Two visits with Israeli universities took place, at Shenkar College and Tel-Hai College. Besides a tour at Shenkar College, the presidents of Shenkar College and HNU virtually signed a "Memorandum of Understanding" to deepen the cooperation between both universities. Together with students from Tel-HaiCollege , a hackathon took place at the Agamon Hula-JNF Nature and Ornithology Park in the heart of the Hula Valley. Nine cross-cultural teams worked on the two challenges of ecotourism and agriculture and presented their solution at the end. A hackathon is an event where mostly interdisciplinary talents from different fields work together to develop an innovative idea and often unusual solutions for a specific industry. Students from both universities were impressed by this "once in a lifetime" event and came up with promising solutions in a very short time.
Israel has long been known as a "startup nation" and leads the world in startups per capita with more than 6,000 active startups. An introduction by Tal Berman and a visit to AHK Israel gave the students deep insights into Israel as a start-up nation. In the course of the tour, the students gained insights into VW connect, monday.com, Lightico, Argon Security and Yotpo . These visits brought students the opportunity to gain hands-on insight into how startups operate.
Another interesting port of call on the trip was the Office of the Free State of Bavaria in Tel Aviv. It supports Israeli companies entering the market in Bavaria as well as Bavarian companies with expansion plans in Israel and networking with local business partners.
Furthermore, the participants visited the memorial Yad Vashem and got a cultural insight into the historically valuable country with a city tour through Tel Aviv and a visit to the Old City in Jerusalem.
In the end, all students arrived safely back in Germany together with their supervisors and were able to report on unique experiences and learning content afterwards.
