Innovation

A few days a go CNN ran an article about Israel's thriving start up economy. Interestingly enough Israel has more companies listed on the NASDAQ than Europe, Japan, Korea, India and China combined. They claim that the military is the cause. It teaches young people to grow up quickly, teaches them about teamwork and how to deal with inadequate resources in an imperfect (at most 80%) world. Last night I got to see how some of this innovation starts in school.

My nephew invited me to come to one of their "young innovators" meetings. This is a project run by a non profit group called "Made in Israel". They get kids from all over the country to form "startups". They register them and open them a bank account in their local database. They shepherd the kids through product identification, definition, finding investment, marketing, production and sales. Some of the profit from their venture gets plowed back into the system, the rest goes back to the kids. Last night was the "innovation" meeting, where they were to identify potential products.

I get there at 7pm sharp, as instructed. Thankfully my brother-in-law as there and so we could chat while we waited more parents and their kids to show up. They came late, of course. We were divided into three groups. Unfortunately we were unlucky enough to placed next a "sporty" mother and her hyper son. She basically decided she would dominate all the conversation and had trouble getting past her obsession for an instant tea making device - which seems to have been invented with the introduction of the tea bag. It was most interesting - parents became almost militant in defending their kids (and their table's) ideas. There were some good ideas, from devices to tell whether you have let your baby cook in the closed car by mistake, to hamster-dynamo driven garden lights. I think the kids should have been encouraged to think more; still they get to choose the final idea they will productize.

All in all it's a great idea and a worthy investment of time. The guys running the show are all business people who do it in their free time. Still, brother-in-law and I couldn't help spending most of the time thinking of innovative ways to get rid of the tea-bag lady at our table.