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bloomberg.com 2014 000047.txt

#Arabs Are Missing From Israel's Tech Scene. One Incubator Is Trying to Change That There are no atheists in the foxhole, but in Israel, there are budding entrepreneurs. The country's military has long been credited with helping to fuel the thriving tech industry. Aside from the security expertise that one can pick up while serving in the Israel Defense forces, soldiers, especially those in intelligence units, can also build the networks they need--be it access to potential investors or other aspiring business owners--to get a startup off the ground. However, it's this same successful entrepreneurial ecosystem that has excluded largely the Arab citizens of Israel. Since they're exempt from the mandatory draft for Israeli citizens they're not making those key connections. Israeli Arabs account for about 20 percent of the country's population of about 8 million, but make up only about 2 percent of the high-tech workforce, according to Tsofen, an Arab-Jewish organization that promotes the integration of Israeli Arabs into the technology industry. Arab women are represented even less. here is racism and discrimination but that isn the reason the Israeli Arabs aren trying out entrepreneurship in high tech, said Itzik Frid, managing partner of Takwin Labs, a technology incubator. sking an Arab guy about high-tech entrepreneurship is like asking how to serve in the Israeli military. His friends neighbors and family aren there.""Frid wants to change that by giving startups founded by Israeli Arabs access to money and expertise. Takwin, which means"genesis, "sees the Arabic-speaking students at Israeli universities as both a business opportunity and a way to bring Israeli Arabs into the country new economy. The Haifa, Israel-based technology incubator, which closed a $4. 5 million series A round this week, expects to ink its first deal with a startup next month and has begun talks with a second company this week. Takwin, which is trying raise a total of $20 million, plans to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in each venture. Unlike Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied parts of the West bank Israeli Arabs have equal rights under the law. But they have complained long of discrimination in employment and government services, including the lack of funding for their separate school system. Israeli Arabs have a higher dropout rate, according to government data. Those who do attend university favor professions such as medicine, pharmacy, nursing and teaching, and they have been less present in business schools. The government is trying to improve job prospects of the country's Arab population by promoting higher education and offering scholarships for advanced degrees. Chemi Peres, son of former President Shimon Peres and cofounder of venture capital firm Pitango said Takwin fulfills a vision he shares with the two people who joined him in establishing the Israeli Arab incubator--Labor parliamentarian and former venture capitalist Erel Margalit and Imad Telhami, who started Babcom Centers, a recruiting and training company. he integration of Israeli investors and entrepreneurs, Arab and Jews alike, in the Israeli high-tech industry will boost Israel GDP, growth which could reach 30 billion shekels a year within a decade if we are able to realize the human potential of Arab Israelis as part of Start-up Nation and expand our target markets to the regional, Arab-speaking Internet market, Peres said in an e-mailed statement. Takwin's investments will focus on mobile, Internet and media technologies, where t is easy to accelerate a startup from zero to impressive in a year to a year -and-a-half, said Frid, who worked at the Finance Ministry, AOL and was CEO of mobile game publisher Playscape before taking on the incubator. Arabic-language users are the sixth largest community on the Internet and could move into fourth place as early as next year, said Frid. There are more than 350 million Arabic-speaking mobile users and more than 120 million Internet users in 22 countries according to a Takwin a

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