Coalition Members
Executive Director, Start-Up Nation Central
Wendy Singer has served as Executive Director of Start-Up Nation Central since its founding in 2013. She worked with its US-based philanthropists to build the infrastructure and professional team in Israel, and to launch its initial activities – connecting Israel’s innovation ecosystem with government and business leaders all around the world.
Jerusalem Ecosystem Manager, Start-Up Nation Central
Inbal is the Jerusalem Ecosystem Manager at Start-Up Nation Central.
Ecosystem Partnerships Manager, fresh.fund
Oded is the Ecosystem Partnerships Manager at fresh.fund, a leading pre-seed venture fund investing in Israeli startups across verticals and segments. Prior to joining fresh.fund, Oded led and was involved in initiatives that helped develop Jerusalem's innovation ecosystem including Siftech, the city's first startup accelerator and Jnext, a governmental<>municipal project of the Jerusalem Development Authority for growing the city's tech ecosystem.
Head of the Master of Design (MDes) Program, Industrial Design, Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem
Dr. Romi Mikulinsky researches and lectures about digital and counter-culture, algorithmic art, as well as design-led innovation. She has worked with start-up companies, corporations, municipalities, and media websites on the implementation of technological innovation, and has led design and innovation workshops worldwide. Romi served as the Director of the Shpilman Institute for Photography and worked with an array of art museums in Israel.
Executive Director, HUJI Innovate
Dr. Amnon Dekel is an applied researcher and product professional focusing on the meeting point between the physical world, computation, and information services enabled over digital networks. His passion is to enable engineers and designers to work in a synergistic fashion in creating successful and innovative products. Amnon is an active member of the Tech Meets Design content committee.
Deputy Director, HUJI Innovate
Ayelet Cohen is the Deputy Director of HUJI-Innovate. Prior to this, she served as the director of Jerusalem activities at Start-Up Nation Central, leading a strategic project to develop the Jerusalem tech ecosystem. Ayelet also co-founded and managed Google Educators' Groups and Google Teacher Academy in Israel.
Product Strategy Consultant
Alona Stern is a product and design thinking consultant. She uses methods including user research, prototyping, competitive analysis, product roadmapping and content design to help organizations identify and act on untapped opportunities.
CEO, New Spirit
Yossi was born to a Hasidic family in Jerusalem. At the age of 10, his family relocated to New York where they lived for several years. The experience caused Yossi to realize how closed off his Israeli community was. Upon his return to Israel, he realized he could no longer identify with the extreme worldview in which he was raised, and decided he would eventually leave the Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) world.Partners
Start-Up Nation Central
Start-Up Nation Central is an independent non-profit that builds bridges to Israeli innovation. We connect business, government, and NGO leaders around the world to Israeli innovation, help develop technological sectors with high-growth potential, and accumulate knowledge and generate in-depth insights about Israel’s innovation sector.
Scale-Up Velocity
Scale-Up Velocity develops high-end impactful initiatives and solutions for Israeli high-tech’s human capital challenges. We partner with leading high-tech companies, academic and training institutions, government agencies, non-profits and philanthropies to build programs and models that increase and improve the supply of talents to Israel’s tech sector. Our initiatives range from practical, hands-on coding bootcamps geared towards talent from untapped communities, to drafting policy recommendations for government agencies and senior decision makers looking to tackle the shortage in human capital within Israel’s tech sector.
The Jerusalem Development Authority
The Jerusalem Development Authority is a statutory corporation which was established by law in 1988. Its functions are to promote, plan and encourage the economic development of Jerusalem, to coordinate between government offices, authorities and bodies involved in the development of Jerusalem, and to advise and supply information connected to entrepreneurial initiatives, plans and commercial ventures in Jerusalem.
Ministry of Jerusalem and Heritage
The Ministry of Jerusalem Affairs and Heritage is a government ministry in the Israeli cabinet. The Ministry is primarily responsible for developing tangible and intangible national heritage assets, preserving content of national historical importance while making them accessible to the public, and encouraging the assimilation of national heritage into the education system.
Jerusalem Municipality
The Municipality of Jerusalem is the governing body of the City of Jerusalem, the capital of Israel. Jerusalem has a population of 900,000, which makes it the largest city in Israel. The Mayor of Jerusalem, Mr. Moshe Lion, previously served as a member of the Jerusalem City Council, director-general of the Prime Minister's Office, Chairman of the Israel Railways, and head of the Jerusalem Development Authority.
Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem
Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem is Israel’s oldest institute of higher education and leading design academy, with more than 2500 undergraduate and postgraduate students studying a range of subjects from fine art and photography to industrial design and architecture. Bezalel's faculty of 550 teachers takes pride in the generations of graduates working at the cutting edge of their fields both in Israel and abroad.
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, founded in 1918 and opened officially in 1925, is Israel’s premier university as well as its leading research institution. The Hebrew University is ranked internationally among the world’s 100 leading universities, and is first among Israeli universities. The recognition that Hebrew University has attained confirms its reputation for excellence and its leading role in the scientific community. It stresses excellence and offers a wide array of study opportunities in the humanities, social sciences, exact sciences and medicine. The university encourages multi-disciplinary activities in Israel and overseas and serves as a bridge between academic research and its social and industrial applications. The Hebrew University has set as its goals the training of public, scientific, educational and professional leadership; the preservation of and research into Jewish, cultural, spiritual and intellectual traditions; and the expansion of the boundaries of knowledge for the benefit of all humanity.
Asper-HUJI Innovate
Asper-HUJI Innovate is the Hebrew University’s platform to encourage and assist students, faculty and alumni to develop their innovation and entrepreneurship capabilities. We support HUJI’s 23,000 students and faculty in the ideation and development of new solutions for real-world problems, while fostering a vibrant ecosystem that helps accelerate the creation of new ventures.
Azrieli College of Engineering Jerusalem
Azrieli College of Engineering Jerusalem was founded to support a broader strategy to strengthen the City of Jerusalem by training engineers for the city’s high-tech industry. Our mission is to combine rigorous academic study with hands-on training that is industrially relevant locally and globally. We fulfill our mission by: tapping into the creativity and ingenuity inherent to the City of Jerusalem; positioning young people for excellence and providing them the tools to succeed; and developing relevant curricula in collaboration with the college’s industry partners and other institutions of higher education.
JLM Impact
The JLM-Impact Consortium is a consortium designed to boost entrepreneurial activity among the city’s students and academic community. The consortium includes The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, Jerusalem, and Azrieli College of Engineering, Jerusalem.
New Spirit
New Spirit works for and with the young people of Jerusalem - via the realms of art/design/culture/leisure and business opportunities. The goal is to strengthen the City of Jerusalem into a place that will be attractive and relevant to young people, and reinforcing its role as a leading cultural and economic center, as befits the capital of Israel.
Jnext
Jnext is a governmental initiative aimed at developing and supporting the innovation ecosystem. JNext operates by directly assisting startup companies and fostering an entrepreneurial environment, in order to transform Jerusalem into a startup-friendly city. Jnext was established as a joint-partnership between The Ministry of Jerusalem and Heritage and The Jerusalem Municipality, and is led by The Jerusalem Development Authority.
