"Innovation is not a one-time event and it is certainly not the exclusive preserve of early-stage enterprises. This is an ongoing process of forward thinking, connecting different disciplines, and making brave decisions in a reality of uncertainty," said Adv. Yoav Etzyon, Amit Pollak Matalon (APM) law firm managing partner and co-head of the high-tech department, at the Innovation Conference held by the APM law firm.
Etzyon spoke at the Conference on the role of innovation departments that exist today in almost every company and organization in the economy. "Innovation departments today deal with a range of things. Internal development, collaborations with startups, strategic investments, establishing incubators and complex pilot processes. Critical questions arise around all of these processes from the legal and regulatory fields and from the worlds of patents and intellectual property. These are crucial questions whose answers will determine whether innovation will become a business value and whether it will be innovation that works and not innovation for the sake of innovation."
The Conference, which was chaired by Adv. Stephen Rozen, partner and head of International Relationships and the Israel Innovation Authority (IIA) practice at APM, was also attended by innovation managers from major organizations in the Israeli economy, including Pazit Algoaz, head of innovations at the Phoenix Finance Group; Dr. Dana Bar-On, head of global academic collaborations at Teva Global R&D; Netta Benari, VP Business Development and Innovation, Bazan Group; and Natan Feldman, VP Marketing and Innovation at the Haifa Group.
In a panel moderated by Adv. Rozen, the four spoke about the collaborations they are undertaking with academic institutions and startups in order to constantly adopt and integrate new technologies, and about the speed with which the AI revolution is advancing, which is completely changing the world as we know it. Rozen noted, "I often tell non-Israeli organizations considering entry into the Israeli tech ecosystem that their competitors are already here, actively seeking Israeli technology. The question they need to ask themselves is simple: Do they want to be left behind?"
Among the speakers at the Conference were Barak Ben-Eliezer, co-founder and managing partner at the Deep Insight Fund and the former head of the Talpiot Software Program in the IDF, who told APM Grants CEO Assaf Mendelson that, "There is a global movement towards deep tech. Countries like Brazil, Switzerland and Bahrain have decided to make major investments in the field. It seems that the next thing we are going to do will be to combine deep tech with deep AI." According to him, the ones who should determine the direction in technological developments are the entrepreneurs, not the investors. "Money must not dictate the direction," he said. Ben-Eliezer also spoke about the advantages of Israeli high-tech. "Constraints create creativity and crises create resilience," he said.
A keynote speaker at the conference was Israel Innovation Authority CEO Dror Bin, who addressed the issue of whether Israeli high-tech will put its foot down hard on the gas the day after the war. "Anyone who is a veteran of the high-tech industry knows that in all recent decades there have been a host of crises and the only common denominator of all of them was that after every such crisis, Israeli high-tech has always accelerated and demonstrated rapid and strong growth," he said.
He added that there are three parameters that indicate that Israeli high-tech is heading for a boom period. The first is the decline in geopolitical risks. "When an external investor looks at Israel today, he undoubtedly sees much lower geopolitical risks when it comes to Iran, Hezbollah, Syria, Hamas, etc. This could be a trigger for an increase in foreign investment. In addition, there was a powerful technological performance here during the war. Foreign investors were amazed by the technologies that were used here on the battlefield, and they understood the power of Israeli technology, and they want a piece of it. The third factor is that we are currently seeing very lively entrepreneurial activity in the tech ecosystem. Many people were drawn out of their comfort zone during the war, whether it was for reserve duty or for volunteer activities. They saw needs that they had not seen before, and this has led to a lot of entrepreneurial activity. We hope that this will become a baby boom of startups." Dror Bin’s message, that "Israeli tech delivers, no matter what" hits home and exemplifies the resilience of the Israeli economy in general, and the tech sector in particular.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on December 9, 2025.
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd., 2025.