LOS ANGELES (JTA) — American and Israeli high-tech executives and venture capitalists will attend a conference in Los Angeles designed to match up Israeli inventiveness with U.S. marketing skills.
The theme of The Israel Conference‘s all-day meeting June 4 is “Cool Business from the Shores of the Mediterranean to the Shores of the Pacific: Expanding Opportunities between Israel and California.”
“There are tremendous synergies in the technology communities of Israel and California, and we expect this conference to ignite deals,” said Sharona Justman, conference co-chair and managing director of STEP Strategy Advisors.
Glenn Yago, director of capital studies at the Milken Institute and head of its new Israel Center, noted that “Innovation through improvisation is the strategic advantage that Israel has developed. In the past few years, major corporations such as Google, Intel, Cisco, Oracle and Microsoft have increased their offices in Israel.”
Session topics at the meeting will cover high technology, clean technology, medical devices, powerful consumer brands and entertainment media technology. Speakers will include executives from Sequoia Capital, Shamrock Holdings, The Westley Group, Mass Animation and their Israeli counterparts.
Although Israel has not been unaffected by the global recession, the impact has been softened because the country “didn’t have as much to lose and was largely spared the bursting of the housing bubble,” said David Blumberg, managing partner of Blumberg Capital.
