The Israel Conference™: Generating Business and Inspiring Creativity by Featuring Amazing Technologies and Market Leaders.

Thursday May 27, 2010, 9:00 am EDT

The Israel Conference 2010

On June 3, 2010 a unique all-day business conference will take place in Los Angeles. The Israel Conference™ incorporates targeted panel sessions and special technology and product presentations to showcase Israeli-facing companies. The Israel Conference™ covers a broad spectrum of companies including those founded in Israel, those who have R&D in Israel, those that do business in Israel, and those who invest in Israeli companies. The companies represent many sectors ranging from solar technology to digital delivery to disruptive mobile technology, to branded consumer products. Participating companies include multi-national industry giants such as Marvell, Google, Microsoft, Qualcomm, SanDisk, and Delta Galil as well as innovative companies such as RayV, WinBuyer, TuneWiki, Amimon, Yes to Carrots, and Dorot.

According to The Israel Conference™ co-founders, Sharona Justman, Managing Director of STEP Strategy Advisors and Yossi Vardi, the Israeli “Godfather of high-tech” who brought instant messaging to the world scene, the first step in creating strong business ties is creating a personal connection. “The Israel Conference™ is a meeting place to introduce the people who are the driving force of market-making companies and their stories of development and growth. This conference is a forum to further ideas that bring innovation to an industry while facilitating the business dialogue between U.S. and Israeli companies,” says Justman.

The common denominator for all the participating companies is innovation and ingenuity. Many of these companies are changing the rules of their industry by experimenting with new business models and integrated technologies to bring cutting edge solutions in media, solar, and healthcare.

Israel is one of the world’s leading centers for the development of innovative medical devices. The country has the highest proportion of any country of new patents in this sector per head of the population. There are nearly 300 companies in this field in Israel. About half of the country’s Life Sciences sector encompasses a diverse range of medical disciplines including therapeutics, diagnostics, implants, disposables, and medical equipment.

The Israel Conference™ will have a panel on Medical Wonders including Avi Yaron from Visionsense as well as Martin Gerstel, Chairman of the Board of Compugen, a leading drug and diagnostic product candidate discovery company

Visionsense is a great example of an inspiring story behind a market changing technology. In 1993, Avi Yaron, an officer in the Israeli intelligence forces, a talented electrical engineer and entrepreneur for Eldat Communications, and a founder of MotoTech, a company that created advanced ignition systems for motorcycles, was hospitalized after a motorcycle accident. The doctors ordered an MRI to rule out brain injuries from the crash and discovered that although Avi had survived the motorcycle accident without brain damage, Avi had a brain tumor. After undergoing four surgeries in New York, Germany, and Israel over a period of four years, Avi saw an un-met need in surgery. Avi then developed the minimal invasive surgical solution that has become the company Visionsense that is known for miniature sensors that offer natural stereoscopic vision for minimally invasive surgery. Surgeons can use an endoscope with a miniature camera that provides a 3-Dimensional view to operate on patients in a minimally invasive way.

As illustrated by Visionsense, Israel’s strength in this sector stems from its inter-disciplinary capabilities, which bring together medicine, clinical expertise, materials science, electronics, software expertise and engineering know-how. In recent years, Israel’s medical device sector has attracted increasing amounts of foreign investment through VC funds, IPOs, high-wealth individuals, and direct investments from major US and international companies like Johnson & Johnson, Boston Scientific, Medtronic and Guidant. The medical devices sector in Israel is dominated by young start-up and early stage companies, many with fewer than 20 employees. About 50% of the companies in this sector were established in the past decade.

The Israel Conference™ features a panel on Disruptive Mobile that features Marvell Technology’s co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer Weili Dai who has built a multi-billion dollar company and has 25% of their workforce in Israel. Joining the discussion is NTT DoCoMo USA President and CEO Masaaki Maeda as well as Qualcomm’s Noam Ziv and BlackBerry Partners Fund Partner Marc Faucher. Levi Shapiro of TMT will provide insight into cutting-edge mobile trends. TuneWiki will demonstrate their award-winning social music player for mobile phones.

In total, over 50 companies with a presence in Israel will present across panels on Disruptive Mobile, Medical Wonders, Solar Clean Tech, Powerful Brands, Advertising around the Globe, and Digital Delivery, each enhanced with rapid company presentations throughout the day at The Israel Conference™ to offer views into companies such as Kryon Systems new way to use software and applications with the use of the next generation of help and execution tools and WorldMate that changes the way people make their traveling plans.

This year’s special speaker lineup includes leaders of industry giants – SanDisk Chairman Eli Harari, Oracle President Safra Catz, Google Israel Head of R&D Center Yossi Matias, Microsoft Israel Head of R&D Moshe Lichtman, and Answers.com Chairman Bob Rosenschein.

On June 3, 2010, hundreds of CEOs, investors, entrepreneurs, and companies ranging from start-up to industry heavyweights will all be at The Israel Conference™ held at the Luxe Hotel in Los Angeles for the full day.

“For further information, contact The Israel Conference™ at 310-445-5388 or email Paula@TheIsraelConference.org or visit www.TheIsraelConference.org.

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Contact:
Olmstead Williams Communications for The Israel Conference
Tracy Williams, 310-479-7055
Tracy@OlmsteadWilliams.com