Traveling Geeks

Jerusalem Venture Partners

Israeli Women in Tech

At Israel’s Marker conference this week, I was pleasantly surprised how many women were in attendance. Some women I spoke to complained that they make up a very small percentage, maybe 10%, but my sense was that it was much higher.

Compared to technology conferences in the states, Israeli women seem to be leading the way. Even if they’re not all CEOs or VCs, they showed up. As for the male/female speaker ratio, its pretty small and probably comparable to the U.S.

I chatted with several women, but not enough to get a sense of what the breakdown was between clerical, large corporate management and entrepreneurs. I did talk to a number of content producers, graphic designers, marketing execs and journalists however and all of them were interesting, driven, well traveled and spoke English fluently. Many have lived abroad.

The other thing I noticed was the strong presence of feminine energy – from clothing, shoes, make-up and bags to their walk, hair styles and smile. It was all there – purses rather than logoed backpacks, vibrantly designed cell phone holders, European barrettes, wild boots and multi-colored glasses.

Below is a fair representation of the female faces of technology in the greater Tel Aviv area. I probably took another 200 or so shots, so you tell me where there is a higher number of women in technology?

Fashion blogger Daria Shualy

Maayan Cohen, New Media Reporter at the Marker

Hagit Katzenelson

Orli Yakuel

Maayan Cohen, New Media Reporter at the Marker

From Old City Inspiration to New Ventures: A day in Jerusalem

The last 24 hours have been somewhat strange for me. There’s been a sizable amount of meshugass on this trip – misfired communications, sardine-like conditions of our “bus” (which was actually a late model Ford van that the Israeli Consulate very graciously replaced today with a proper tour bus… YAY!), and the TG gang consensus that our goals for the trip and the itinerary were a bit off kilter.

Fellow TravelingGeek, Sarah Lacy, wrote a bit about our rebellion on Monday – an act that set into motion quite a few interesting activities and experiences.

As a result I have several half-finished posts sitting in my draft folder that I’ve just not been able to complete. (Confession: I’m a relatively newly minted blogger in terms of style. My writing has always tended to be a bit more in-depth analytical second day story type of stuff, so this whole rapid-fire writing thing is a new challenge).

In any case, that mini-backlog of items is going to have to wait a bit longer because after today’s adventures I’m focused on something deeply important to me.

Faith.

More specifically the way in which faith inspires.

It’s funny to think that on my first trip to Jerusalem in the summer of 1995, I found myself nearly paralyzed at my first approach to the Western Wall.. While I’ve only returned to the spot twice since that time, I’ve had exactly the opposite experience on each return. English to Armenian . Rather than feeling repelled by the energy that comes off of this majestic edifice, it’s as though a tractor beam grabs me, pulling me in.

But I’m getting ahead of myself… the story begins when we began the most enjoyable forced march you can imagine.

Jerusalem's Church of the Holy Sepulchre

It has been more than two decades since I last walked through Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre (black and white shot is of the church in 1885).

A deeply spiritual and moving place, a Greek orthodox woman prayed to my left, a Polish catholic priest led a group to my right and every religious variation in between stood among me. Within its walls, you can either pray or quietly reflect with every other walk of life from around the world and be at peace.

I took a few short video clips while inside which are captured below. Click play.

As I took these earlier today, they were streaming live on Flixwagon.com, a real-time video solution by an Israeli start-up. More on them later.

peta dunia satelit .

if you’re wondering…

…why all the blogs all the sudden, there are two reasons.

1. we got a new bus. THANK YOU ISRAELI GOV’T! we are not actually sitting on top of one another in sweltering heat. (although craig is still sitting in scoble’s lap….we’re not quite sure why*) most of us are just clacking away happily on keyboards.

[* may not be true. may be just inserted to see if valleywag has discovered my blog]

2. we are going to Jerusalem today!

i think that’s pretty much a dream for anyone of muslim, christian or
jewish faith whether they consciously realize it or not. i can’t wait
to see what affect it’ll have on me. in silicon valley, you almost
never hear anyone talking about religion. it really might be the only
taboo subject. it’s such a macho-intellectual culture and i think for
many entrepreneurs and techies admitting a belief in a higher mystical
power is almost a sign of weakness, naivety or even stupidity. (don’t
yell at me, i’m just telling you what i hear)

i’m not sure if i’ve made it a point not to talk about religion myself or i’ve just never been asked. either way it’s fair to say i don’t wear it on my sleeve, wave it like a banner or whatever other cliche you want to use. we’ll see if today changes that. true test: if i BLOG about it.

ethnic profiling also hits home…

yesterday i found the most rad present EVER for my super hip husband geoff. (who it feels like i haven’t seen for MONTHS) it was a black t-shirt with this rad panther jumping from behind hebrew letters that said “black panthers.” the shop keepers refused to let me buy it because i was american. in fact, it was worse than that. they all fled the store and went upstairs and just yelled at me from up there. after making me wait 15 minutes. it was the most passive aggressive ethnocentrism i’ve ever seen. peta dunia satelit WTF? i thought we were allies?

everyone seems to be *aghast* saying things like this “never” happen in super progressive, hip tel aviv. guess there are just jerks everywhere.

religious freedom hits home…

i feel horrendous again today. turns out walking around in the heat for 12 hours then capping off the evening with champagne and immense laughter isn’t a great cure for the flu, or whatever plague this is. ALL i wanted was a bagel this morning. an american christian girl like me wouldn’t have expected that’d be impossible in israel. peta dunia satelit English to Armenian . apparently, at passover time it is. looking back on the time in elementary school i thought it was “awesome” that my jewish friends got to eat matzah with whole new eyes….

T.G.: Bloggers, entrepreneurs, women

On Tuesday, had a chance to talk with a broader range of Israeli women bloggers and tech VCs and entrepreneurs. Some pictures in advance of real words.
Brasov . peta dunia satelit

Garage Geeks, Bloggers, and More

Rambam’s Trauma Care in Peace Time & WAR Time

From chips to healthcare, we leave Zoran in Haifa and drive north to Rambam, one of Israel’s five major hospitals and the only tertiary care center serving the northern third of the country. They take ‘everyone’ in, so an Israeli soldier could be lying next to an Arabic terrorist. IDF soldiers, UN and US Sixth Fleet troops have all passed through these doors. Some never leave.

The center was named after Rabbi Moshe Ben-Maimon “the RAMBAM,” the greatest Jewish physician of ancient times.

A photographer follows us all into a large overly air conditioned room (I think Israelis ‘think’ that yanks need to have rooms at subzero temperatures because its so hard to find a public space in the states that isn’t “iced”…). It turns out that he typically shoots body parts during an operation.

Rambam’s Director of Public Affairs David Ratner talks to our group. We learn a bit about its history before we get the ‘emotional story.’ It was built in 1938 by the British as a government military hospital. They now take in roughly 83,000 annually, and there are 120,000 emergency department visits and 44,000 surgical procedures.

All of this is handled by only 700 physicians; 23% of these doctors are Jewish, Muslum and Christian Arabs. Located only 35 kilometers from the Lebanese border, they have gained international recognition in trauma medicine since they took care of so many wounded during war time. They’re also making significant progress in stem cell and genetic research.

They host a trauma program four or five times a year where doctors from around the world can come and learn ‘best practices’ of what the Rambam medical team learned while under attack.

When missiles started hitting in June 2006, patients were admitted to Rambam from various sources: from deadly missile attacks in the immediate vicinity, from other hospitals unable to handle the injuries and from helicopters who were bringing in wounded from the border. Today, they treat a lot of people from the West Bank. Arabs and Jews. This is not an issue.

The medical center is also located between two navy bases. During times of peace, there is an area that is being used as a parking lot. During war time, it would only take 72 hours for them to turn this lot into a place where they can treat an additional 750 people.

Trauma comes to them in many forms. David reminds us that a bus accident full of injured children is far worse than three soldiers who have been shot.

Rambam is also doing a lot of work cardiac tissue engineering. Rambam and Technicon are both working on combining cardiac stem cells and polymer to generate artificial cardiac contracting sheet.

This center deserves more recognition than it has received worldwide – perhaps not enough people know. The Rambam Healthcare Center an amazing example of co-existence in Israel and how life ‘could be.’