{"id":9340,"date":"2014-11-28T00:02:45","date_gmt":"2014-11-28T08:02:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=9340"},"modified":"2014-11-27T19:30:10","modified_gmt":"2014-11-28T03:30:10","slug":"startup-conversations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2014\/11\/28\/startup-conversations\/","title":{"rendered":"Startup conversations"},"content":{"rendered":"

Vancouver Israeli Tech Club Fall Meetup keynote speaker Daniel Friedmann of communications company MDA, left, with presenters Yaron Bazaz, co-founder of the app Downtown and a VIT organizer, centre, and Meir Deutsch of IKOMED.\u00a0(photo by Baila Lazarus)<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve ever tried to start a business, you\u2019ll know how crucial it is to have the proper support around you. This includes finding the right management and staff, marketing and growth strategists and, not least, connections with investors. Add to that the challenge of being an immigrant, and the hurdles seem impassable.<\/p>\n

It was out of this need to support startups that Yaron Bazaz, Eran Elizur and Ronen Tanne launched the Vancouver Israeli Tech Club and its affiliate Meetup group one year ago. Bazaz had seen in California the models of business \u201cecosystems\u201d that support the tech community.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey provided a stage for local entrepreneurs to present their companies and expose themselves to potential investors, employees, media, etc.,\u201d said Bazaz. \u201cWe didn\u2019t have this in Vancouver. This type of ecosystem is 80 percent of the success. When you start a company, what you need is the first co-founder, the first investor, employees that are not necessarily looking for the hefty salary but have the entrepreneurial spirit to see your vision and are willing to participate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Within the Vancouver Jewish community, interest in VIT has garnered the group almost 350 members, as well as sponsorship from the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, and the tech hub Discovery Parks.<\/p>\n

So far, VIT has held four networking events. At its most recent, which took place in November, Bazaz presented his app \u2013 in Beta testing \u2013 called Downtown. It allows crowd-sourced data to let users know where the highest concentration of hip, good-looking young adults can be found in the downtown club scene at any given time.<\/p>\n

Meir Deutsch, chief executive officer of IKOMED, also presented. His medical device company aims to reduce \u201cthe exposure to ionizing radiation during minimally invasive medical procedures.\u201d<\/p>\n

Events also include keynote speakers who are local businessmen connected to the Israeli community. At the November event, Daniel Friedmann, president and CEO of global communications company MDA, presented on MDA\u2019s work in satellite technology and spoke about Israel\u2019s contributions to unmanned vehicles, especially in how information-gathering has changed.<\/p>\n

\u201cDuring the Cold War, everyone knew where to look [for enemies],\u201d he told the audience of about 200. \u201cToday, we don\u2019t know where the bad guys are. We don\u2019t know where to look.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are also too many factors to look at, he said, and it\u2019s impossible for any one organization to have the human-power to keep tabs. So reconnaissance crafts, such as satellites and drones, as well as the software, have to be more technically adept at recording even subtle changes on the ground.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the software shows us where some cars have been moved, we can detect bombs that were placed on the road overnight,\u201d explained Friedmann.<\/p>\n

Entrepreneur Shahar Ben Halevi has attended all of VIT\u2019s events.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou learn about other entrepreneurs\u2019 journeys and lessons they have learned on their path,\u201d he said. \u201cYou can always learn more about life, about business, about setting goals and the right mind set to get them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ben Halevi, who came to Vancouver nine years ago, is the founder of Cornfield Media, which has media projects in different stages of development.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne is an online streaming platform for children\u2019s stories on multilingual channels,\u201d he said. \u201cThe service allows parents and children to read the same stories in different languages.\u201d Ben Halevi has a book on Amazon and had a short in this year\u2019s Vancouver Jewish Film Festival.<\/p>\n

He said he\u2019s taken away lessons from VIT on team building, courage, being visionary and how to turn your vision into reality. \u201cHow to be happy with what you achieved and not depressed about the things that you haven\u2019t done yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Baila Lazarus<\/strong> is a freelance writer, painter and photographer. Her work can be seen at orchiddesigns.net<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Vancouver Israeli Tech Club Fall Meetup keynote speaker Daniel Friedmann of communications company MDA, left, with presenters Yaron Bazaz, co-founder of the app Downtown and a VIT organizer, centre, and Meir Deutsch of IKOMED.\u00a0(photo by Baila Lazarus) If you\u2019ve ever tried to start a business, you\u2019ll know how crucial it is to have the proper […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9326,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[2569,2568,2563,2570,2468,2567,2564,4379,2566,2565,2562],"class_list":["post-9340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","tag-cornfield-media","tag-daniel-friedmann","tag-eran-elizur","tag-ikomed","tag-mda","tag-meir-deutsch","tag-ronen-tanne","tag-shahar-ben-halevi","tag-vancouver-israeli-tech-club","tag-vit","tag-yaron-bazaz"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9340"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9340\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}