Only yesterday have I realized the potential of Israel as a hi-tech greenhouse, when attending Techonomy, an event focused on local innovation, produced by Orli Yakuel and sponsored by Sun Microsystems. Techonomy was the highlight of a socially packed week, which started last week with GarageGeeks (Wed), followed by Kinnernet (Thu-Sat), then TheMarker Com.Vention (Sun) and Jeff Pulver’s Breakfast (Tue), an hour before Techonomy. Until now I had little business interaction with the SU scene here, although I try to keep myself updated. I am aware we’re the #2 SU country in the world (after the US, with some 3,000 SU companies), but the solutions I sell are aimed at ‘older’ companies, so I rarely meet SU founders.
Personally I was psyched about face.com and their Photo Finder facebook application- face recognition has been around for some time now, but their technology brings it to every consumer, using our natural ‘sharing’ feeling, in a killer speed. They handed out some 50 invitations to techonomy attendees, which run out very fast. Do hope I’ll get approved to their alpha soon.
Another SU that got me interested is Vetrinas (Orit Hashay), which evolves around fashion. Living with a fashion-savvy girlfriend I can totally see this site kicking off, ’cause there are plenty of girls out there who would love to window-shop from their living room. Too bad the panel was male-only – there were a lot of ladies in the audience who could fit the panel, including TC‘s Sarah Lacy (super guest speaker).
Yoav Segal presented Hoody, a social site for your neighborhood, showing you at the heart of the circle, seeing what friends, business and news are happening around you.
Some of the online discussion was around the lack of a solid business model. In the current climate, you must have a business model before running to raise additional funds, or moving to beta, BUT, at an event like this – I’m willing to wait a few more weeks. Hoody and Vetrinas can do wonders with the right business model, face.com is already there I think – and someone (Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Amazon) will definitely put some $$$M for it.
Final word to the producers, Sun Startup Essentials and Orli Yakuel. I came to know the work Sun is doing via facebook, which is quite similar to IBM’s Global Technology Unit – reaching out to local hi-tech companies, and supporting through various initiatives. Kudos to Eddy Resnick for managing to allocate the budget for such an event, in such times, including catering (very good) and the venue itself (ZOA House). And last round of applause to Orli, for bringing Techonomy to life with some 300 participants (and 100 more in stand-by), to show some respect to the Israeli innovation that we knew existed here all along, regardless of what people might think.
My BFF Ezra Butler videotaped this video, and it’s a good thing I’m leaving IBM, or I’ll have to answer to my bosses… 😉 Ezra came to IBM Israel for the Innovation Forum held last Thursday, and we managed to sqeeze this short interview before the event started.
Out on the grass, before the group picture, Oren Todoros (SeoVice) caught me for a 3min video, talking about social media adoption, why should any business consider deploying such a solution and the most important question of all – where’s the ROI? Head over to SeoVice for his full post.
TheMarker Com.Vention was held yesterday at Avenue, attracting more than 1,500 people, all of them part of the local hi-tech and internet community. Twitter was definitely the most mentioned word during the event, with a hashtag that appeared on themarker.com (#themarker09) and a dedicated panel: micro-blogging, substance or hype. My tweetdeck was filled with #themarker09, which got me thinking – why not set a group photo, of all twitterers attending the event? And so it was.. Below you can see the first group photo of some of the Israeli twitterers, along with Arjan Radder, who was a speaker at the event yesterday. The original pictures are available at Niv’s album or his flickr.
From left to right (some people were not tagged, yet):
This is my personal blog. The postings here do not represent the thoughts, intentions, plans or strategies of my past employers or of my clients. It is solely my opinion.
So, for the following week I’ll be vacationing in Prague, without my precious laptop. Yes, my cellphone will still be with me, but I’ll probably refrain from doing business/social related activities, such as checking emails, updating twitter, posting to facebook or reading GReader – to name a few… For 6 days I’ll do my best to disconnect.
