•
The
if necessary.
"We do everything from hand hold-
ing to finding investors and strategic
partners," says Lesley Anne Rubenstein,
executive director of the Beersheba
incubator, the Initiative Center of the
Negev.
In return, the innovators develop a
prototype of their idea. After two years,
projects leave the incubator and contin-
ue alone, usually mobilizing govern-
ment or private support to reach the
next stage. For some this means more
government support, for others, busi-
ness investment.
The incubators do not, however,
offer easy cash. "We offer a sweet carrot,
but there's a very hard stick," admits
Ms. Pridor. "Just because you get
approval, doesn't mean you can do
whatever you want. You have to accept
our discipline. We give timetables,
demand reports, restrict budgets. If
there's a difference of opinion, incuba-
tor management resolves it. This isn't
easy for often-brilliant inventors who
don't take orders or advice readily.
"We have to push them toward the
nearest goal. They may have nine bril-
liant ideas and one unexciting one, but
if this one is the most marketable then
they have to concentrate on that first."
"Engineers don't consider the end-
users," agrees Mr. Rubenstein. "They
forget to take things out to the market
because they want to add more func-
tions. They don't stop to find out if
people actually want these extra but-
tons."
One of the incubator program's
recent successes is Elam Ltd., a compa-
ny which graduated from the Har
Hotzvim incubator in Jerusalem last
year, and expects sales of $3 million by
the end of 1997, though sales only
began in the last quarter of 1996. Elam
has developed a revolutionary electrolu-
minescent (EL) fiber, called Livewire,
which looks like a cable and has the
same versatility. It can be used in a wide
range of applications from hazard light-
ing to safety jackets, signs and Christ-
mas decorations. In two years, the com-
pany expects to be making over $10
million a year.
Livewire was the brainchild of two
Russian scientists, both doctors in semi-
conductor physics. On arrival in Israel,
they took jobs as cleaners. to make ends
meet, but in 1992, their proposal for
the EL fiber was accepted. In 1994,
Inventech Investment Company and a
private U.S. investor funneled
$500,000 into the project. Two years
later, another $3 million investment
was made.
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