoft we for example lean on we sit
01:07:30
inside Microsoft Ventures so I can
01:07:32
actually go to someone who works in
01:07:35
sales in Microsoft or in development if
01:07:37
I have a problem and really get a lot of
01:07:40
uh advice and help from them it's so
01:07:42
successful they're going to take it and
01:07:45
actually apply it to Arab startups now
01:07:48
and afterwards to startups in Israel in
01:07:50
general I I do think like integration is
01:07:53
the key but I've been told for years now
01:07:58
oh if only all would have been like you
01:08:01
and I'm sure that's the case for uh
01:08:04
people of color and for Arabs and for
01:08:07
like uh maybe people of the gay
01:08:08
community but you know if you've known
01:08:11
like my whole family and my old
01:08:12
Community probably think yeah like that
01:08:16
in my dream and I'm sure in comics dream
01:08:19
even more I see like an integrated
01:08:22
Society but sort of like an immigration
01:08:25
takes like a generation or something
01:08:27
like
01:08:30
that immigrants are always the best
01:08:33
enterpreneurs they can gain a lot from
01:08:36
becoming entrepreneur and can lose
01:08:38
little because they don't have
01:08:40
usually anything or much in any case and
01:08:44
this country is Crucible of immigrants
01:08:48
for the last 120 years and the
01:08:51
interesting thing is our two current
01:08:54
immigration
01:08:56
sources are from within us these are the
01:08:59
ultra
01:09:01
Orthodox and the Arab
01:09:04
Israelis they are immigrating you know
01:09:06
from their way of life into the Hightech
01:09:10
and introduce lot of good and fresh uh
01:09:14
Power into this
01:09:16
pool at the end of the day we're a very
01:09:18
small country even if we bring in
01:09:20
minority groups we're still a small
01:09:22
country so I think the the critical
01:09:25
thing we need to do is connect more with
01:09:28
ecosystems around the
01:09:30
world Israel it's so small that it
01:09:33
should it should be a global player so
01:09:35
be part of the big decisions be part of
01:09:37
where the flow of brains and data and
01:09:40
finances
01:09:42
goes you know year on year in in in
01:09:44
double digits in terms of Trades and
01:09:46
investment a big player in the Israeli
01:09:48
Venture Capital domain today is Chinese
01:09:50
private investors and
01:09:51
institutionalsales
01:09:53
and the Israelis or the Jewish culture
01:09:56
have a lot of things in common in terms
01:09:57
of the fact that they're at the same
01:09:59
time ancient people who are interested
01:10:00
in making contribution to the
01:10:06
world so this is sio's R&D Kingdom this
01:10:10
is where we have software engineers and
01:10:11
Hardware Engineers fiware engineers and
01:10:13
QA and this is where the magic
01:10:16
happens making a smart product is a
01:10:19
complicated and painful process we
01:10:21
decided that we are going to build a
01:10:23
platform that will make it easy for
01:10:24
every company to make their product
01:10:27
smart 15 years ago it was difficult to
01:10:30
develop a website today is much easier
01:10:32
if you'll take someone and we'll put
01:10:33
them in front of weeks they will get an
01:10:35
amazing website within an hour today
01:10:38
it's difficult to develop iot products
01:10:41
soon it will be much much much
01:10:45
easier you will be able to make a smart
01:10:48
ceiling fan or a smart mattress or a
01:10:50
smart baby walker or a smart dog color
01:10:53
we want to measure the heartbeat of the
01:10:55
dog we want to measure the location of
01:10:57
the dog the motion of the dog and the
01:11:00
temperature of the dog so sio so far
01:11:02
found from me 36 different
01:11:06
solution so I can use the left hand
01:11:08
filters just to say guys I don't want it
01:11:10
to cost more than $12 to order a
01:11:13
prototype using the system we are giving
01:11:15
you the ability to bring the product to
01:11:17
a stage that is ready for production the
01:11:19
quantity that you will produce it all
01:11:20
depends on
01:11:21
you we are at the moment 50 employees we
01:11:24
have three centers around the world the
01:11:26
R&D Center is here in Tel Aviv we have
01:11:28
the sales and marketing office in San
01:11:30
Francisco and we have the supply chain
01:11:33
office in
01:11:35
chinen in the last few years many
01:11:37
Israeli startups are really starting to
01:11:40
shift their focus from uh the US to
01:11:43
China and they're getting much better at
01:11:45
knowing and understanding the Chinese uh
01:11:48
investment culture and also what Chinese
01:11:51
consumers are looking
01:11:53
for the US and China has almost opposite
01:11:56
ends of the Spectrum in terms of
01:11:58
individualistic versus
01:12:00
collectivist and Israel is sort of in
01:12:03
the middle and the kabut was obviously
01:12:05
the epitome of the collectivist
01:12:07
mentality so it's it's an interesting
01:12:10
kind of
01:12:12
hybrid it's as if China's discovered
01:12:15
Israel and at the same time you have
01:12:17
this kind of political fight with Israel
01:12:19
the disinvestment movement globally it
01:12:23
basically hasn't had much impact because
01:12:25
of investment from Chinese funds and
01:12:27
Israeli funds and it seems to be going
01:12:30
the direction of innovating
01:12:34
Here China translated the book first and
01:12:37
later on the European countries with
01:12:40
less sense of urgency so you could kind
01:12:42
of see where the biggest Hunger for
01:12:44
Innovation was uh they see something
01:12:47
successful and they want to learn from
01:12:48
it I think actually preferable to the
01:12:51
Western tendency it's almost feel
01:12:53
negative about success
01:12:56
sometimes this is just kind of at the
01:12:58
beginning we should be building actually
01:13:00
startups together we should be
01:13:02
co-founding companies that are designed
01:13:05
to solve Chinese
01:13:08
problems s j is obviously the center of
01:13:11
manufacturing so sio won't be a
01:13:14
completely an Israeli company I believe
01:13:17
that the R&D will stay here forever but
01:13:19
the sales will obviously be in China and
01:13:21
in the US and the supply chain will be
01:13:23
obviously in China
01:13:25
we are here to build huge company we are
01:13:27
here to build the largest iot
01:13:30
development platform in the world there
01:13:33
was the frustration for a while that all
01:13:35
this amazing startup Nation brand wasn't
01:13:38
actually creating a lot of value for the
01:13:42
average Israeli because many of these
01:13:44
startups were being sold at a very early
01:13:46
stage but I think that's that's changing
01:13:48
and just since
01:13:50
2013 you already have 15 Israeli
01:13:54
companies that reached the $1 billion
01:13:57
valuation statistic wise you see how few
01:14:00
unicorns they are so the risk to try to
01:14:03
Aspire to be unicorn is very very high
01:14:06
you increase your risk like climbing a
01:14:08
higher mountain is more difficult than
01:14:11
to climb a hill probably the reward also
01:14:14
is is higher but the risk is much higher
01:14:17
the things which are very good in
01:14:19
startups you know that everybody has an
01:14:21
opinion everybody's committed everybody
01:14:23
make decision you know everybody run on
01:14:25
his own way this is good when you have
01:14:27
small groups when you have big groups
01:14:30
you have to give marching orders this is
01:14:33
not the kind of culture that you can
01:14:35
have the same things that make us good
01:14:38
at startups tend to make us bad at big
01:14:40
companies The Innovation process is one
01:14:43
of experimenting of trying and failing
01:14:45
and taking risk and being able to move
01:14:47
quickly the scaling process is one of
01:14:51
sales marketing management and the
01:14:53
people are good at one aren't
01:14:55
necessarily good at the
01:14:59
other think where the world is going
01:15:01
billion dollar companies are not what
01:15:02
they used to be so should there be scale
01:15:04
at a billion yes there should be that's
01:15:07
a good indicator that we' have matured
01:15:08
some of our ecosystem has matured but is
01:15:10
that a single indicator of whether
01:15:12
Israel made a transition into scaleup
01:15:15
nation and is is scaleup Nation by
01:15:18
definition a desirable effect I don't
01:15:20
think so ultimately this country doesn't
01:15:22
have the privilege of making you know
01:15:24
rad mistakes as we grow is the thing
01:15:28
that at any given moment there's a
01:15:29
silver bullet here if you don't do
01:15:31
things
01:15:32
right the whole thing can collapse you
01:15:35
know America can make mistakes UK can
01:15:37
make mistakes big countries with Legacy
01:15:39
with a lot of people with natural
01:15:41
resources they can make mistakes for
01:15:44
Israel for Israelis mistakes at a
01:15:46
greater scale can have very very bad
01:15:49
consequences and there might not be a
01:15:50
way back on on quite a number of of uh
01:15:53
Dimensions here
01:15:56
you know uh being in Israel is kind of a
01:15:59
genetic disorder you know you
01:16:01
always want to come back you know this
01:16:05
is the only country in the world when
01:16:07
there is war usually when there is war
01:16:10
you see people running away from the
01:16:11
country you see Caravans of of refugees
01:16:15
going with with all their things in
01:16:17
Israel when there is war you go to
01:16:20
JFK and you see in front of the counter
01:16:23
of alal people are are sleeping on the
01:16:25
floor waiting for their their flight to
01:16:28
fly back
01:16:33
[Music]
01:16:38
home I'm here every day to remind people
01:16:42
that they have the power to change their
01:16:46
reality they're telling us that Israel
01:16:48
is an Empire of Technology because we
01:16:52
are in constant state of War war war
01:16:56
means profit because when you're in a
01:16:57
state of War you can always develop new
01:17:00
weapons cuz you have where to test it I
01:17:03
think you can understand from the from
01:17:04
this that My Views about the occupation
01:17:07
and uh are that I'm not exactly for
01:17:13
it it's true that in the last few year
01:17:16
we see a increasing number of Israel is
01:17:19
opening companies
01:17:21
overseas I think being sick of the
01:17:23
political situation is the a major
01:17:25
reason you know people usually don't say
01:17:27
it you know because doesn't sound
01:17:32
good I refuse to accept that this is our
01:17:35
reality and forever will be that way you
01:17:37
talk to people Everyone is certain the
01:17:40
whole place is going to die or to
01:17:42
collapse
01:17:43
tomorrow a lot of Israelis who live
01:17:45
abroad are relieved for a few years they
01:17:48
they they they just you know the main
01:17:50
feeling they have
01:17:51
is I don't have to worry about making
01:17:54
the this place work this place works
01:17:56
it's Silicon Valley it will work with me
01:17:57
or without me and for a few years that's
01:18:00
great a few years later they're like
01:18:02
[ __ ] I'm such a small Cog right ah you
01:18:05
know I don't make a difference I need to
01:18:06
go back in Israel I make a
01:18:08
difference to an extent we have this
01:18:10
privilege that things don't work very
01:18:12
well here because then it's always easy
01:18:14
to challenge the status quo it's not
01:18:16
like it's a Well functioning country
01:18:17
that you sit around and say hey you know
01:18:18
what we're done
01:18:29
I'm a Palestinian I grew up here I was I
01:18:32
was born and raised here I I know what
01:18:34
occupation and I know that occupation is
01:18:36
nothing less than evil and in 2016 to be
01:18:40
occupied by a western Democratic nation
01:18:43
is a black mark not for us but rather
01:18:46
for the nation that occupies
01:18:50
us this project is part of the State
01:18:53
Building I'm a believer that the
01:18:56
occupation will end and we will have our
01:18:57
independent free Palestine and the
01:19:00
question in our mind always is what
01:19:02
shape of a Nation we will
01:19:05
have this is part of building the nation
01:19:08
only a small part but it's an important
01:19:10
part the pillars of an important nation
01:19:12
is strong governance good human and
01:19:15
civil rights and excellent economy and
01:19:18
this project is about an excellent
01:19:20
economy and about upgrading the
01:19:21
standards of living
01:19:28
I am a strong believer that a
01:19:29
Palestinian state is in the making we
01:19:31
don't have to wait for the end of the
01:19:33
occupation to start fixing our lives and
01:19:36
improving the economy we could start
01:19:38
earlier the occupation is going to end
01:19:41
we deserve to live comfortably so I'm
01:19:43
not looking for any type of people they
01:19:46
could be any Palestinian it's obviously
01:19:48
for
01:19:50
Palestinians located a half hour from
01:19:53
Jerusalem and just 15 minutes from
01:19:55
ramola is the brand new Palestinian city
01:19:58
of
01:19:59
rabi it's the first planned city in
01:20:03
Palestine eventually it will become home
01:20:06
to more than 40,000 residents in the
01:20:09
city center startups and Enterprises are
01:20:12
setting up
01:20:13
operations they are ready to rise to
01:20:16
meet the challenges of a new and
01:20:18
sustainable knowledge
01:20:22
economy the technology sector will be
01:20:24
the key pillar of the city's future aabi
01:20:27
will be a premier ICT Hub both local and
01:20:31
international high-tech firms will find
01:20:33
raabi a very attractive Prospect for
01:20:35
them to base large scale ICT
01:20:39
businesses we are catering to Young
01:20:44
educated high-tech Community to
01:20:47
accommodate these people you have to
01:20:49
have a smart technologically advanced
01:20:52
City a technological place is not just
01:20:54
just by technology it's also by the
01:20:57
ecosystem you create so these are
01:20:59
restaurants on The Plaza so you could
01:21:02
just imagine uh having chairs out here
01:21:05
and people just sit down having coffee
01:21:08
eating our Target is to get high-tech
01:21:11
companies it has not been easy we are
01:21:14
pushing for international companies to
01:21:16
Outsource to Palestine to establish R&D
01:21:19
facilities in Palestine to establish
01:21:20
testing in Palestine a lot of them are
01:21:23
afraid they think that bullets are
01:21:25
flying all over the place uh but uh we
01:21:28
just had some breakthroughs uh there's
01:21:31
one great Advantage uh the proximity of
01:21:34
Israel being one of the most advanced
01:21:36
Nations technologically all the big
01:21:39
companies are in Israel Google Apple sap
01:21:44
Intel Cisco just half an hour to an hour
01:21:47
away and so um if we could piggy bag on
01:21:51
that and create jobs then we have a
01:21:54
great vibrant City this could be the
01:21:56
Marshall Plan that picks up the economy
01:21:59
in the next 10 to 15
01:22:01
years we just had the elections in the
01:22:04
neighborhoods we have three
01:22:05
neighborhoods now so uh this is also
01:22:08
democracy in the making from the
01:22:10
Grassroots
01:22:12
up in Palestine and many countries like
01:22:16
Palestine when you give people the
01:22:18
opportunities they Excel what I did is
01:22:22
open up the door to the hundreds Maybe
01:22:24
thousands of innovative Palestinians
01:22:27
each one of them is experienced enough
01:22:30
to build raabi to it's those people who
01:22:32
came up with what kind of a stone
01:22:35
whether to do the Arches or not to do
01:22:36
the Arches where you put the I companies
01:22:39
where you put the homes it's exciting
01:22:42
now to the residents of the city which I
01:22:43
call them the pioneers of the city
01:22:45
literally they are the Pioneers thanks
01:22:47
to the internet they see the West they
01:22:49
see the East they see everybody
01:22:51
advancing and they're not advancing
01:22:53
they're demanding better
01:22:55
and I believe this is a good response to
01:22:57
their
01:23:00
demand one of the amazing projects in
01:23:03
Palestine amazing talented entrepreneur
01:23:06
Mr Bashar
01:23:07
masri I love the whole idea just being
01:23:10
there you will feel that you can see the
01:23:12
future of Palestine starting from
01:23:16
raabi I think it's great you know I
01:23:19
think uh you know anything which is with
01:23:21
the Palestinians are doing for economic
01:23:23
development I think it's very important
01:23:25
you know because Terror and hatred are
01:23:29
growing on misery and feeling of
01:23:33
unfairness
01:23:35
Etc so the more you close the gap the
01:23:39
better it is but nothing will replace I
01:23:42
think a political PCT between the two
01:23:45
countries you know to end this uh
01:23:48
conflict and to let the Palestinians
01:23:50
create their own
01:23:52
State and anybody you think that
01:23:55
Economic Development can replace the
01:23:59
aspiration of the Palestinian people to
01:24:01
have their to control their own destiny
01:24:04
is
01:24:05
hallucinating one of the biggest problem
01:24:08
we have here is the Israeli settlements
01:24:11
they are ideological settlers that come
01:24:15
here believing that this land is theirs
01:24:17
God gave it to them we should not exist
01:24:20
here and when we started the project
01:24:22
early on they tried to destroy what
01:24:25
we're doing over time as they saw raabi
01:24:28
is in Israeli news they tried to be
01:24:31
accommodating and said hey let's do
01:24:33
things together we told them no we will
01:24:36
deal with Israelis and Israel proper we
01:24:38
will not deal with radical ideological
01:24:41
uh settlers at all in my personal
01:24:44
opinion they are the biggest obstacle to
01:24:46
peace the more radical the more
01:24:49
organized you are but the average
01:24:51
ordinary Israeli is not radical the
01:24:53
average ordinary Israeli also want to
01:24:55
live and would probably prefer to see a
01:24:58
prosperous Palestinian state next to
01:25:01
them the notion that we have to make it
01:25:04
work because no one else would make it
01:25:05
work was not adopted in the Middle East
01:25:07
at large in the last 67 years and it is
01:25:09
getting there now people demand
01:25:11
accountability people like s and Hadi
01:25:14
say I want to make it work why
01:25:17
not I'm not going to wait for the
01:25:19
political leadership I'm not going to
01:25:20
wait for this or that I'm just not going
01:25:21
to wait I'm going to make it work to me
01:25:24
I think that's
01:25:25
fantastic
01:25:27
politicians take them
01:25:29
away and everything will be
01:25:33
solved even keep keep the politics for
01:25:36
the people in the street and everything
01:25:38
will be
01:25:39
solved all the conflicts about the
01:25:42
political who have the case the
01:25:44
Palestinians or the Israelis with all
01:25:46
the globalization this world now it's
01:25:47
time to just to join the forces together
01:25:49
to start working together and to make
01:25:51
your life your family life your kids
01:25:53
life and other lives and how we are
01:25:56
going to change the
01:25:59
world I think the the big thing we need
01:26:02
to do that actually isn't being
01:26:04
addressed enough now is to open our
01:26:06
doors I want to walk into Israeli
01:26:08
startups and not just see
01:26:10
Israelis in Tech in startups and Arabs
01:26:15
collaborate all the time because we're
01:26:16
facing a lot of the same challenges so I
01:26:19
hope we manage to both you know do
01:26:22
amazing things in high-tech and then
01:26:23
still maintain our personality and our
01:26:27
values entrepreneurs are very pragmatic
01:26:30
creatures between Israelis and
01:26:33
Palestinians I don't think it's any
01:26:35
different but I do believe that the
01:26:36
political reality ultimately will limit
01:26:39
those kinds of interactions and can go
01:26:42
only so
01:26:44
far you know you'd like to see much more
01:26:47
Mutual understanding growing between the
01:26:49
two sides you need real tangible
01:26:51
political movements toward a solution
01:26:54
solution then you also need Palestinians
01:26:56
and Israelis to to not only meet each
01:26:59
other at
01:27:00
[Music]
01:27:02
checkpoints I think if we take the
01:27:04
political sensitivity aside there are
01:27:08
not even a cousins as the history said
01:27:10
they are two brothers you can see how
01:27:12
they are connected they have same common
01:27:16
behaviors on happiness on sadness on
01:27:19
winning on losing on everything even the
01:27:21
language the common words between the
01:27:23
languages they are that
01:27:26
connected you know I think a lot of
01:27:28
people doubt what we're doing but
01:27:30
diamonds are built Under Pressure so one
01:27:33
of these companies is going to make it
01:27:34
big and we'll have an exit and that will
01:27:36
change our ecosystem for the
01:27:39
better the technology advancements and
01:27:42
the access that people have I think
01:27:44
that's encouraging everyone to take
01:27:46
advantage of it and do something and
01:27:47
there's no reason why us living in the
01:27:49
West Bank even with the occupation we
01:27:51
can't take advantage of it
01:27:56
president Paris used to say that wisdom
01:27:58
doesn't have a passport it's a global
01:28:00
tradeit but in this day and age of
01:28:02
Science of being able to you know
01:28:04
digitally transfer insights and
01:28:06
intelligence and value it transcends a
01:28:08
lot of the political realities but we
01:28:11
are in a an interim period we're
01:28:14
transitioning from a world of borders
01:28:17
that was based on tens of thousands of
01:28:19
years of Agriculture there is no Global
01:28:22
government yet hopefully
01:28:24
the positive attitude of the tech
01:28:27
industry will prevail but there are
01:28:29
disgruntled people who are getting the
01:28:31
short end of that stick they also enjoy
01:28:33
the same Trends if I want to create a
01:28:36
dirty bomb 5 years from now that would
01:28:39
cost me $200 10 years ago would cost me
01:28:42
$200 million so the same mathematics
01:28:45
apply the era of f Revolution applies on
01:28:48
both ends and if we don't know how to
01:28:50
manage that and if we don't create
01:28:52
mechanisms to guide you it into
01:28:54
leveraging the positive elements of that
01:28:57
we're headed for a bumpy ride
01:29:02
[Music]
01:29:08
[Applause]
01:29:09
[Music]