A quick visit of Nazareth: the Basilica of the Annunciation

After visiting NGT incubator, as we had some time left before leaving Nazareth, we decided to visit the city center. It is divided into two parts: one Jewish and one Arabic, where all the Arabic and Christian people from all over the world come to see the Basilica of the Annunciation. The church was established at the site where, according to catholic tradition, the Annunciation took place: this event is the announcement by the angel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary that she would conceive and become the mother of Jesus. The church looks very modern and inside it, you can see the cavern of the Jesus family. Visiting this sacred place was something very special for some of the students that heard the story of Annunciation since always. A unique experience!

the Annunciation cave, Nazareth

in the basilica, Nazareth

The Annunciation, Nazareth

Be careful girls! Don’t come there dressed with a skirt. Our lovely Virginie wasn’t allowed to enter the church… So sad!

To finish the visit of the city, we ate the specialty of the country: hummus! It was suuuper good, tasty and creamy, with meat or egg, served with a fresh salad and lemonade to drink. The restaurant even offers any extra plate of hummus that you order. The winner of the contest “biggest eater” ate 12 plates like this! Not for us today…

Hummus

NGT: an incubator in Nazareth

Here we go! Today 24 April 2012 we moved to the north of the country, destination Nazareth. After a two hours trip by bus we arrived here to discover another reality of Israel, the incubator New Generation Technology (NGT).

Incubators are programs designed to support the successful development of entrepreneurial companies through an array of business support resources and services, developed and orchestrated by incubator management and offered both in the incubator and through its network of contacts.

There are around thirty incubators along Israel. They are created to stimulate the industry innovation and to create employment. Normally they host companies specialised in the same field, normally specialized ones, as pharmaceutical, biological or IT sciences.

NGT is an exception: even if concentred on pharma projects, it has been created and was developed around Arab companies, managed mainly by Arabs. It was born 13 years ago to solve an actual problem: very competent professors and researchers with Arab origins were excluded by the other incubators and remained unemployed. The aim of NGT is to change this situation. Here there’s not at all discrimination based on religion. In fact, also if just in minority, also Jewish companies are incubated there.

Companies desiring to enter the program pass through a very meticulous screening process where they have to demonstrate that their idea reaches some predetermined requisites:

• It is patentable
• It exists a market for it
• There are possible contractors relied to the Israeli context

How does it work? People come at the incubator demanding for the admission, once the project has been incubated, it’s the incubator itself that searches for the funding for the project. The majority of them are governmental funds, but rules depend on the single entity. NGT for example requires a minimum of 15% of private funds, normally provided directly by the entrepreneur. The incubator will owns a relevant quote of the stock that is in average greater than 50%, without in any case interfere in the strategy pointing on the shares control. Normally the incubation lasts two years. This limit has been set up by law and can be extended to three years in particular cases.

But why an incubator? Which are the pros for a company to be set up in an incubator? Here what we get of concrete:

• Funding
• Consulting and mentoring
• Connections with the other companies in the same field
• Externalisation of all the financial aspects
• Access to the shared facilities, from meeting rooms to advanced laboratories

Another good news for those who might be interested is that no exit strategies exist, in the sense that also once outside the two-years period, the incubator will maintains its stocks, granting a better financial stability and confidence with third parties. In addition, in case of success, only royalties will be demanded and in case of failure the invested capital will be considered as a grant.

European countries, why not to take example from our overseas neighbours? Welcome to Israel!

Day 3: what we have seen or learned in Nazareth

Here is a list of what we have seen or learned today in Nazareth:

• hummus is heavy.
• you can’t enter a church dressed with a skirt.
• you can easily meet a priest and add him on Linked In, as Ricardo did.
• the separation beteween arabic and Jews is visible in the city.
• green is the color of Islam. Arabic cities are illuminated with green lights at night.

The anecdote of the day: passport n°001

Chaim Weizmann, who gave his name to the famous Weizmann Institute we visited, was the 1st president of the State of Israel. So his Israeli passport had the number 001. Quite easy to remember!

The city of Nazareth