VCinJerusalem

With the Best Intentions...

There we were tonight, spread out in multiple locations, different continents, all gathered for a conference call. The players were senior management of US based big company XYZ, management of Jerusalem based start-up ABC, and yours truly, Jacob Ner-David, present as the matchmaker and potential investor. To assemble the people took several weeks of planning, juggling everyone’s schedules, time differences, etc. Big company brought SVPs, VPs, Directors, and team members, 6 in all. Start-up had two, CEO and VP, and me.

To spice up the call, and to enable real time presentation of demonstration of the system and service in question, start-up management suggested using one of the many services that allow multi-casting of presentations (we will not disparage the actual provider, but there are many such companies).

Everyone was gathered, mouse at the ready to click on the link provided and start the session...we all clicked and….nothing. Wouldn’t work. ABC management said the usual: “we have used this 20 times, always worked, everyone log out and back in.” We all did, and still nothing. I took it upon myself to fill in the dead space while ABC management muttered about settings and rebooting. Finally I said guys, its not working, I will email out to everyone the powerpoint you wanted to use, but we won’t be able to see the demonstration in real time.

I emailed it out, but by then ABC management were so flustered that they could barely make their way through it. Finally senior XYZ senior person suggested that we stop, because some had already seen the demo working, and going through powerpoint was not productive use of everyone’s time (which I agreed with).

What to learn from all this?

1. Never rely completely on technological tools to get your point across. There will be errors/network failures – a good CEO needs to be able to paint a picture even just using their voice.
2. If something is not working – move on. Don’t waste time trying to fix it.
3. Conference calls are good, but only for moving forward projects – not so good for real time demonstrations. Need to be prepared to just get out there physically – with all of our virtuality, nothing like seeing it in person.

Business development remains an in-person sport, played right. That of course doesn’t match up with very limited start-up travel budgets, but I believe there is no substitute—sometimes you need to just jump on a plane.

Of course, the true breakthrough will come for all of us when we can just say: “Beam me up Scotty.” And pray that there are no bugs in the system!

It All Remains the Same - CES Review

OK, so this was my first CES. I had attended Comdex many times (what do you say about a dead trade show -- May It Rest In Peace?), and for many years was a regular speaker at the VON conferences hosted by my friend Jeff Pulver. But this was first time at the fabled CES -- where all the latest gadgets and doodads get released, and in the demise of Comdex and E3 everybody was supposed to converge on Las Vegas.

And so they did. For three days we (remember, was there with the mPortico team) ran from meeting to meeting, which made the trip well worth it. But what of CES itself, you ask -- did I learn anything new? Did I see any extraordinary developments coming down the pike for the technology industry? I am sad to say, no. What I saw was same old same old. On every level. Down to worst aspects of trade shows -- yes, the "booth babes." No, I am not referring to the Adult Entertainment Expo happening literally next door (that's a whole other subject), but rather to the need for seemingly self-respecting serious companies to feel the need to bring themselves down to the lowest level -- mainly because for most, in this day of instant journalism and constant communication, there really isn't anything new to say. Even the iPhone from Mr. Jobs had been blogged to death before the "unveiling" at CES.

To use one example close to my heart, which is the current best known VoIP company, Vonage. These guys have spent hundreds of millions to let everyone know who they are, and they succeeded in generating over 1 million subscribers (paying!). But Vonage does not have a new story to tell -- they are about making phone calls. Lets analyze their booth:

For a better view of the Vonage Vixens, click on the thumbnail. Now what do dancing girls in short minidresses have to do with Internet based communications? Please enlighten me. In addition, if you enlarge the photo, you will see the tag line of Vonage on the booth: "A Better Way to Phone for Less." It seems that VoIP companies like Vonage are still focused, ten years after the first commercialized VoIP efforts (I was blessed to be among that pioneering generation) on cheap phone calls. Even ten years ago we said it was NOT about cheaper phone calls, but something else (because we were pioneers no one expected us to actually say what else...;-)). The best thing I can say about the Vonage booth at CES is that they had nice giveaways for my kids (VON trucks for my three year old, playing cards for the others).

There were some interesting plays on mobile television, unfortunately most of those companies could not say when their demos would be really commercialized. Sling Media had a huge booth, very slick materials, (no booth babes -- I guess they have confidence in their product) and were always crowded with people. Sling are first movers in place shifting, but when you think about it they are a backhanded hack -- redirecting data from my house, for use when I am traveling. Now, if I want to get HBO while traveling, why have it stream to my house and then be redirected....seems like a waste of perfectly good bandwidth. If I want to get HBO when in Singapore, why not just subscribe to HBO directly (for beginning of this idea, see Network2.tv initiative). Of course HBO doesn't let you subscribe to it directly as RSS or some other form of direct subscription...but its only a matter of time.

I guess my real problem is that I just don't like Las Vegas -- I don't gamble and hate the smell of cigarettes, which meant going in and out of buildings in Vegas a torture. In general, I found Vegas to be a sad and depressing place. But to each their own.

Here is the view from room at my hotel:

I much prefer hills of Jerusalem...

No Progress

On my way to CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas – what has become the mecca for showing the latest and greatest innovations of the Digital Age (certainly since the demise of the COMDEX show). And yet my mode of transportation, commercial airline (in this case Continental) has experienced almost zero innovation in decades.

I took my daughter Meira with me on this trip (no, she is not coming to CES, but visiting a friend in NY, I will continue on to Vegas) – and thank God Meira is an incredibly well behaved kid (most of the time). I even received compliments from people seated next to us! Just think of taking an 11 hour flight with an 8 year old…OK, so there are now those little screens in the seatback, but on Continental they made the decision to repeat the same programs throughout the flight…how many times can even my daughter watch the same episode of Friends? What would be so difficult to offer a bit more programming?

And before we get to entertainment—why is it that air travel itself has not budged – it was an 11 hour flight when I started this commute, and twelve years later it is the same 11 hours. During that time the Internet was commercialized, the web was created, billions of dollars of value and real profits were created, and communications were radically changed. I was blessed to be part of that change over the past 12 years. But the changes have been almost exclusively limited to the virtual world. Airlines and airports have remained almost immune to leapfrogs in technology. Oh sure, there have been some bites around the edges, with web based travel agencies, on-line check-in, and so on. The flight itself—no change. They couldn’t even get right my order for vegan food.

The airport – not exactly a bastion of efficiency. Its actually a miracle that we land and take off with very rare real problems, when you think about it…on second thought, don’t think too much about it!

I don’t have any incredible ideas to throw out there – just that it is an area that is crying out for some true visionaries to leapfrog us forward in travel.

One More Time...and then Goodbye Teddy

OK, can't resist, need to say one more thing about the late Teddy Kollek -- he was above all a moderating force in this most passion filled city. Looking over the tributes to Teddy in the weekend papers, what stuck out above all was his recurrent theme of moderation and pluralism in the face of so many who sought to increase the tension levels.

Here is a short clip that demonstrates Teddy's approach -- may his influence extend way beyond his time on this earth (this is Teddy talking to Yisrael Eldad about the earthly mordern Jerusalem):

Stuck in Time and Place

After five intense days of road trip with Shimmy Constante, CEO of our portfolio company mPortico, I was more than ready to return home. We left Israel on Sunday morning, and had been in San Francisco, San Mateo, Milpitas, Sunnyvale, and all over Manhattan. We spent time talking with technology gurus, multi-billion tech companies trying to figure out their next moves, premium brand content managers looking into the abyss of content chaos, and venture fund managers trying to catch a wave. Conversations swirled around mobile content, place shifting, time shifting, and the worlds of virtual lives.

All this came to  brutal hard stop when we crossed over into the archaic world of air travel. If you think about it, we have just about reached every technology dream of Gene Roddenberry (the prophet otherwise known as creator of Star Trek) except for the transport of physical bodies -- we still cannot simply say "Beam me up, Scotty."

I am jotting this down between flights, and will write more tomorrow, but let me sum it up by saying that THE next area ripe or technology disruption is commercial air travel...any incremental change for the better will be a "killer application," and much more important to real world people than all the avatars in the world....

As you can guess...my return trip is not going as planned. when its all over I will vent properly.

I hope you are ready this from the comfort of wherever it is you want to be!

Safe travels.

On the Road...For The First Time

This week is another major step on my path to cementing my venture capitalist career -- it is my first road trip with a portfolio company. While technically Double Fusion was our first portfolio company, my involvement in that venture is much more complex, as I am co-founder, investor, and initially part of the management team. And by the time Jerusalem Capital got off the ground this past Summer, I had stepped down from active involvement in Double Fusion (back to that later).

So this past Sunday morning I set out with Shimon Constante, CEO and co-founder of mPortico, to tour the US in search of strategic partners and potential next-round funders. We are now half way through our journey, having spent two days in the Bay Area. For me it was a new experience, sitting at the table not as CEO or even title-less but completely committed co-founder. Now I was there as "active" investor. No matter how "involved" I claim to be, I am perceived, and this matches reality, as something short of a wild eyed entrepreneur. Shimon, on the hand, played the role (quite well!) as complete passionate. I find myself consciously holding back in discussions -- because I know that both business partners and potential investors need to see Shimon as the CEO -- as the guy they are staking their decision on. After all my theoretical speeches about the need for seed stage venture capitalist to empower CEOs, not squash them, I was put to the test.

As we not market ourselves as smart but passive money, I did not feel the need to sit idly by, taking active part in all the meetings -- yet feeling the need to let Shimon shine, to give him the space to articulate his vision for mPortico (which is still somewhat in stealth mode, although we do say publicly it is focused on a unique, patent pending method of mobile content/application distribution). if I felt, however, that it was an emergency situation, to protect my own capital as well as that as my investors, I would do whatever it takes. Thank goodness, Shimon gave me no cause for concern, as well as the rest of the team, and we are pretty far along after these two days. Now we need to keep up the pace -- with meetings already scheduled for CES in January and 3GSM in February. Our challenges are well-defined, and the market completely validated our reading of the pain points. All we have left to do now is execute...and deliver what we claim to be developing.

I write this sitting at SFO waiting to board the red-eye to New York, where we spend another 2 days before heading home. I know this the beginning of the journey for mPortico, but also formal beginning of the next stage in my growing into new guise of seed stage venture capitalist. May both mPortico and Jerusalem Capital continue in the positive momentum both are currently enjoying!

Victory! At least for now...

I arrived to Milpitas, California after a long day of traveling, and was so glad to get into my hotel room, open up my laptop, and receive a report from the home-front, the battle to preserve my neighborhood in Jerusalem, Baka. As I noted a few weeks ago (see here), the Jerusalem city municipality was planning major changes in traffic patterns to our [small] part of Jerusalem, that would have increased car traffic ten-fold or more on our streets, making especially Derech Beit Lechem (Bethlehem Way) a mini-highway, a frightening thought for us, with adolescent children who like to cross the streets...

In terms of place-shifting, I am so happy to be able to get a report in real time from my neighbors who participated in a meeting with city officials yesterday, that was held in response to a public campaign we have been waging (see www.savebaka.blogspot.com), which culminated in the Jerusalem city council discussing the issue in their monthly meeting last week.

It seems quite surreal sitting here in Milpitas, just off Highway 101 in the heart of Silicon Valley, to be thinking and reading about a road used two thousand years ago by the three kings to visit the baby Jesus, especially when seeing all the Christmas decoration on the way from the airport. True globalization.

Victory did come to us yesterday -- the city agreed to halt the changes, at least for 6 months, to see if our proposed alternative solves the traffic problem. In addition, during this 6 month period, we will continue to discuss other ways of creating a more livable city with planning officials.

While this victory is only temporary (although here in the Middle East temporary can mean several lifetimes), the process has pulled together the community, through email lists, websites, on-line petitions, and good old fashioned community protests in the street. I hope we can continue to act as a community, for the good of all.

Hope...as Stated by Tom

Sometimes living in the heart of the Middle East, and some might say the world, one gets a little jaded by the news, especially regarding ongoing conflicts. It takes friends from the "outside" to remind us that we need to treasure glimmers of hope, and fan the the sparks of peace into flames of redemption from the horrors of our regional eye-for-an-eye. My favorite blogger, friend, and mentor, Tom Evslin, plays the role of the Reminder today -- and with no further ado, let me simply qoute Tom in full, because I certainly could not write it better (for full coverage of Tom's blog, please see www.fractalsofchange.com):

Hope

Something wonderful may be starting in Gaza and Israel; probably NOT given past history but well worth hoping for.

Predictably, hours after the ceasefire began, another rocket attack on Israel was launched.  It is no news that there are those for whom peace would be unthinkable.  But what happened next was less predicable and more important.

• Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas reportedly sent 13,000 security forces to the border to prevent such attacks.  At this minute, they appear to be succeeding.  I hope they still are when you read this post.
• The various major Palestinian factions including Islamic Jihad have said they are honoring the truce.  Islamic Jihad has often been a holdout in previous truce attempts.
• Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said: “The state of Israel is a very strong country.  It is strong enough to fight terror and it is strong enough to show restraint in order to give an opportunity for the cease-fire to come into full comprehensive and practical effect.” (as quoted in the NY Times).

There would be no ceasefire, no matter how tenuous, were Israel not strong and not willing to use it strength even in the teeth of condemnation from much of the world and even some in Israel.  According to the same NY Times story, 1,100 rockets have been fired into Israel since the Israelis left Gaza last year, a withdrawal which was mistaken as a sign of weakness.  The rocket fire has killed four Israelis.  Israeli strikes into Gaza in retaliation for the rocket fire and the abduction of one of their soldiers have killed an estimated 400 Palestinians, many but certainly not all of them militants, and cost three Israeli soldiers their lives.

This was a terrible price to pay for both sides.  In order to strike back at those who launch rockets at civilians from civilian territory, Israel had to disregard inevitable civilian casualties in responding both in Lebanon and in Gaza. It had to become more like its enemies.  Many of the Palestinians who died and were injured or who lost their homes were non-combatants; many probably prayed that the terrorists wouldn’t use their neighborhoods as launching pads but weren’t strong enough to stop them; some were certainly women and children as were some of the Israeli casualties.

Terror attacks like the bombs in Baghdad and the missiles fired into Israel are called “asymmetric warfare.”  The terrorists say: “You have more guns, planes, etc than we have but we are willing to sacrifice or even target civilians.  We’ll use your regard for life against you.”  It’s a terrible lesson that the only effective response is also asymmetric  - see the compared casualty figures above.

A population which realizes that the price of sheltering terrorists or allowing missile attacks from its streets is even greater than the very real danger of defying terrorists, eventually will (I hope) force the terrorists to stop using it as a shield.  It also takes a very brave leader – as Abbas may have become – to organize internal resistance to local terrorists.  That MAY be what is happening in Gaza tonight. 

Let’s hope the ceasefire is still holding on the morning or both sides will pay an even higher price.

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Something wonderful may be starting in Gaza and Israel; probably NOT given past history but well worth hoping for.

Predictably, hours after the ceasefire began, another rocket attack on Israel was launched.  It is no news that there are those for whom peace would be unthinkable.  But what happened next was less predicable and more important.

• Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas reportedly sent 13,000 security forces to the border to prevent such attacks.  At this minute, they appear to be succeeding.  I hope they still are when you read this post.
• The various major Palestinian factions including Islamic Jihad have said they are honoring the truce.  Islamic Jihad has often been a holdout in previous truce attempts.
• Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said: “The state of Israel is a very strong country.  It is strong enough to fight terror and it is strong enough to show restraint in order to give an opportunity for the cease-fire to come into full comprehensive and practical effect.” (as quoted in the NY Times).

There would be no ceasefire, no matter how tenuous, were Israel not strong and not willing to use it strength even in the teeth of condemnation from much of the world and even some in Israel.  According to the same NY Times story, 1,100 rockets have been fired into Israel since the Israelis left Gaza last year, a withdrawal which was mistaken as a sign of weakness.  The rocket fire has killed four Israelis.  Israeli strikes into Gaza in retaliation for the rocket fire and the abduction of one of their soldiers have killed an estimated 400 Palestinians, many but certainly not all of them militants, and cost three Israeli soldiers their lives.

This was a terrible price to pay for both sides.  In order to strike back at those who launch rockets at civilians from civilian territory, Israel had to disregard inevitable civilian casualties in responding both in Lebanon and in Gaza. It had to become more like its enemies.  Many of the Palestinians who died and were injured or who lost their homes were non-combatants; many probably prayed that the terrorists wouldn’t use their neighborhoods as launching pads but weren’t strong enough to stop them; some were certainly women and children as were some of the Israeli casualties.

Terror attacks like the bombs in Baghdad and the missiles fired into Israel are called “asymmetric warfare.”  The terrorists say: “You have more guns, planes, etc than we have but we are willing to sacrifice or even target civilians.  We’ll use your regard for life against you.”  It’s a terrible lesson that the only effective response is also asymmetric  - see the compared casualty figures above.

A population which realizes that the price of sheltering terrorists or allowing missile attacks from its streets is even greater than the very real danger of defying terrorists, eventually will (I hope) force the terrorists to stop using it as a shield.  It also takes a very brave leader – as Abbas may have become – to organize internal resistance to local terrorists.  That MAY be what is happening in Gaza tonight. 

Let’s hope the ceasefire is still holding on the morning or both sides will pay an even higher price.

Riding in Safety – But Still Nervous

Tonight, as usual on Thursdays, came home to Jerusalem from a day in Tel Aviv/Herzliya on the public Egged inter-city bus (with my bicycle stored below). OK, first of all, I have to explain that most of my peer group does not take the bus, in fact I think I am the only fund manager in Israel that regularly takes public transportation, all the more so from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv and back. What can I do…I am green freak, in my naïve manner I think I am helping the world just a little by leaving my car parked at home. In addition, I hate looking for parking and sitting in traffic.

Who rides the bus? Students, senior citizens (who remember when “everyone” took the bus), and soldiers. Self-respecting people with “important” jobs drive their company cars…

I want to focus in for a moment on the soldiers. These are mainly young people (18-25) who live in Jerusalem and are coming home for the weekend or are “jobniks,” meaning they have a desk job for their mandatory army service (rather than fighting unit) and go home every night. About half the riders are usually soldiers, and most of them, men and women, carry M-16 machine guns. So I travel with a heavily armed escort of 15-20 well trained members of the Israel Defense Forces.

This all gives me a certain level of a feeling of safety. First of all, I am on the bus, which automatically gives me a massive jump in the statistics over driving in a private car (certainly here Israel, where more people die every year in car accidents than in all terrorist attacks, even in the worst years of the intifada). Next, I have all these soldiers with me.

So what do I have this bad feeling in my stomach (besides the obvious, which is typing while sitting on a bus…)?

I think because I am sad that it is de rigueur in our society for our young people to walk around for three years and more with a machine gun in their hands – one cannot help but think that this desensitizes us to war, military choices, and some level of violence. Just today we saw headlines from a Palestinian rocket attack on the Israeli city of Sderot, and the reports said a 57 year old woman was killed, and a security guard of Defense Minister Amir Peretz (who lives in Sderot) was “injured.” Injury in this case means his legs were blown off.

For those of you reading this from the US, just imagine if there were rocket attacks on Staten Island, NY– America would be on a warpath. Here we have mastered self-restraint, but I for one feel the status quos of an “eye for an eye” must end.

With all of our technological might, creating cast virtual worlds and shattering borders of science on a daily basis, we seem unable to deal with our reality. We are way overdue for a fresh look, a reset, a new operating system.

For far too long we have accepted as “normal” people walking the streets with machine guns. In other circles a mental and physical separation has developed from this day-to-day reality…in the “fancy” parts of Tel Aviv and the high-tech cluster in Herzliya Pituach, soldiers are not seen, rarely does a machine gun make an appearance. Oh, many of the best Israeli tech entrepreneurs serve in the active reserves, but they literally partition their minds and their life. When not in uniform, total focus is given to the next great thing. Local “politics” are way too messy. And many of Israel’s best financial minds think more about developing Eastern and Central Europe than they do Sderot, Kiryat Malachi, or yes, Nablus and Khan Yunis.

It’s time to for all of us to take the bus…and take a fresh look at our society. And make sure that it shocks us, and do something to change it.

I want my 3 year old son to find it out of the ordinary to see someone with a machine gun when gets on a bus or a train by himself in a few years. Lets make it happen.

Eternal Optimism with a Dosage of Reality

To live life as a seed-stage venture capitalist in Jerusalem is to double-up on optimism. When a start-up is born into the world, it faces many challenges, but the most dangerous and debilitating is waves of pessimism that the founders will fight against, from the outside world as from the inside (and the inside of the inside...that gnawing feeling in your gut that says, "forget this, just go get a job, live the easy Dilbert life.").

And to live life in Jerusalem is to believe in a better tomorrow, and also to daily give thanksgiving for the blessing to be able to live here and now. Without massive amounts of optimism, and the drive to actually change the way things are, living in Jerusalem in 5767/2006 would be overwhelming and much too painful.

A friend of mine from LA suggested recently that I write a book about Israel as a start-up...a start-up country...it's good idea,  a story of a start-up that has been in the making for at least 3,000 years, during the past 58 years we are experiencing Version 3.0, except we are not sure of the scalability, and of course quality control, especially regarding management, has recently been lacking.

This week we read the biblical portion where God tells Abraham "Go forth." Perhaps that is the moment when we can formally say Israel and the Jewish people had their "soft launch." A few thousand years later and we still are trying to figure out the right specifications for the "release version" of the "product/platform/solution."

Below is an email from my good friends at MEET, one of those start-up initiatives that fill me with optimism. MEET is also about the belief that bit by bit (read on, you will understand the pun), person by person, we can make a difference.

Thank God there are people like the activists of MEET -- may they and we succeed beyond our wildest dreams.

Shabbat Shalom,

Jacob

Dear Friend,

MEET has began recruiting mentors from the local high-tech industry to join us as volunteers.

Every year an extraordinary group of volunteers has the opportunity to work hands-on with our Israeli and Palestinian excelling students by mentoring a project group, and helping our student interact, learn and program software - together. 

Here is how you can help today:

1. Volunteer yourself! (see criteria below)

2. Recommend someone

3. Pass this along to your company's HR department asking them to offer this to company's employees

4. Pass this along to anyone you know in the Israeli or Palestinian high-tech industry so they can pass it to their company mailing list and friends.

We look forward to hearing back from you, your colleagues and friends,

The MEET Team

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Would you like to interact with and teach the next generation of regional high-tech leaders?

Would you like to make a difference and change the future of the Palestinian/Israeli IT Sector?

Join Us - Become A MEET Mentor

About MEET

MEET - Middle East Education through Technology is an innovative social startup, working together with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and other prominent international and local business and academic leaders to bring change to the Middle East. MEET brings together Palestinian and Israeli high school students for a three-year educational program in Computer Science and Business.

We are now seeking volunteer mentors from the Palestinian and Israeli IT Sectors to join our existing mentors in leading MEET's 2006/07 Yearlong Program for Year 1 and Year 2 students. Come lead a project team of Israeli and Palestinian teenagers and guide students in building a project plan, meeting project milestones and completing their projects.

Mentors meet with their team every two weeks for a 2 hour session at the MEET lab in Jerusalem, and supervise team progress / provide team support email/chat/phone support to the project team (estimated total of no more than 4 hours a week).

Mentors receive direct support from MIT based staff and are invited to participate in a range of social activities and events with the students, with the other mentors, as well as with leading high tech business leaders.

Required Skills     

*         Passion to guide a small project team of 15-17 years old students

*         Prior experience in programming project management

*         Familiarity with OOP programming and knowledge of Java

*         Willingness to commit from mid November 06 to May 07

*         Bi-weekly meetings at the MEET Lab in Jerusalem

*         Previous work with youths - advantage

Experience working in MEET - Read more about MEET and our project achievements at  http://meet.csail.mit.edu

To apply please email your resume with subject - Volunteer Mentor to:  [email protected]

For more information call Tali at 052-8777031 or 02-6272188

About the MEET Three-Year Educational Program

The MEET Three-Year Educational Program consists of intensive summer courses followed by yearlong team projects. Yearlong activities take place at the MEET Computer Lab in Jerusalem.  All programs and activities are conducted in English and all participants receive a full scholarship for the entirety of the 3-year program.

During their first summer at MEET, Year 1 students receive an intensive course in Java taught by volunteer instructors from MIT. Building on the knowledge they gained, during the following year, students work in small teams of 5-6 to complete a programming project. Having learned more advanced programming skills in their second summer, during their second year, Year 2 students work on more advanced programming projects to provide IT solutions for real world clients such as companies and non-profit organizations.

This year we will have 9 such student project teams during our yearlong program! Student project teams are guided by a local mentor from the Palestinian or Israeli IT sector.