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.
The event featured six alpha staged start-ups (hoody, face.com, GRAZEit, Vetrinas, tra.cx and sense of fashion), each had 7 minutes on stage, followed by questions from the panel and finally an American Idol style vote – text messaging (although some voices in the crowd called for twitter, which was heavily used through out the event – 600 twits in under 4 hours).
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.
Links:
Orli Yakuel – rising from the recession, six new Israeli start-ups
Flixwagon – videos of (some of) the start-ups (thanks to Niv Calderon)
BloGiza – Techonomy 2009
Hillel Fuld – Techonomy 2009: great start-ups, amazing event
Qwiji web show – Techonomy 2009
Techonomy website
