start-ups

Creating entrepreneurs

Yazamut 360° co-founder and general manager Dana Gavish, left, and Gadi Bahat, an entrepreneur who heads Yazamut’s academic programs. (photos from bgu.ac.il)

Representatives from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev’s entrepreneurship centre, Yazamut 360°, will be coming to Vancouver in April.

Yazamut – which means entrepreneurship in Hebrew – aims to provide the BGU community with the skills and mentality to excel in any career. It also promotes innovation.

Since its establishment in 2018, Yazamut 360° has seen more than 240 startups and ventures created, had more than 2,000 program participants, fostered an entrepreneurial community of 11,000+ members, and had more than $45 million invested in its companies.

“It was clear to us from the very beginning that, if we’re starting a new entrepreneurship centre at BGU, it needs to be special. We decided to touch very different audiences because entrepreneurship for us is a set of skills, and that set of skills needs to be mastered by everyone,” Dana Gavish, Yazamut’s co-founder and general manager, told the Independent.

“With these different audiences in mind, we went on to develop nine different programs that would match these different audiences and would be the correct ones for entrepreneurship. But the one thing that they all have in common is the idea that you need a learning-by-doing experience.”

Those who enrol in Yazamut are taught such skills as putting together a team, examining problems and solving them, coming up with ideas, conveying messages, presenting in front of a crowd and, on occasion, rejecting a first idea and pursuing another. Yazamut trains participants to move out of their comfort zones towards greater resilience and mental toughness.

“It’s a difficult journey but, when you graduate, you are self-empowered and better educated when you go out to the outer world,” said Gavish, who emphasized that students from across the university are coming to the centre because they see value in what it offers.

“Our graduates really aim high and reach high. We know that they’re hunted today by HR [human resources] specialists from different companies and VCs [venture capitalists]. They’re more daring, and they are employed in wonderful places.”

Among its entrepreneurial offerings, Yazamut features a leaders program that not only teaches entrepreneurship and other skills but forces students to take a fresh look at how they run things, how they manage other people, and how they manage their relationship with failure, said Gadi Bahat, an entrepreneur and venture capitalist with extensive experience in Israel’s tech sector, who heads Yazamut’s academic programs.

“If you want to be a good entrepreneur, it’s not enough that you know how to build a startup. It’s not enough that you know how to measure the right pricing or how to get penetration into the right market,” he said. “You also need to be a different type of person, and that goes into your ability to talk with people. It goes to your ability to present yourself in the right way. It goes to your ability to survive this roller-coaster period. Because, as an entrepreneur, you get a lot of ‘no.’ You get a lot of problems.”

According to Bahat, participants in the program do not come solely from science, engineering and technology backgrounds. Almost half are from other fields, such as medicine and the social sciences. In total, 18 different BGU departments are represented in Yazamut, and half of the participants are women. The startups created, therefore, have sprung from many fields, including medical technology, agriculture and software development.

On April 12, Gavish and some of the entrepreneurs in Yazamut’s leaders program will be in Vancouver for Spark to Startup: Resilience Ignites Leaders. The event will feature the “RBC Lion’s Den,” which will see BGU student entrepreneurs pitching their ventures to a panel of judges and the audience, with a focus on the Negev.

“They will be presenting a potential solution, products and potential markets,” Gavish explained.“It will be a taste for the audience of how we teach entrepreneurship at BGU. The kind of experience these guys get is literally priceless. No other university teaches like it.”

The winning team will receive a monetary prize.

The keynote speaker for the Spark to Startup event will be Saul Singer, an advisor to various companies and nonprofits, who, with Dan Senor, wrote Start-Up Nation: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle and The Genius of Israel: The Surprising Resilience of a Divided Nation in a Troubled World. Michael Fugman, with PearTree Canada, will be honoured for his entrepreneurship and leadership, both in work and community. Martin Thibodeau, regional president of RBC British Columbia, and his wife Caroline Desrosiers, a community leader and advocate, are the event’s honorary co-chairs.

For more information, visit bengurion.ca/events/vancouver-events/spark-to-start-up.

Sam Margolis has written for the Globe and Mail, the National Post, UPI and MSNBC.

Israeli start-up’s Beehome

Beewise wants to replace traditional, wooden hives with high-tech, autonomous ones. (photo from Beewise)

What do cucumbers, avocados and coffee all have in common? Aside from being absolute necessities (yes, avocados, too), they’re all crops pollinated by bees. And, if things keep heading in the current direction, we’re screwed.

Bees are extremely important. About one-third of all plants and plant products consumed by humans are dependent on bee pollination. Unfortunately, the combination of modern demand and natural stresses such as climate change, pests and illness mean that the global bee population is dying at a dizzying rate, endangering our diets and well-being.

To combat this, efforts are being made to rehabilitate the bee population. In Israel, these endeavours are given a very Start-Up Nation twist, complete with computer vision, artificial intelligence and precision robotics, which are all part of the world’s first autonomous beehive, developed by Israeli start-up Beewise. Called Beehome, it’s a device that can house up to 40 bee colonies – that’s two million bees – and take care of their health and upkeep through an app on the beekeeper’s phone or tablet.

“It’s what’s called a disruptive innovation,” said Beewise chief executive officer Saar Safra. “We’re coming to replace all the beehives in the world.”

photo - Beewise chief executive officer Saar Safra — Beewise chief executive officer Saar Safra. *(photo from Beewise)*

The idea for an autonomous beehive came from Safra’s business partner, Eliyah Radzyner. A beekeeper by profession, Radzyner was aghast at the fact that beekeeping methods have not progressed for ages. He was convinced that a computer, machine or robot could do a much better job, and joined forces with Safra, a serial entrepreneur.

At present, most beehives around the world look like they did some 150 years ago – plain wooden constructions whose upkeep requires beekeepers to dress in full hazmat mode and light a smoker before opening them up, taking care of pests, supplying the bees with food and water and harvesting the honey. All this extensive manual labour means that commercial beekeepers, who take care of most of the bees in the world, only get to each hive about once every few weeks. Lots of bees are lost in between rounds to illness, pests and other problems.

“If you manage to identify the problem at the outset and take care of it in a specific manner, then, first off, it will be a lot less invasive; second, you’ll resolve the problem before it becomes a concern; and, third, you’ll save the bee,” Safra explained.

“We built a beehive that knows how to do these things,” he said, listing its three main components: artificial intelligence, computer vision and precision robotics.

The first, he said, is in charge of recognizing and identifying problems at the very outset. A real-time response is then carried out using computer vision to detect and monitor the situation, with precision robotics executing the required solution. The only things in the autonomous hive that require a human hand are filling the water and food and collecting the honey, which is harvested by machine.

photo - In Beewise's hives, even the honey is harvested by machine — In Beewise’s hives, even the honey is harvested by machine. *(photo from Beewise)*

While there are other companies trying to take care of bees amid the crisis, no one else has built an autonomous beehive. Currently in beta stage, Beehome is now being used by some commercial beekeepers.

“At first, there’s skepticism, because it’s so left-field,” Safra noted. “The moment we show people the device and that it works, there’s unbelievable excitement.

“There are beekeepers who are second, third or fourth generation. The beekeeper sees how his business is disappearing before his eyes, on his watch,” he added. “Then you suddenly show him this technology, this solution, and he sees that it works. Imagine what a relief that is.

“The idea that we’re saving bees using technology is an amazing thing,” Safra said. “When you take AI and apply it to traditional industries that haven’t been touched in 150 years, the yield is incredible.”

The funding for Beewise came from venture capital funds, as well as from European and Israeli grants. And doing business in Israel has been wonderful, said Safra, who returned to the country some two years ago after 15 years in the United States.

“The ecosystem in Israel is amazing. It’s simply optimized for start-ups,” he said. “There’s also a crazy infrastructure in terms of services and everyone knows how to work in startup mode.”

Beewise aims to be the new standard, Safra said. “There are 90 million beehives around the world. They’re all wooden beehives that don’t work anymore.

“We’re doing well by doing good,” he concluded. “Every hive that I create and which functions and succeeds – the result is more bees alive.”

For more information, visit beewise.ag.

Israel21c is a nonprofit educational foundation with a mission to focus media and public attention on the 21st-century Israel that exists beyond the conflict. For more, or to donate, visit israel21c.org.

Failure is a possibility

Israeli culture does not encourage failure; rather, it is somehow more tolerant and accepting of it. (photo from Shutterstock.com via Israel21c)

When was the last time you admitted you failed? Have you ever felt comfortable talking about your failures? How often do you use the word “failure” in daily life? How does even thinking about failing make you feel?

Legendary American football coach Vince Lombardi once said, “It’s not whether you get knocked down; it’s whether you get up.”

This reminds me of a cult TV show that I used to watch growing up in Israel, Zehu-Ze (That’s It). It had a character by the name of Yatzek, who discovered interesting places all over Israel and the kids watching the show had to guess where he was.

At the end of each episode, Yatzek would fall in a different way: from a tree, into the river, from the back of a horse, and even into cow manure. Naturally, the kids who were watching would be concerned. To reassure them, he always said, “Kids, no need to worry: Yatzek always falls and gets back up.” An entire generation of Israeli kids grew up with this strong message on a weekly basis.

I believe our culture has a very strong influence on our failures and, mostly, on our attitude toward these failures.

In late 2006, I joined the founding team of Modu. Modu was founded by serial entrepreneur Dov Moran, who previously led M-Systems to one of the biggest mergers and acquisitions in the history of Israeli high-tech. In a very short time, Modu raised more than $120 million, recruited more than 200 employees in Israel and abroad, opened a few subsidiaries around the world, and developed and manufactured two consumer products. All elements for success were present and yet, only three years after its inception, the company closed its doors.

But many Modu employees decided to start their own start-ups, including me. Out of this one big failure, dozens of new business ventures were initiated. How could it be that people who were part of such a huge investment in time, energy, resources and sacrifices were not discouraged after being part of a failed start-up? Rather, they decided to invest more energy, take more risks and start ventures of their own. This is a bold move, since statistically 90% of start-ups fail and the 10% of start-ups that make it are likely to fall apart along the way.

What is it that drives people to try despite the risk of failure? Is it possible that people’s level of comfort with failure is somehow related to their culture, as demonstrated by Yatzek, the crazy character that kept falling and getting up?

The Oxford Dictionary defines failure as “lack of success.” You have either succeeded or failed. It’s a binary game. On the other hand, if you look at the definition of failure in Hebrew, it is much more fluid: “someone that tripped, made an error, did not succeed.” Our language is a mirror of our culture. Informal messaging plays a major role in the values we learn from a very young age.

In Hebrew, adolescence or teenage years are referred to as “the foolish age.” At this age, people tend to act without thinking, resulting in many failures. Therefore, the terminology only reflects their inherent nature. When society regards them as such, as evident in Israel, it gives young people the chance to follow their natural way and experience what might be regarded as foolish – before they become young adults.

Even the Israeli military seems more tolerant of failures relative to other military organizations worldwide. The Air Force Academy teaches how to cope with failures as an essential part of regular conduct drills. After every single flight, the crew gathers in the “investigation room” and the pilot debriefs on what was successful and what was not, in front of a squadron of 40 fighters. The focus is on learning from mistakes and not to make the same mistake twice.

Israeli culture does not encourage failure; rather, it is somehow more tolerant of it and accepts it in such a way that we keep getting back up, trying, moving forward and advancing.

On a personal and professional level, I admit, I fail at least once a day. From this, I’ve learned that one of the things that really makes me happy is that my children are growing up in Israel, where we have the unique ability, as a culture, to look at any event head-on, success or failure, and discuss and learn from it.

I wish all of us could give our kids the understanding that the process is sometimes more important than the outcome, that failures are part of life and that what really matters is how you pick yourself up.

Don’t be afraid to fall. Let your kids fail, too. Just make sure to teach them to get up and never stop trying.

Inbal Arieli was a lieutenant in the elite Israel Defence Forces intelligence 8200 unit and later took leading roles in the Israeli high-tech sector. She is a senior advisor to Start-Up Nation Central and is currently co-chief executive officer of Synthesis. Featured as one of the “100 Most Influential People in Israeli High-Tech,” Arieli is working on an exploration of how Israeli culture breeds entrepreneurs from a young age. Israel21c is a nonprofit educational foundation with a mission to focus media and public attention on the 21st-century Israel that exists beyond the conflict. For more, or to donate, visit israel21c.org.