I had the pleasure of leading the AICC 2018 Women Leaders Trade Mission. Our focus was on start-ups in the fields of education and retail. We worked with the AICC to put together a group of 30 senior executive women with an interest in these areas. The trip was an excellent combination of history, politics, innovation policy and meetings with relevant start-ups. We each returned with an admiration for Israel’s economic achievements and the political challenges of the region. In addition to this broader perspective, we had individual technologies to follow up with in the edtech and retail tech areas. The delegation enabled us to gain a better understanding of Israel, relevant start-ups and establish beneficial connections between Australia and Israel.

I joined the AICC’s Women’s Mission on Higher Education and EdTech and I can’t recommend the AICC’s Mission highly enough. The program was carefully curated and efficiently executed providing an extraordinary opportunity to engage at senior levels with the key players in the Israeli innovation ecosystem – relevant government authorities, higher education providers, venture capitalists, incubators and start up entrepreneurs as well as established companies. The AICC also ensured that our requests for additional meetings were fulfilled and I personally was able to add three highly relevant meetings with Hebrew and Tel Aviv Universities to the itinerary thanks to the access that the AICC was able to provide. We were treated to wonderful cultural and historical tours as well as thought provoking geo-political presentations. It was a fast paced week of extraordinary learning and interactions that were highly relevant to my roles and, quite frankly, to how we can all contribute as leaders to developing the Australian ecosystem for innovation and success. On top of that, I returned to Australia with a whole new group of friends highly engaged in making a difference in their diverse industries and pursuits. Thank you.

It was a privilege to be hosted by the Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce on its April 2018 Women Leaders Trade Mission to Israel.

The Mission was superbly curated, delivering a unique perspective into Israel’s innovation economy. along with a vast array of transferable insights for Australian business leaders and policy-makers.

Israel is positioning itself for future success through alignment of capital, education, research, policy, regulation and technology transfer to industry in the context of a clear and focussed national strategy. The Chamber served up leaders in each of these fields, each delivering a unique and complementary perspective.

The blend of speakers from both large and small businesses was perfectly mixed. As a data and AI professional, it was particularly inspiring to meet tech innovators grappling with many of the same challenges and opportunities we are facing into.

It was also invaluable to hear from policy makers who see their role as value creators over risk managers. Government has a clear strategy to embrace the data opportunity and set Israel’s innovators up for success which should provide inspiration for our own policy-makers.

The social program was also excellent, offering opportunities to network with the impressive cohort of Australian business leaders participating and a deeper understanding of the societal context for the Israeli commercial strategy and broader economy.