Emerging Enterprises Footprint Overseas

By: Tomas Miranda, HTIA Board Member

In an effort to stimulate trade and relations between Israel and the emerging Latino demographic in the US various Hispanic chambers of commerce were invited to attend this special event hosted by the American Jewish Congress.

I attended this event in hopes of generating ideas, contacts and links that could benefit and shape the development and growth of the technology incubator that the Hispanic Technology Institute of Austin (HTIA) has recently launched.

During this trip, the delegation connected with various economic and cultural establishments in Israel which aimed at up selling the Human capital component of Israel including Technology Incubators such as BIRD Foundation, RAD BioMed Incubator and RAD Data who are responsible for facilitating some of the most impressive start-up buyouts. Additionally we toured the Government offices such as, Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labor, Investment Promotion Center. Others in the public policy and government include MK Isaac Herzog, Minister of Welfare and Social Services, Minister of the Diaspora and Dan Diker (Director of the Institute for Contemporary Affairs and Foreign Policy at Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.

In addition to touring top companies in Israel, such as Ormat we also visited several top holy and visitor sites such as the Kotel (western wall), Via dolorosa, Sea of Galilee, Masada, Dead Sea, Old City of Jerusalem, Church of the Seplecture, Church of Nazarene, Yad Vashem (Holocaust Museum) and much more. The trip was quite amazing and many economic and cultural take aways came out of this event.