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Mr. Prime Minister, Distinguished Guests, Hello.
I am Eyal Miller, Vice President of Business Development at Google Israel
and with me is Amir Shvat, Director of Developer Relations and my partner in this project.
We will manage and run the Activity at the Tel Aviv campus.
The Tel Aviv campus which Google is launching today is the center for the developer community,
for startups and for entrepreneurs in Israel.
The campus is situated right where we are now.
The space spans over 1500 meters, over an entire floor in the Electra Towers in Tel Aviv.
In the upcoming days, we will begin our work here
with thousands of developers and entrepreneurs from around the country.
Behind This end-result, are almost two whole years of hard work, alongside many partners.
Google is known for its involvement with the local startup community,
and the thought all along has always been how to take this involvement
a step further and empower the industry the endeavors.
Amir will take you on a tour to get better acquainted with all that this program has to offer.
Well, last year we met up with all the different entities in the Israeli high-tech market.
We met with venture capitalists, we met with angels,
we met with hundreds of startups and really analyzed what they need
and what Google can contribute to them.
The first necessity that came up again and again is the need for a location, a place to gather.
We found that developers and entrepreneurs have a great desire to share and also learn,
but they lack a high-quality venue, that also large and free of charge.
Therefore, we have allocated two areas:
one that can accommodate over 40 people, which I will show you later on,
and one which you are sitting right now, that can accommodate up to 150 people.
Each developer and entrepreneur can go to our website,
fill out a simple form and hold an event here.
Next week, we will already be holding events here, with "Startup Seeds"
that represent outstanding children across the country,
the "ZELL" organization which is also holding an event here and "Junction",
that is organizing a "pare-up" event, connecting entrepreneurs and developers.
We urge you to visit our campustelaviv.com website,
see the events taking place, participate in them and even create your own.
We will hold events on issues of technology, of entrepreneurship
and marketing issues
and we will also promote Open Source issues, which we believe in strongly in the Israeli market.
The second necessity that came up was the need to cope with different user interfaces.
I'm not sure if you are aware that most of the mobile phones you have in your pockets,
are more powerful than the computer that first launched a shuttle into space,
which means that consumption data variables today are changing.
People go online using their personal computer,
but also using their tablets and phones.
Developers and entrepreneurs have to deal with the ability
to truly provide a comfortable user interface on each of these platforms.
For that reason, we have set up a device lab and bought the most popular devices on all platforms,
which are what developers essentially told us they wanted to test their products on.
We invite developers and entrepreneurs to come to us and instead of buying expensive devices
or compromising on their product quality -- use our Google lab.
We will update it all the time, since as you know,
hardware manufacturers issue new devices to the market every three months.
So we will keep on adding new devices constantly.
I invite Eyal back to cover the third, important part of the in-depth work involving startups.
So we talked about needs.
Over the past two years, in which we have met anyone and everyone in this industry,
another need surfaced from the startup accelerators
The accelerators and incubators have a very important role
in the development of a startup company,
from the formation of an idea, of a group with an idea,
up to the incorporation of a company with a product.
They help by supplying close guidance, by giving expert accompaniment
and sometimes also by helping with the financial funding.
We tried to think together how can Google help their startups.
So today, together with our partners, we are launching a program called "Launch Pad".
This unique program is like no other in the world
and is tailor-made specifically to the local industry's needs.
The program will entail a summarized two week gathering for our partner's startups, here on campus.
The two weeks will include intensive workshops dealing with the critical issues
that the accelerators and incubators asked us to address,
since they can contain some knowledge gaps.
Issues like technology, open source, design, user interface, marketing and business development,
all passed on by Google employees and experts on its behalf.
This is the right time to talk about our launch partners:
Our launch partners have demonstrated years of work and achievements
with different startups and they represent a wide range of agencies:
The "Tel Aviv Angel Group" led by Yaron Karni represent a group of angels
looking to expand their investments in Israel.
"Upwest Labs" led by Gil Ben-Artzi
and "IDC elevators" led by Tom Bronfeld and Uri Glazer are accelerator leaders.
"The Junction" led by Eden Shochat are partners at "Genesis Partners",
and represent a "Genesis" entrepreneurship center, which is a venture capital.
"ZELL" are of the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya,
under the management of Liat Aaronson, and have been helping companies
for the past 12 years to launch startup companies.
And "Middle East Education Through Technology"
which are running an excellence program with MIT in the United States,
aim to empower the next generation of Israeli and Palestinian leaders
via technological education at a very high level
and by encouraging the establishment of joint companies and businesses.
With these partners and other partnerships we will continue to build,
we will be working very closely with over 100 Startups in the upcoming year.
To summarize, the Tel Aviv campus is a center for technological initiatives established by Google.
The three elements we have addressed here combine the most significant issues
we have heard from the developer and entrepreneur community,
and what Google can give:
A center and platform for startups and developers,
a meeting place for developers and entrepreneurs,
and a place for promoting open source in Israel;
Providing free access to end devices, Google's product experts,
developers and experts in and out of Google;
Granting Support and guidance for Startups at the beginning of their career.
We have established the Tel Aviv campus as a meeting place -
a space of cross-fertilization.
Home for the entire sector that has repeatedly put Israel on the map,
with ground breaking innovation.
We hope that developments and excellent partnerships will be formed in this house,
which we will resound around the world.
Thank you very much.