On Israeli accelerators and some female empowerment
An insight into one of Israel’s leading accelerators from the eyes of a participant, and Female Founder and CEO of a startup company.
By SONYA DAVIDSONTop Israeli tech executives talk(photo credit: Courtesy)
With courage and the willingness to learn from success and failure my company entered an accelerator.One of the unique areas of Israel is the learning, and sharing which goes on in the High Tech Industry in the country. Many of our leaders not only run companies, but take the time out of their busy schedules to come and give back to the high tech Israeli industry.The unique area of an Israeli accelerator is that often these leaders come and provide us insight into their expertise, and freely share their time, and knowledge to enable us to recognize some of the challenges a startup company will face and provide us with tools, skills, and techniques to overcome them.Over a six month period at the Hive, during the three days a week I was required to be in the accelerator, we were awarded with hundreds of hours of mentorship - often with the opportunity to meet the experts after the lectures and receive one on one counseling which relates specifically to our companies. Their coming to our accelerator saved me hundreds of hours of traveling and allowed for information to be provided to us in an intense six month period.We were pushed to validate our product with our customers, and we ended up talking with Shell, Poland Ventures, Kyocera, Ashai-Kasei; Pioneer, ENEL, LG, and Panasonic. Israel’s reputation brought these companies here to talk with us. We were given tools to learn about which market our products would be best placed in. We were pushed to learn what our minimum viable product is, and how to handle the growth of a startup, to name a few.Our accelerator also had one intense week working at Google, Tel Aviv . There we were immersed with experts who came from outside Google and inside Google to provide our companies with the knowledge we needed to move forward.In life we are often helped, and given advice, constructive criticism, and knowledge that make us better people. I am deeply indebted to the hundreds of advisors I met. They freely gave back to Israel’s high tech industry which enabled me and my company, H2 Energy Now, to move forward in bringing our technology to market.We plan on changing the world by enabling 24/7 use of alternative energy through storage. We have assembled a team, built a proof of principal prototype, filed our Intellectual Property, and are presently involved in our products' commercialization. We are about 12 months from market. We have represented Israel on the world stage, and have been recognized by some leading companies in our industry.Sonya Davidson, CEO & Founder, H2 Energy Now, www.h2energynow.comAdvertisementH2 Energy Now is a member of IATI (Israel Advanced Technology Industries).
