Israel’s top innovators help launch 100 new start-ups after two-day bootcamp
As well as helping fledgling firms get started, judges picked three winning teams whose inventions ranged from a fertility device to a cartoon app for children
Jenni Frazer is a freelance journalist
In an event which sounds like a cross-over between Dragons’ Den and “Israel’s Got Talent”, the country’s leading business innovators have helped 100 new start-up companies launch, after an intensive two-day online bootcamp. The idea was launched as the corona pandemic spread and it was clear that many professionals would not be able to return to work.
Additionally, judges picked three winning teams, who pitched to a panel of early stage investors and business angels.
The first winner, a team from France, is IMMA.Health, a fertility medical device that enables women to perform their own follicle follow-up by themselves, at home, while utilising fertility treatments.
DeskPlan, the brainchild of France’s Jeremy Toledano and Israel’s Carla Lasry, looks at helping small and medium-sized companies get back to the workplace safely, using mathematics and AI, artificial intelligence..
And StoryToons, the third winning team, is an Israeli-Russian combination who have developed an app aimed at children aged three to eight, so that they can create, with their parents, stories accompanied by their own paintings and videos.
Hundreds of applicants went online for the bootcamp, eager to approach the 100 mentors, investors and experts and get the benefit of their advice.
Nir Zohar, president and COO of the hugely successful Wix — an international web-building company — told the budding business people: “Try to solve an issue that you are actually experiencing. Don’t try to solve something theoretical. The founders of Uber actually suffered from a really bad taxi service. Wix was like that also… none of us wanted to create a website, (for our initial idea), because it was so painful. We decided to fix the issue”.
And, he added: “Make sure that you are having fun — otherwise what’s the point!”
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