A Full Day of Inspiration ? BUSINESS, INNOVATION ...

Today was a packed day filled with interesting speakers and innovative companies. We started at TEVA, the number one generic pharmaceutical company in the world. We heard from Yehudah Livneh the VP of corporate IP and legislative affairs. TEVA has grown to be one of the top 15 pharmaceutical companies in the world, manufactures over 63 billion pills annually, and employs about 47,000 people. 30% of TEVA?s manufacturing is done in Israel and 1 of 5 prescriptions are filled with TEVA products. Livneh was an inspirational speaker, clearly passionate about his work in the pharmaceutical field.

Next we visited the Google base in Israel, where we heard from Amir Shevat, who works in developer relations. He emphasized the importance of the web and certain start-ups created by Google. Google has a policy where employees spend 20% of their time (1 day a week) working on their own separate projects. This promotes free thought and a creative environment in Google. Shevat told us one story that encompasses the goals of Google. He enjoys meditation and therefore created a Buddha app, allowing people to meditate and to enter their meditation time into their phone in order to receive ?karma points.? He created this project during his 20% creative time. He barely promoted the app and had 10,000 hits within a week. This is now a popular app used by iPhone owners. It was clear from the presentation that Google is an amazing place to work, and they foster an inventive and resourceful staff eager to innovate and constantly producing new ideas.

After Google we visited the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange and heard from Kobbi Avramov. This was the most intense visit with the densest information. Avramov spoke about Israel?s thriving economy and the stock exchange in relation to that. The unofficial exchange started in 1935 and the official stock exchange started in 1963. Israel was originally ranked as an emerging market as opposed to a developed market but in 2010 MSCI upgraded Israel?s status to developed market. There are 577 companies in the TASE and about 10% are high tech companies.

Next we visited Better Place, the home of the electrical car in Israel. We heard how these new electric vehicles present the opportunity for energy independence, environmental restoration and new sources of economic growth. These cars are extremely effective because of their easily rechargeable batteries. With each car a plan is purchased in which the battery and charge station are included. There are also easily accessible battery switch stations throughout Israel that make driving long distances throughout the country unproblematic.

We then heard from Saul Singer, the coauthor of Start-Up Nation. He spoke about how the book was originally targeted toward an American audience yet the book has now been translated into many different languages and is selling all over Europe. He wrote the book in order to show people what is going on in the ?start-up nation,? Israel. He emphasized that there are three ways to think about scaling and enhancing Israel?s start-up environment. Firstly, continuing to do more of what Israel is already doing such as building R & D and large companies bridging gaps between start-ups and themselves. Secondly, Israel has to continue solving global problems in their small country, such as what Better Place is doing by creating cars that only use reusable energy. Lastly, while continuing to focus on the U.S., Israel also has to expand their networking to other countries outside the U.S. Singer was clearly passionate about his love for Israel and mentioned the very beginnings of ideas for a second book.

At the end of the day we ate dinner with six loan soldiers who moved to Israel on their own in order to serve in the Israeli army. My table spoke with one specific soldier, Rafael, who moved to Israel from Nice, France and now serves as an architect in the army. It?s amazing to see young men and women choosing to make aliyah and join the army because they feel a strong loyalty toward Israel.

Lilli ? Arts & Sciences ? Freshman ? New York

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Source: http://olinbizinisrael.wordpress.com/2012/03/12/a-full-day-of-inspiration/

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