Y K C : Innovation I (10,000 Hours of Coffee Meetings)
Jonathan 'Yoni' Frenkel
Helping Founders, Executives, and Investors Maximize their LinkedIn Presence to Develop Thought Leadership I CEO of YKC Media I Generate Opportunities from LinkedIn by Leveraging Strategic Ghostwriting
YKC mini-newsletter. Below are select entries from my Facebook journal during the summer in Israel circa 2016. In 10,000 Cups of Up-side Down Coffee I explored a variety of different themes; in this particular article I focus on innovation; in some cases what one would expect in Israel, some not (as part of a multi-part series).
Innovative thinking (and executing) is something people in Israel have been able to develop in order to survive and thrive. Do I believe that everyone can learn to think in innovative ways, I don’t know, yet. But with the direction the world is moving towards, many of us are not going to have much of a choice very soon. A side note, I recently listened to the Tim Ferriss interview with Thiel Capital Managing Director Eric Weinstein: Eric Weinstein on Challenging “Reality,” Working with Peter Thiel, and Destroying Education to Save It, and it got me thinking about the limitation of our current thinking, and that we are entering a golden age where it’s going to be innovate or die. Innovation really is the mother of necessity.
I’ve been pretty vocal that I believe that the Startup Nation (the state of the ecosystem and the narrative itself) has many challenges (which I’ll address in a future post) and while I don’t know if it’s in our DNA to become the Scaleup Nation there is still so much to highlight and rightly praise. I added Instagram pictures from my journey as I went thru the work to produce the content… and I believe it is good enough and still fairly relevant. The posts below take place in September 2016 around Tel Aviv and culminate with the DLD Innovation Festival. My current notes are in italics.
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“My biggest regret is that I didn’t dream bigger.”
-Shimon Peres Z”L
It’s always a mix of emotions when one leaves Israel (particularly after an extended period). It’s been a roller coaster ride of 10,000 hours of coffee meetings; an intense experience connecting with very talented people building something amazing here.
I’ve stated this numerous times, but in this oasis in the desert, (and despite a lot of money flowing into it), this still scrappy country is working to solve the world’s biggest challenges. I believe the next game-changing leap in technology (and related fields) which will fundamentally impact humanity will have a major Israeli influence, or come from here.
I’ll be back here soon, but in the meantime, you can follow my thoughts on Medium which I’ll post here regularly about Israel, innovation, and policy. (I had to fit in one last sunset picture?. Funny, I ended up leveling up my newsletter and only a year later or so started to focus again on Medium; but what I wrote at the end of September 2016 still stands. The next game changer in tech (probably AI or something blockchain/crypto related will come from Israel).
“In Israel, a land lacking in natural resources, we learned to appreciate our greatest national advantage: our minds. Through creativity and innovation, we transformed barren deserts into flourishing fields and pioneered new frontiers in science and technology.”
-Shimon Peres Z”L
Remembering Shimon Peres and his legacy from a tech perspective; his creation of the Israeli defense industry, young people, and a constant focus on creating a better future for Israel and world. It’s not by chance that the last time I heard Shimon Peres speak was at TechCrunch’s first event here in Israel (which kicked off my journey of 10,000 coffee meetings). He was still incredibly sharp and future-focused in everything he said.
I wanted one of my last posts to be about a really interesting group of people I met here in Israel. I had a chance to catch up recently with the team of Israeli Air Force soldiers whose work focuses on innovation. Yes, you read that right, the IDF has a unit in the army which acts as an innovation center.
A lot of people during my 10,000 hours of coffee meetings asked me what was the most interesting idea/start-up/initiative I came across and it has to be this concept; that the IDF, the institution which is tasked with safeguarding the lives of everyone living here understands the need to innovate.
The Air Force (the “blues”) and the regular army (the “greens”) have different cultures. From my personal experience the culture in Golani, (best known for its “shoot first, ask questions later” mindset) is very different than the “rosh” in a highly technical part of the army like the Air Force (but as I’ve mentioned in a previous post, there are a lot of places, practically in the infantry; where in the field you certainly have to “l’alter”, to pivot). What I find the most interesting is the army leadership understanding the battles of tomorrow will not just be won by Israel’s technological superiority (which our enemies are rapidly gaining by closing the technological gap) but also by innovative thinking. Vision or “Hazon” like that is part of Shimon Peres’s legacy. In a place where the rules are literally written in blood, even there, there is space for innovation.
The Israeli Air Force has a long tradition of tech prowess; ranging from the Ofek program for advanced technology, cyber units protecting the most advanced American-made fighter jets and helicopters, as well as the legacy of the pilots themselves, many who posses very sharp qualitative thinking. And of course drones; a field in which Israel dominates.The innovation initiative in the IAF is in part a continuation of that tradition, but also a break from it as well. Their work is not just focused on how an institution can improve it’s R&D (and work not with just a small subset of people) but how to fundamentally change the way an institution thinks; how a simple solider (a “hab’as”) up to the IDF Chief of Staff can think in innovative terms (and introduce new ideas into the system). This gives me a lot of hope, because if an army can let itself go thru the uncertain messy process of trying out innovative ideas (many small failures), so can large corporate institutions, governments, and the world.
And if Shimon Peres is leaving us with one idea, it is to have the ‘chutzpah’ to challenge, to push further, and to innovative for a brighter future.
As an inspiration to the DLD innovation festival this week in Tel Aviv, SIT: Systematic Inventive Thinking. Fascinating catching up with the team at SIT and hearing about the work they do with the range of Fortune 500s, nonprofits, and municipalities teaching the principals of innovation thinking.
In Israel’s case, limitations (size, geography, very unfriendly neighborhood) have only propelled innovative thinking. Check out their book for a real deep dive.
??First World Problems still need solving
Rush hour, there has to be a solution to this. I don’t usually highlight individual start-ups in my posts, but I was so impressed with the team at Neura (AI as a service) and what they’re building after visiting their office in Herzliya that I wanted to feature them.
Basically (as quoted in Geektime) “Neura wants to bring IoT into the next generation with smarter integrations that learn from the user’s behavior and provide a new level of services and conveniences. It means connecting with the apps and smart devices we use to improve our interactions with them through machine learning of context. For example, if the user has smart locks on their door, then Neura can learn that when the phone is plugged in overnight, it should lock the door. This automation takes IoT and makes it smarter.”
Israeli entrepreneurs have a real advantage because of their deep understanding of technology in order to build platforms which utilize a variety of different technologies working together; IoT, AI, machine learning, etc. Regarding IoT (Internet of Things for the non-geeks out there) the estimated amount of smart devices will number 26 billion connected devices by 2020. Wow. Maybe in the near future, with the help of platforms like Neura your smartphone (smartwatch, etc.) will read your lifestyle style patterns and know at exactly what time (where you’re headed, get there the quickest way using Waze), and proceed to order you your driverless Uber.
That’s one possible solution.
??Rush hour; the Shoemaker goes barefoot
View from the Porter School of Environmental Studies at Tel Aviv University. It’s a fitting picture as some of the start-ups being built here will forever change the future of transportation; and possibly end hours of traffic as we know it.
I had a chance to catch up with the team running Capsula, the Smart Transportation accelerator at TAU, which I believe is one of the only accelerators working with start-ups in the mobility and transportation space.
Here’s a little known fact; the State of Israel in its early years wanted to create an automobile industry. That idea might have been way ahead of it’s time. Today with the low cost of natural resources (metals, etc.) and where transportation is headed with the driverless vehicles revolution, cars are closer to being made of computers and sensors than anything else. The list of Israeli companies making a dent in transportation space are rapidly growing; Via, Juno, GetTaxi, Otto (founded by an Israeli-American) Mobileye, Nexar, and the list goes on.
The accelerator works with Israeli start-ups such as the team of former Air Force graduates who focused on cyber solutions to protect F-16s’ systems during their service and now work to make sure driverless vehicles’ security is not compromised to the Ukrainian start-up looking to disrupt the trucking industry in India (yes, you read that right).
Rapid change in transportation and mobility are already upon on us, the driveless car revolution is happening, and Israel is positioning itself as a leader in that space. Circa 2018 Israel is poised to kill it in the automated vehicle space, forget the noise around regulatory challenges, this is happening.
Catching up with friends at the SOSA working space in south Tel Aviv. This is actually my first time visiting SOSA, and it’s a visit which has been long overdue.
I knew that SOSA provided a physical space and community for entrepreneurs, as well as acting as a center for innovation when multinationals visit Israel. What I didn’t know was the amount of foreign governments, municipalities, and cities visiting SOSA to learn from the Israeli eco-system in order to help solve their local problems.
“Be nice to nerds. Chances are one day you’ll end up working for one”
-Bill Gates
Visiting and speaking with some of the amazing entrepreneurs at the Microsoft Ventures accelerator in the heart of Silicon Wadi, Herzliya Pituach. I feel sometimes there are more accelerators than start-ups here in Israel. Microsoft however is celebrating 25 years since it opened its R&D center in Israel and has been an anchor of the eco-system ever since.
Great article highlighting Microsoft’s presence in Israel.
Super interesting morning catching up with the Creator’s program at Rise, Barclay’s accelerator in Tel Aviv, and learning about what they’re building. Creators is the only ideation program in the Israeli eco-system; modeling the process of ideation after the MIT Media Lab.
Or as the Wiki describes: “Ideation is the creative process of generating, developing, and communicating new ideas, where an idea is understood as a basic element of thought that can be either visual, concrete, or abstract. Ideation comprises all stages of a thought cycle, from innovation, to development, to actualization.”
The Levine House on the corner of Rothschild and Shadal. This is probably one of the my favorite buildings in Tel Aviv; it looks even more splendid lit up at night.
Rothschild Boulevard is the iconic address of Israel’s financial district (more Park Ave than Wall St. though); the local and foreign banks, accounting firms, the equivalent of Israeli white shoe law firms and of course many venture funds and offices of major tech companies. Both Rothschild and parallel Ahad Ha’am Street display some of the most beautiful restored Bauhaus, Eclectic (ex. Levine House), and International architecture.
Really interesting start to the day hanging out and geeking it out a bit with my friends at Maverick Ventures team down the street. Some of the entrepreneurs they’re investing in have such an incredibly deep understanding of technology. As I’ve observed to many of the people I’ve met here, there is a deafening amount of noise emanating from the tech community (akin to other tech eco-systems). That being said, there are many amazing entrepreneurs creating mind-bending technologies, solving real problems, and building companies in every conceivable vertical.
