By Rivka Borochov
An annual event called Israeli Designed International Development (ID2) is dedicated to working with young leaders from Israel and the Jewish world to package the special Israeli “startup sauce” into transformative tools for Africa and other developing nations.
Looking at Israel’s achievements today, it’s hard to imagine Israel as a developing nation. But that’s what it was in late 1957 when Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir’s vision for developing Africa came to fruition with the organization, MASHAV. The special unit in the Israeli government was established to export Israeli agricultural knowledge to countries in Africa.
The times have changed. MASHAV, Israel's Agency for International Development Cooperation in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, still shares with African states its expertise in farming and combatting desertification. But Israel has new high-tech tools in its developed nation “shed.” Why shouldn’t Africa and the rest of the developing world access these technologies to better their lives?
ID2 is a three-day event that took place in February in the coastal city of Caesarea. It welcomed 70 thought leaders from the international development and entrepreneurial world to learn how they can transform ideas that speak to developing world countries.
Last year (2013), an idea by young physician Jonah Mink started to fly at the first-ever ID2. The idea of MigrantHealth:IL was to create a central database and service for refugees or migrant workers so they could get consistent and trackable healthcare even if they are not in the system.
Partners in the event this year include MASHAV, the Pears Program on Innovation and International Development at Tel Aviv University, and the Schusterman Philanthropic Network’s Connection Points program.
Following in Golda’s footsteps
Danielle Abraham, policy advisor at MASHAV and a partner in the ID2 event with the Pears Program’s Daniel Ben Yehuda, says that she works daily to help integrate Israel into international development policy in the OECD and United Nations.
“ID2 and the topic of entrepreneurship for development resonate strongly with the government,” she says.
Consider the Israeli-led resolution that was passed at the UN on entrepreneurship for development. “Israel is very strong at that – trying to harness Israeli strengths and share them with other countries. We try to help promote development and economic development, and this is a new approach,” Abraham says.
“When MASHAV was established in 1958, the mandate then was to share with other developing nations the experience and knowledge Israel had. Israel was a developing nation when it started,” she points out.
“As times change, we are moving to incorporate the policy side into our existing work and are considering food security, and now entrepreneurship and innovations.”
Abraham says that she is looking forward to seeing how Israeli-made technologies developed for and made successful in America -- for the iPhone, as an example -- can be put to good use in the developing world.
A piece of the bigger development picture
The ID2 event brings in not only great ideas, but also mentors and investors to help young Israeli and Jewish entrepeneurs find their business legs.
In the bigger scheme of things, many other activities take place in parallel to support entrepreneurship for development in Israel. Ben Yehuda says that the ID2 is a pre-event leading up to the Pears Challenge, a three-month accelerator being developed by the Pears Program for Innovation, a project at Tel Aviv University funded by the Pears Foundation of the United Kingdom.
The Pears Challenge will take 10 startup ideas from Israel and give them mentoring support and business tools to grow. Some that had been pre-destined for North America will be guided to shift into a business that will work in the developing world. By all accounts, the market reach in mobile is accelerating in developing markets including India, China and Africa.
The Pears Program is meant not only to do good for the world, but to do good with a sound business plan. Late in 2013, the Dev4Dev Hackathon (organized by IsraelDev Network) held at the Google Campus in Tel Aviv was also a preview event of what’s to come at the Pears Challenge later this spring.
The grand winner among the 10 companies chosen will get to take its idea and implement it in the developing market of choice.
Some of the possibilities for this year are an app that transforms a person’s stutter into audible speech; an electric add-on to a regular bike; novel medical inventions; and a new way to purify water using algae.
Some of these companies will start the intensive and exciting process of starting up in the startup nation at ID2 next month.