JNS
With the help of collaborating organizations and the Israel Innovation Authority, the Margalit Startup City Galil of Kiryat Shmona spawned the hub to spur development.
Sunday began in Israel with air-raid sirens, sending hundreds of thousands of Israelis to bomb shelters and fortified rooms, after a ground-to-ground missile was launched at the center of the country by the Houthis in Yemen.
But the day ended in the north with the inauguration of a Climate Tech Innovation Center at Kibbutz Machanayim, which was attended by 100 people and projected resilience and optimism.
The new Center, located about 17 miles from the border with Lebanon, is a collaboration between the Israel Innovation Authority, Margalit Startup City, the JVP Foundation, the MIGAL Galilee Research Institute and JNF-USA.
The Center is an adjunct to the Margalit Startup City Galil that was opened three years ago in Kiryat Shmona by serial tech investor Erel Margalit, founder and chairman of JVP and Margalit Startup City, as a base for food and agro-tech startups.
Kiryat Shmona is one of the northern cities whose residents were evacuated in October. Over the past 11 months, it has been the target of hundreds of missile attacks and remains largely deserted.
Margalit told JNS that despite the closure of the physical space in Kiryat Shmona, he and other tech leaders in the north decided, with assistance from JNF-USA and JVP, to do whatever possible to keep the tech community together, both virtually and physically.
“We recognized that if the communities meet, they’ll stay together and there’s a much better chance that they’ll come back if they’re part of a community,” he emphasized.
More than 100 startups were evacuated in the 20-mile area between Kiryat Shmona and Rosh Pina, Margalit noted. Until now, many of the entrepreneurs have been meeting online, in the Galilee and in other parts of Israel outside the immediate war zone. A few months ago, they discovered the light industrial zone of Kibbutz Machanayim, which includes a popular café that became a place for the innovators to meet.
With the help of the collaborating organizations and the Israel Innovation Authority, the Margalit Startup City Galil of Kiryat Shmona spawned the new Climate Tech Innovation Center that will become a hub to encourage development of the north.
“It’s an investment for five years,” Margalit told JNS. "This is in addition to the food and agro-tech initiatives that have already been developed in the Kiryat Shmona region. For the next five years, we’re saying this is where you need to come and create climate tech companies.”
Margalit said that 15,000 people have returned to communities in the area in the past few weeks. He views the investment in the new Center as “the first pole in getting things back in place.”
In his address at the opening, Margalit said: “Today we are launching another home for entrepreneurs who want to stay here—a home for our community of entrepreneurial women who continue to operate from the Galilee; a home for small businesses; and a home for the children of the Galilee who declared to us that studying food tech gives them a sense of home and belonging. The collaborations at the core of the center are the infrastructure for strengthening the ecosystem, for its restoration after the war, and for its growth for decades to come. Together with the entrepreneurs, our Center will be a bridge for the reconstruction of the northern economy, for its strengthening and continued growth in the years to come.”
A number of Galilee-based startups presented their projects at the opening. Among them was Wonder Veggies, which developed patented technology for naturally enriching fruit and vegetables with probiotics. Ripe Guard of Kiryat Shmona showcased its shelf-life prediction system for fruit and vegetables that enables businesses to reduce waste, increase profits and provide better quality produce.
Oded Shamir, co-founder of BING Klima, told JNS that his company combines commercial rooftop greening with solar-power generation. Shamir and his startup are based in Kibbutz Hagoshrim, less than a mile from the Lebanese border. His grandparents, who fled Nazi Germany, were among the founders of the kibbutz, one of the 14 kibbutzim in the Upper Gaillee evacuated in October.
Shamir’s startup proudly displays the same name and logo as his family’s famous toy factory that was founded in Nuremberg in 1863 and became one of the largest in the world.
“My grandparents came to the north in 1935. We were born here and we’re not going anywhere,” Shamir told JNS. “We will build new factories and build companies back up.”
As a key player that has invested millions of dollars over the past two decades in the Galilee as part of the Go North strategic plan to revitalize the area, JNF-USA is a natural partner for the tech development center.
Deb Zaluda, a JNF-USA national board member, told JNS, “We're working with all kinds of players in the north to make it better and even more attractive than it was before. There are lots of dreamers out there and a lot of them are here today. And they're thinking about the future; they're not just thinking about the here and now.”
JNF-USA CEO Russell Robinson told the crowd, “The lives of the residents of the north have become unbearably difficult, but the spirit of innovation and desire to make the world a better place stand firm. We stand by your side today with the launch of the Innovation Center as we have done in the past decades and show the world that even when the forces of darkness seek to extinguish our light, the people of Israel continue to lead with hope and with resilience.”
In separate remarks to JNS, Robinson emphasized that since Oct.7, “years of JNF-USA work to bring 300,000 people to the north have been pushed two steps back and we need to move 20 steps forward. Now we understand that for the future we need to run to move forward, not just take one step at a time. We need to make this area the envy of all Israel. Construction is still going on just outside Kiryat Shmona at the Galilee Culinary Institute. That’s going to be world class.”
JNF-USA is currently developing 580 new housing sites in the north, Robinson said. “That means we’re taking a leap of faith of people buying homes. I believe everything we’re doing is saying to people, ‘Now is our moment.’ Many people say wouldn’t it have been great to be around in 1948. This is our 1948, raise the flag and be a halutz (pioneer) of the 21 st century. American Jews want to be involved."
He revealed that the fastest-growing segment of new JNF-USA donors is the 22-40-year-olds.
“That’s young people saying, 'Am yisrael chai' [the people of Israel live on] and joining,” he concluded.
