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Birthright Excel

Leadership innovation program aims to increase ties
between young U.S. and Israeli entrepreneurs.

Shoshanna Solomon | Times of Israel

T

wenty-six-year-old Jonny Basha
of Phoenix sits behind his laptop
in an open, shared-office space
at the center of a bustling and hot Tel
Aviv. On a table nearby are books about
venture capital firms
in Israel and the best-
seller Start-up Nation.
Colleagues seated
nearby are concentrat-
ing hard.
“It has been meu-
leh (excellent),” Basha
says with a flawless
Jonny Basha
grin, showing off the
accented Hebrew he has
perfected during the 10
weeks he has spent in Israel. “The expe-
rience has been really incredible and the
networking has been phenomenal. It has
been the adventure of a lifetime.”
Basha is in Israel as part of Birthright
Israel’s first leadership innovation pro-
gram, aimed at increasing cooperation
between entrepreneurs from leading
American universities and young Israelis
who have graduated from elite technol-
ogy units of the Israeli army to help gen-
erate new startups.
The Excel Ventures program is part of
Birthright Israel Excel, which has been
running an internship program in Israel
for Jewish college sophomores pursuing
careers in business. Now it has launched
a program to focus on
technology as well.
“We are taking the
same caliber of indi-
viduals but with a dif-
ferent mindset,” said
Uri Gafni, in charge of
innovation and business
development for Excel
Uri Gafni
Ventures. “The par-
ticipants in the ventures
program don’t want to
be corporate executives but the next Elon
Musk [of SpaceX] or Mark Zuckerberg
[of Facebook].”
In these 10 weeks, 10 students from 20
universities in the U.S. teamed up with
eight Israelis and worked together on
creating startups. As part of the program,
they underwent entrepreneurial master-
classes, workshops and lectures; they had
intensive mentoring and guidance from

30 August 4 • 2016

Birthright Excel Ventures is a new program pairing 10 U.S. students with eight Israelis to
learn to create startups and strengthen ties — all with the help of Israeli innovators.

a network of industry exports and chat-
ted with veteran venture capitalists and
industry professionals.
The Excel Ventures program served
as an accelerator for the entrepreneurs:
They went through all the critical stages
of putting a team together, bringing an
idea to life, dealing with investors and
carrying out their new concept. The par-
ticipants were scheduled to present their
ideas to industry leaders and VC funds
Monday evening.
“Everything is on steroids here,” Gafni
said. “In the real world, things don’t go
so fast.”
Basha’s team, made up of two
Americans and two
Israelis, came up with
an app to help people
improve their accents
in English. Meanwhile,
the four-person team
of 22-year-old Sophie
Dezen, the only woman
among the 18 partici-
Sophie Dezen
pants in the program,
came up with an online
platform to help chil-
dren and their parents manage their
allowances, along with an integrated
marketplace where the children can use
their money.
“The experience has been fantastic and
I have learned a lot,” said Dezen, who is
from Atlanta and studied economics and
Spanish at the University of Georgia. “I
didn’t even know where to start, in terms

of finding what customers want, how to
speak to investors and know what they
are looking for, how to pitch a startup
and set up a marketing plan. It has also
made me realize that I want to work in
high-tech and that I want to live in Tel
Aviv for a while.”
Twenty-five-year-old Ron Hagafny, a
graduate from an elite Israeli army tech-
nology unit who recently shuttered an
unsuccessful startup, worked together
with fellow Israeli Omri Gotlieb, a former
IDF combat soldier, to set up a platform
that compiles photos, videos and text
into a virtual reality space that can be
shared with friends. The new startup
already has 50 paying customers and a
working product, Hagafny said.
“The atmosphere has been amazing,”
he said. “When you are among highly
ambitious people, you are led to higher
levels. The networking has been great as
well.”

STARTUP EXPERTS
The participants were mentored by rep-
resentatives of Israel’s startup commu-
nity, including Liat Aaronson, a partner
at Marker LLC Venture Capital; Yifat
Oron, the CEO of LeumiTech, a subsid-
iary of Bank Leumi Le-Israel Ltd.; and
Amir Pinchas, the head of operations and
portfolio at Microsoft Accelerators. They
also met with more than 150 representa-
tives of the high-tech industry in Israel,
while also traveling the country with
excursions to the Dead Sea, Masada and

Jerusalem.
Strong connections
have been formed by the
participants with one
another and with the
mentors of the program,
said Adam Lazovski,
manager of Birthright
Adam Lazovski Excel Ventures.
“For sure, Israel will
play a significant part
in whatever they will do in the next few
years,” he said. “Whether it will be to
seek help from some of the mentors they
met here or in approaching Israeli inves-
tors.”
Industry leaders and heads of Israeli
high-tech companies were also keen to
pitch in to make the program a success.
“There was a 98 percent conversion
rate” of people who responded favorably
when approached by Birthright, Lazovski
said. “A lot of them got help in the early
stages of their company and they see it
as a way to give back. The American par-
ticipants are really amazed at the warmth
and openness to help.”
Of the 10 U.S. participants, three had
never been to Israel before, Lazovski
said.
“Most of them came with the notion
that they want to start a company,” he
said. “But the program also helps them
get in touch with their Jewish identity
and the State of Israel.”
The U.S. participants were briefed in
advance about how direct, even brash,
Israelis could be. And Basha, for one, is
going away with some insightful nuggets
from his dealings with his Israeli coun-
terparts.
“They have a healthy disregard for
rules,” he said with a laugh. “It is very
common for them to say we can do this,”
even when they don’t have a clue how to.
“They are always testing, processing a lot
of things at the same time.”
Excel Ventures is funded by the
Steinhardt Foundation, the Schusterman
Foundation and the Paul Singer
Foundation, with the cooperation of
other groups such as Ernst & Young and
the Rise Community.
Birthright Israel is an organization
that offers free trips to Israel for young
adults of Jewish heritage. It has brought
over half a million participants to Israel
thus far.

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