First Presentations

As I discussed back in the first week of our trip (here and here), groups of one or two of our Smith team have been partnered with an equivalent number of MBA students from the Technion. Together, our combined teams have been assigned technology patents - for which we are creating commercialization strategies. Last Thursday, June 3, we made our first presentations in class at the Technion. Our first presentation was focused on five potential applications of the technology, evaluating possible customers, suggesting hypothetical value propositions, market sizes, technological issues, and building revenue models. Our analysis was meant to establish a baseline for our project going forward.

"Me - surrounded by Asher and the VCs"
Picture by Stephen Kushner

Our presentations were conducted in front of a panel of Israeli and American venture capitalists. The Israeli culture (and the VC culture also for that matter) that we'd been told so much about, but hadn't quite experienced was in full effect. Time and time again during the night, each of us was put us on the spot, our analysis and assumptions totally dissected. We hardly had time to explain our next point before we were barraged with another set of questions. Everyone was definitely feeling the pressure!

"Don, looking pleased after presenting about his UAV tech"
Picture by Stephen Kushner

Despite the tough treatment, the presentations overall were still really well received. One VC, who had judged the same class the previous year said that the presentations were significantly improved. One or two of our Israeli classmates shouted out that this was because of "the Americans", which was a nice compliment.  At 10pm, after the last team had finally finished presenting, we were all pretty wound up by the experience. That being said, everyone seemed to agree that it was one of the best experiences we've had so far in Israel.

At The Technion

Yesterday, on Wednesday we worked hard at our offices at the Technion. During this first full week in Israel, each team is busy meeting with our various technology inventors/partners, as well as meeting with our Israeli teammates. Preliminary work plans are due at the end of this week and our first class deliverable (an analysis of five potential markets) is coming up on the following Thursday.

 

"The team working hard at our Technion office space"

Photo by Kristin Thompson

With all of this work, we also had an opportunity at lunch to meet and socialize with the Technion Entrepreneurship Club (e-club). Every other Wednesday, the e-club arranges for afternoon speakers to talk on key topics of interest. This week, two Technion students presented on their technology start-up concepts - the first a novel personal online networking tool and the second an innovative game concept for mobile devices.

Straight To Work

After a free day to rest and recover, on Thursday we had our first class at the Technion. Around 4PM, we left our place in the Ramat Eshkol neighborhood to head to the campus. 

Upon arrival we had a reception and had our first chance to meet our Israeli classmates (and teammates) for the summer. It seemed clear from the get-go (at least to me, and I believe to the other Smith students as well) that our Israeli teammates are just as excited as we are to get started. Our Israeli counterparts are all current students at the Technion, though many are also still employed during the week, mostly in the high-tech, aviation, and defense industries. To be sure, their diverse technical expertise will come in handy!

Class began promptly at 5PM with our professor, Uzi de Haan, spending a few minutes introducing the material, outlining the course, and setting expectations. Uzi - a professor at the Technion since 2003 and formerly CEO of Philips Electronics Israel seems like a real "no nonsense" kind of operator. He offered the class a pretty stark assessment of the challenge in front of us. Also, he didn't sugarcoat the assignment by shying away from the reality that some of the patents we'd be looking at wouldn't necessarily be "ready for prime time".

At 7PM we moved to a different classroom to hear presentations from each of the various patent inventors, scientists, and researchers regarding their technologies. Over the course of the next 2+ hours, we were given a terrific introduction to each of the patents. Some were already in a prototype stage, while others were still merely conceptual. Some had clear problems they looked to address, whereas others were still solutions looking for the right question. Regardless, what was clear was that each was very different and thus, would require teams to undertake multiple approaches.

With our teams formed and our patents assigned, the next two weeks will see us driving towards our first deliverable. Using both outside research, combined with team brainstorming, we must determine five potential markets or end users for our technology. We will then create presentations and come prepared to defend our selections. 

Why Israel? Ctd

Dan Senor, co-author of the recent (and highly recommended) book, "Start-Up Nation: The Story of Israel's Economic Miracle" really captures the essence of what makes Israel worth paying attention to in this November 2009 article in Newsweek. 

How does Israel—with fewer people than the state of New Jersey, no natural resources, and hostile nations all around—produce more tech companies listed on the NASDAQ than all of Europe, Japan, South Korea, India, and China combined? How does Israel attract, per person, 30 times as much venture capital as Europe and more than twice the flow to American companies? How does it produce, for its size, the most cutting-edge technology start-ups in the world?

David Brooks in the New York Times gives some more reasons to study the Israeli model.

Because of the strength of [its] economy, Israel has weathered the global recession reasonably well. The government did not have to bail out banks or set off an explosion in short-term spending. Instead, it used the crisis to solidify the economy’s long-term future by investing in research and development and infrastructure, raising some consumption taxes, promising to cut other taxes in the medium to long term. Analysts at Barclays write that Israel is “the strongest recovery story” in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Interestingly, when Michael Porter (a name near and dear to most MBA students) penned his definitive tome "The Competitive Advantage of Nations" in 1990, in its many pages he saw fit to only mention Israel once! His single comment being that, "Israel's principal clusters [of innovation] are related to agriculture and defense." It seems clear that if Mr. Porter were writing today he'd likely want to revise and elaborate on this assessment.