Tag: Tel Aviv

On our second day of classes at the Israel Summer Business Academy (ISBA), we were off to Google Israel, located right in the heart of Tel Aviv. Class was held in “Campus TLV”, a portion of the Google office dedicated to entrepreneurs who come to work on their ideas within the confines of a very creative space. We, too, got our creativity flowing as we worked in teams to talk about what we believe has made Israel the innovative nation it is today, and what our definitions of an entrepreneur and innovation are.

After class, we were taken on a tour of the Google offices. From the oranges to the arcade, and even the workout area, I was so impressed with all of the different floor themes. I also loved the signs posted on all of the doors with various health and nutrition facts. It was fascinating listening to Yossi Matias, the head of Research and Development for Google Israel. To learn that the Israelis are responsible for the suggestions that pop up every time I make a Google search and that the World Cup scores are being updated in their office was very cool. I am so happy we had the opportunity to visit there!

The rest of the afternoon was spent doing work and relaxing under the sun. A group of us  had a nice dinner just down the road and topped it off with some delicious Italian style gelato. I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s discussion of Israel’s venture capitalist firms and can’t wait to try the highly praised chocolate at Max Brenner.

Carly Bloom is a sophomore at Olin Business School and a member of the first class in Olin’s Israel Summer Business Academy.

The inaugural Israel Summer Business Academy kicked off with a walking tour of Tel Aviv on Saturday, June 14th.  This was my first time to meet many of the ISBA students and their first time to meet each other.  We have 25 students representing six universities in the United States, Turkey and France in this first cohort.

The day consisted of a tour to help students get an understanding of the city and its beginnings from nothing but sand dunes. We traced the steps of the founders of the city and learned about the city’s history on a beautiful summer day.  The tour ended in Jaffa, just south of Tel Aviv with a group meal of traditional Israeli salads, falafel and shwarma.  That night we had group dinner at a beach side restaurant as the group continued to get acquainted.

Over the next six weeks, we’ll be posting news, views, and insights from ISBA students on the Olin Blog. Check back often to see where this new academic adventure takes us!

Steve Malter
Associate Dean and Director of Olin Undergraduate Programs

ABOUT ISBA

The Israel Summer Business Academy (ISBA), is a six week immersive program open to college students from all over the world that provides students the opportunity to learn firsthand about Israeli entrepreneurship, innovation and business. The courses allow students to conduct an in-depth exploration of the Israeli business culture and why Israel has earned the name “Start-Up Nation.”

Participants will leverage their classroom know through experiential learning and will work with Israeli start-ups to provide them with potential solutions to a strategic problem. Students will also have the opportunity to create their own start-up in a team comprised of ISBA participants and Israeli students. ISBA is sponsored by the Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis in collaboration with the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, Israel.

The ISBA program is modeled after courses developed in collaboration with Olin and IDC faculty that have enabled more than 100 Olin students to engage in immersion learning in Israel over the last six years.

It was an incredible way to start off the new semester as a group of twelve Olin Business students traveled to Israel to experience Israel’s culture and entrepreneurial spirit through the hands-on Venture Advising course offered through Olin’s Entrepreneurship Program.

The week-long visit to Israel began in Jerusalem touring the city and taking in the diverse religious culture, but we were quickly off to Tel Aviv to work with Israeli students from the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya (IDC) on projects presented to us by six Israeli startup companies.

Our team, consisting of Olin’s Nelson Nolte (PMBA) and Shannon Howell (BSBA‘14) and IDC’s Dan Gorlitsky and Shany Mosenzon, worked with FeeX,  a company currently saving users thousands of dollars by bringing crowd-sourced transparency to the management fees of  retirement plans like IRA and 401(k) plans. They have asked us to provide an in-depth industry analysis for a potential new product extension.

Throughout the week we worked in FeeX’s offices often staying late into the evening. We met with the CMO and CEO at the start of the week to review expectations and learn about the business and by the end of the week we presented our initial hypotheses, plan of action, and outline of our deliverables.

During the week we were further exposed to the breadth of Israel’s startup culture. We visited and heard presentations from two prominent venture capital firms in Israel. One presentation was given by Dr. Ed Mlavsky, a founding father of Israeli high-tech and venture capital. He told us stories from when he was the director of the Binational Industrial Research & Development Foundation (BIRD) that makes investments in projects between US and Israeli high-tech companies and that has helped encourage top US companies like Google, Microsoft, and Intel to operate R&D centers abroad in Israel.

We also saw the next the next generation of Israeli entrepreneurs and were a part of the development process. Each of the companies we worked with was founded by former students of the Zell program at IDC, a prestigious year-long venture creation program. These alumni exited the program and successfully built businesses around the ideas they had pitched only a few years ago in the Zell program. At the end of the week we also heard pitches from current Zell students as they presented to a panel of experienced professionals and potential investors. Maybe future WashU and IDC students will work together on projects relating to the business ideas we heard that evening.

We learned a great deal about our company and our project during our short time together, but we also learned a lot from each other. Our Israeli partners brought a direct, action-oriented approach that can be an asset to any team. Furthermore, they were great hosts in showing us many of the great places in Tel Aviv. It was an eye-opening experience to learn about their military experiences and share our relative cultural perspectives.

Everything from tackling real entrepreneurial problems to understanding such a unique culture made this an unparalleled learning experience.

Post submitted by: Shannon Howell, BSBA ’14

Photo credit: Tel Aviv, Wikipedia

Greetings from our first day in Tel Aviv! We have all landed safely and are enjoying our first day in this beautiful country. Today we woke up bright and early for a walking tour around the city of Tel Aviv that ended in the Jaffa port. Our tour guide Jo led the way, while stopping multiple times to explain the historical significance of the places we passed through.

One of the first stops we made was by the old Tel Aviv city hall, which led us to the Dizengoff Square. In the square, Jo gave us a brief history of the city of Tel Aviv, and the meaning behind the name of the city. We even had time for a group picture by the fountain!

We walked by the sanctuary of independence, the hall where David Ben Gurion made his famous speech, in which he declared there would be a Jewish state for the first time in 2000 years. We also walked by the famous Shlush house. The Shlush family was the first family to move outside the walled city of Jaffa, and live in the future neighborhood, Neve Tzedek.

The Shlush house was across the street from the apartment of Shai Agnon, an Israeli Nobel Prize winner, whose picture is on the 50 shekel note. We eventually made our way to the port, and all went out for an Israeli style lunch at a delicious falafel restaurant. Many of the dishes consisted of shwarma, hummus and falafel… yum. We are looking forward to our dinner tonight by the port, and are anticipating our first day of industry touring tomorrow!

Alexa,
Class of 2016
Toronto