How Israel Turns Its Soldiers Into Entrepreneurs

one of the basic truths of the human condition is that people love to float and there's no better place to float than here at the Dead Sea in Israel we're without any effort at all large mammals can achieve buoyancy there's some ritual involved to doing this place the right way you need to fall into some mud lather up and then relax with a good read sorry to do that to your white shirt Jack you handsome devil Israel has many wonderful sides and this is one of its finest Arabs Jews tourists and TV hosts all come here and can't help but float together for a while and lack its unfettered or at least less fettered joy it would be nice if this story could remain so soon but it can't to come to Israel is to witness the fierce tensions that loom over this country firsthand these spy balloons floating by highways it's walled off and fenced in Arab City and tourist spots turn quiet due to the stabbings and random acts of violence that have become so prevalent over the past two years on this episode of hello world I'll dig into how the constant threat of war gave birth to the Israeli technology industry and how is really evolved into a technology giant one thousands upon thousands of cutting-edge startups my journey will find me in Jerusalem controlling an iPad with my eyes in Tel Aviv using this little guy to discover what's really in my food Isis look some Star Trek and in Nazareth I'll meet with a man that wants to make sure no one gets left behind in israel's race to animate Silicon Valley may be home to some of the biggest tech giants in the world but it's being challenged like never before crazy tech geniuses have popped up all over the planet making things that will blow your mind my name is Ashley Vance I'm an author and journalist and I'm on a quest to find the most innovative tech creations and meet the beautiful freaks behind them hello world the Israeli military dominates much of this country's culture in 18 years of age men and women head off for two to three years of required service kids who would be trying to locate the best kegger or sleeping through class in the United States find themselves here dealing with the most intense of situations these young soldiers in the Israeli Defense Forces or IDF also learn to use some of the most advanced military technology around to see how the IDF has given Israel a unique tech edge I decided to check it out up close to see the Iron Dome I've traveled to Ashkelon the coastal city just south of Tel Aviv that nudges up against the Gaza Strip what you were seeing here right now is the launcher which launcher has 20 missiles on it you can see the red light flashing which means it's armed and ready here one of the dozen or so Iron Dome batteries sits at the ready to intercept missiles and provide Israel with the type of shield from aerial attacks the orange on commander Lieutenant Colonel LaRon Cohen oversees its operation is this as close as we get or do we get this as close as we got it took just three years and about 200 million dollars to develop this defense system it relies on a radar that instantly detects when a missile has been fired algorithms quickly try to determine what type of projectile is in the air and whether it's heading for a populated or strategic area if so Iron Dome launches a missile of its own it said that Iron Dome has taken down more than 1,000 missiles since it turned on in 2011 with a 90% success rate some people question the accuracy of these figures what's clear though is that the algorithms capable of directing projectiles while performing a cost-benefit analysis on human life are among the most advanced in the world this network of launchers is highly mobile and constantly on the move this site like many is temporary everything you see here can be moved out in a matter of hours and we move around a lot to make sure nobody knows where we are all the time unless you live here it's difficult to imagine just how much this technology has transformed the lives of ordinary Israelis I can tell you from my own personal experience sitting in my own house and seeing rockets fired towards my house and operating this is an incredible system and succeeding with the Iron Dome when you see your house that you're protecting and your family and your friends and your soldiers it's a sense of greater sense of pride for many Palestinians Iron Dome means something else it's just the most visible part of an expansive Israeli security apparatus that includes drones checkpoints and espionage technology those tools have been put to immediate use in the West Bank Gaza and throughout Israel terrorist bombings have declined missiles have met their match but lower tech forms of protest like stabbings are now on the rise what's been remarkable is the speed at which young Israelis take these types of high-tech tools and then privatize them once they leave the army be at peace time or war Israeli innovations pop up throughout the world coming up next on hello world we'll check out an IDF inspired startup it wants to send laboratories to space why do people want to do experiments in space every day our life is dominated by this lens of gravity we remove that lens of gravity and we learn something forget dull strip malls and office parts startups of Tel Aviv come to life here in the city's vibrant neighborhoods they feed off the city's energy and the employees have a chance to escape their cubicles and live I came here to meet one of the people that shaped the Israeli startup lifestyle slow-mo Kramer served in the IDF almost 25 years ago and his first company checkpoint invented the freakin firewall we always had to start the Bucks we always talked about stuff that there we will do afterwards and it was always around startups like a lot of israel's tech elite slowmo got his start with unit 8200 a top branch of the IDF group 8200 right is this is this famous part of the IDF that I guess equivalent to NSA in the United States was like the bedrock of everything else that have done afterwards was it 22:23 old I was a head of the unit you know 20 people extinct very high responsibilities you know I was making decisions in millions of dollars and the idea functions sort of like a never-ending networking event the first question at a cocktail party is what unit you served in for members of unit 8200 these ties have led to Israel dominating for security software and hardware what makes Israel so well-suited to two startups and technology Israelis itself is a start-up Tel Aviv you know there was a hundred years ago there was nothing and everybody kind of goes up with the feeling that it was this zone is that came in and created something out of nothing which is the concept essentially of we're all startups there's always a infusion of new columns form the IDF and the infusion of talent you've got the recipe for a successful startup nation yeah slow-mo has invested in dozens of Israeli companies to see the extreme end of what the IDF can inspire have gone to Hertz alia the small beach town and tech hub that brushes right up against Tel Aviv it's here that a company called space Pharma has set out to make some interstellar drugs if humanity would like to move out of earth they must learn the microgravity conditions you know just survive on the way to Mars and to other places Florida CEO Yossi Amin used to head up the IDF satellite program then he and his comrades hit on a big possibly profitable idea they assembled some space software and science experts and set to work trying to make life easier on astronauts we got the minimun the astronaut is not a scientist he need to survive we need to be get into training to sleep he cannot do too much science space Pharma has built a shoebox size laboratory that will hitch rides into orbit on rockets from companies like SpaceX the goal is to shrink down state-of-the-art scientific equipment and automate how it runs experiments this would allow a great deal more science to take place on the International Space Station so we're gonna go in the lab okay thank you for the booties you're very welcome so it's a pretty small bio lab but the equipment's big and this you can't bring to space so the whole idea of what we're trying to do what we're really going to look at is how we take this equipment and bring it down to the small scale the typical laboratory has refrigerator size machines microscopes pipettes and a host of liquids and chemicals it's a very manual messy process that's tough enough to pull off here on earth we just looked at all that large equipment this is what we fitted in research done on the ISS has already led to the development of new drugs and insights about organisms molecules floating about freely and solutions can behave more naturally than when they're smeared flat on a petri dish every day our life is dominated by this lens of gravity what goes up must come down we remove that lens of gravity and we learn something new space Pharma wants to use its machines to let companies and researchers conduct dozens of different kinds of experiments and to see what space can teach us to pull myself out of the clouds and learn more about Israel startup culture I went for a walk on the beach back in Tel Aviv with another local tech legend thank you very much Thanks armed with a law degree and an MBA a D so fair tani had led a number of young companies and helped spur on israel's technology economy now she runs facebook's israel operations today we have something like 5,300 startups in israel by the way it's there's no one country in the world that has that amount of startups except the u.s. yeah it's 1,400 new startups in 2015 1,400 new status women must serve alongside men in the military here adhi once hoped to fly jets but because of the gender restrictions at the time she ended up evaluating who could become a pilot she sees the time in the Air Force as crucial to her career what's the uniqueness of the female experience in Israel because of the military service it must have some long-term effects yeah I absolutely think it as women in Israel and probably start their career life with more confidence with feeling that they also can but are we done in Israel in terms of women taking part no we're not and I think that in Israel we'll probably because of the military because of startup nation because of the culture I think that we'll probably closer to achieve that but we are definitely staying out there after our chat the D insisted that I go revel in Tel Aviv's famous nightlife and I'd never be one to turn down such sound advice tel-aviv stands out is one of the great surprises of my travels it's a city teeming with laughter music and an energetic hum the action stretches across dozens of colorful neighborhoods with a Mediterranean feel people head out late here often starting dinner at 9:00 p.m. the bartender's look for any excuse to do shots with their patrons and their patrons release this patron look for any excuse to oblige the beach the old city the boardwalk joy rides this is a wondrous place the feels at times as if it exists within its own bubble separate from the rest of the country next up I travel to Jerusalem and visit a start-up that puts a new twist on peering into the future it's a little disorienting at first to try to play a video game just by moving your head this is the port district of Tel Aviv it's a popular shopping area and the perfect place to meet up with Dror Sharona a former member of the air force and now the founder of consumer physics the company raised 2.7 million dollars via a huge Kickstarter campaign so that it could produce a device called the saya which may soon change the way we shop for groceries when you think about it how do you make your selection today grab it and feel that out further it is so it's good yeah you know you might want to have some scientific back into what you're doing right the saya replaces your grandmother's squeeze test sorry grandma to tell you the best cucumber or tomato to pick in an instant it displays the food's calorie fat and sugar content it's the quickest way to finding the perfect potato that's cool it's really and you can actually tell yourself everybody's like some Star Trek the spectrometer usually looks like this it's a big ol hunk of scientific gear that can peer into things and determine their properties rather incredibly Bisaya shrinks much of the same technology down onto a chip it zaps an object with near-infrared light stirs up its molecules and tells a story about the object as people go around zapping things with the Scio the objects get put into a database this then becomes a giant log of all the materials in our world that sounds all well and good but how would the CEO fare against one of mankind's most mysterious creations this is the cheese test good ol American Velveeta labels the labels to 90 here's three others it's almost flat out that's the fat percentage on the label 23 in your 25 the sales value should go well beyond kumquats and industrialized cheese it can help farmers decide when to harvest their crops it can detect watered-down fuel at Shady gas stations and it can tell real medicine for fake pills when you think of health care actually it's not about what you're buying is actually tracking your well-being over time and instead of sending stuff to the lab you'll actually be able to measure it on yourself drawer even sees a future for this device in your bathroom you can measure teeth you can measure saliva can measure hair you can measure urine the Badgers the other thing so I mean there's there's a ton of stuff and people are coming at the days and they use it for technical trials so I'm gonna take my smart phone into the toilet well it'll be probably inside your toilet away all right yeah that makes sense from the Cosmopolitan coast I climbed the winding mountain road to Jerusalem tel-aviv maybe the beating heart of the Israeli tech world but most Jews consider Jerusalem to be the country's sole naturally you know what they say about the soul if you think about it the most basic thing of human communication is is I conduct by the device seeing you you get a whole other world of interaction the window to the soul window exactly the window to the soul or the window to the brain look around look to the right look to the left you see Kempinski is the co-founder and CEO of youmove based here in jerusalem the company has developed a way to replace eye tracking gear that usually cost tens of thousands of dollars with algorithms that can run on an iPad or smartphone it's a little disorienting at first to try to play a video game just by moving your head so you see head movement I movement iris movement blinks and then and then analysis of that Kempinski hopes the technology will give us new rapid insights into conditions like concussions so this is like when they shot in the white light that you have to follow I'm using doctors doing that exactly and then based on the score we can tell if I have a confession that I don't you don't have them I don't have a concussion Kempinski thinks that these hard science applications with real-world uses distinguish Israel's tech scene especially for Jerusalem startups people are looking for you know real deep tech can't say I'm you know making an app for taking pictures of food you have to give up you know a real explanation to your Jewish grandmother about what what is that for this is the Damascus Gate it's not that far at all from where we were earlier today there's a sniper up in the window who's guarding against a lot of the recent stabbings that have been going on Jerusalem's trying to turn into a technology city and this is the reality of how these businesses have to come to life in this type of environment the moment you step into Jerusalem it's clear that the city carries with it the weight of thousands of years of history everyone in the Middle East and by extension the world has their eyes fixed here unalaq's a mosque on the Wailing Wall on the spot where it's believed Jesus was crucified this is a small spot of land with outsized global importance under heavy guard carved into minut slices and fortified with walls those barriers went up to curb violence based on ancient disputes seen another way they've become blockades that hold back modern opportunity I traveled north from Jerusalem to Nazareth the largest Arab Enclave in Israel the place with a laid-back vibe and a very specific flavor we can see a 10 or 15 places just for Shalimar so because of that I call it the shawarma value our prepare you have the Silicon Valley we have the shawarma well yeah we are at the middle of the shore Mullen that's funny sweetheart he open Israel's first Arab tech accelerator and he knows everyone in town even ha wah what cool Arabs do not have to serve in the military and lack the tech connection supplied by the IDF Fadi is set to work trying to fix this and to help Arab engineers benefit from Israel's tech boom in a controversial move he's linking them up with the tech moguls who have come out of the IDF's unit 8200 the spooky security and espionage bugs anyone is going out with a two hundred best thing is thinking about this to make you stock up they to undergraduates have a special NGO that helped them at our community it's not so popular to have suffer because the - you know industry it's very risky body is a rebel he was the only Arab in his class at the Technion Israel's elite Technical University inside of this building he shepherded dozens of like-minded engineers they're building software consumer services and hardware in an effort to make sure that the Arab speaking world has the latest and great technology I think if we can be part of the ecosystem in Tel Aviv and we'll be part of the startup nation we can raise the standard of life of our community here because Israel is known as this startup nation but it's left out a big chunk of people so exactly there's two communities the arabs and the jewish orthodox the government now is putting some money to find the ways how to engage them with a sort of nation here because they believe that if we are not part of that the startup nation will be somehow slowed here and it cannot continue to be the second place after the Silicon Valley a handful of his companies have already taken off and made headway and billion dollar industries but it's proven tough for them to find investment dollars there's a clear bias against Arab companies and many of their backers have opted to remain anonymous where to funnel their investments through offshore accounts but Fadi remains optimistic they hope in the coming years maybe we have big success stories let's say the first unicorn startup from the olive community may be here in Israel this may began attract more and more interpreters to be part of that and like other businessmen to be part of this industry and that hopeful note my time in Israel came to an end it's understandable that tourists have made fewer visits here in recent months that the markets have grown quieter and the mood in the streets more tense this place can seem daunting from afar to visit Israel though is to experience the extraordinary so many parts of our nature joy conflict conformity and imagination swirl around together in confounding and inspiring ways I'm not sure that anyone will really ever make sense of all this but it's spectacular to witness and feel even if just for a short while as for my next stop well that would be Iceland home of alien landscapes an astonishing amount of fish and space war boys you

Channel: Bloomberg Originals

Views: 1,048,074

Keywords: Bloomberg, Israel, National Security Agency, NSA, Israel Defense Forces, idf, cyber attack, hello world, tech, innovation, israel startup, israel tech, israel technology, israel innovation, israel company, iron dome, israel defense forces training, israel documentary, documentary, technology, business, israeli entrepreneurs, iron dome explained, iron dome defense system, doc, mini doc, mini documentary, military, ashlee vance, bloomberg quicktake, quicktake, news, world news

Id: X7n11XAYp7k

Length: 27min 57sec (1677 seconds)

Published: Thu May 26 2016