ICON - Israel Collaboration Network

Big news! Our SV101 by ICON alums have made it onto Fortune’s annual #Cyber60 list. In a landscape sooo crowded, we couldn’t be prouder of our Cyber ICONs. Way to go!!! A big round of applause to our alumni and their great teams! Oligo Security | Nadav Czerninski | Gal Elbaz | Avshalom Hilu | OX Security | Neatsun Ziv | Linx Security | Israel Duanis | Lightspeed

Redefining 'Computing’ When NVIDIA refers to computing, they’re not talking about a box to place under your desk; it’s more like a facility capable of housing two Boeing airplanes. Last month, Michael Kagan, CTO of Nvidia joined our Annual Conference for an inspiring conversation with our very own Noa Topaz. It’s not every day that you get an inside glance into the journey of one of today’s most influential figures in artificial intelligence. To put things into perspective: no matter where you go in the cloud today, you’re likely passing through Mellanox Technologies chips, now seamlessly integrated into Nvidia’s technology. We also had some great questions from Inna Tokarev Sela, Tomer Glottman, and Skylar Graika, and a big thank you to Adam Nash for the lovely introduction.

Being an SV101 by ICON Alum at ICON’s Innovation Week This year, 37 alumni took part in ICON’s Innovation Week, with over half returning year after year, often planning their schedules around this incredible event. So, what keeps them coming back? It’s the unique opportunity to sit down with tech leaders like Ben Horowitz, founder & GP at Andreessen Horowitz, for informal conversations, gaining invaluable intros and insider information to help set up meetings. From an exclusive #celebratory dinner and a mini SV101 experience of sharing a house to setting the agenda and pitching in with some production tasks along the way 📦📦📦, our alumni make Innovation Week truly ICONic.   But let’s be real - the main reason they return is the SV101 #retreat that wraps up Innovation Week. It was the perfect blend of great people, wine, karaoke, games, intimate fireplace conversations, and... did we mention the wine? 🥂 Doron Cohen | Matan Or-El | Dor Abuhasira | Gilad Sahar | Ori Greenberg | Tom Livne | Dror Katzav | Leon Lerman | Tomer Glottman | Or Tamir | Yaniv Bar-Dayan | Ayal Yogev | Boaz Bachar | Omer Dror | Oren Barzilai | Ohad Maislish | Adam Gavish | Idan Gour | Inna Tokarev Sela | Lee Kappon | Michal Alter | Avshalom Hilu | Gal Elbaz | Or Priel | Shauli Rozen | Amir Gilad | Or Zabludowski | Ohad Biron | Alon Kollmann | Or Shani | Or Vaknin | Rotem Lurie | Ronnie Sternberg | Assif Ziv | Gabby Menachem | Galia Rosen Schwarz

We know Waiting can be tough. But hang tight! Just a few more days until we reveal SV101 by ICON Batch #16! Yasmin Lukatz I Jessica Hare I Noa Topaz I Karyn Priel I Liat Miller I Shlomit Cohen I Yaniv Benji I Noa Eilon | Shani Yavin

The women behind your daily apps Our upcoming Women in Tech event is just around the corner, and this one is extra special. Along with our usual dose of inspiration, we’ll be wrapping up the year with a look into the cutting-edge technologies shaping the products we use every day. All brought to you by two pioneering leaders at the forefront of innovation— Naamah Argaman from Meta and Dr. Orly Liba from YouTube Meet our speakers: Naamah Argaman, AR Product Tech Lead at Meta Reality Labs Leading the charge in developing Meta's AR-enabled smart glasses, Naamah is revolutionizing how we interact with the world around us. Dr. Orly Liba, Senior Research Scientist at YouTube. The mastermind behind YouTube's superior image algorithms, Orly's work in video generation and computational photography is pushing the boundaries of what's possible in digital imaging. The event will take place on Tuesday, November 12th, at 7:30 PM at the OFJCC in Palo Alto. Apply here - https://bitly.cx/gP5EW Yasmin Lukatz | Jessica Hare | Noa Topaz | Liat Miller | Karyn Priel | Shlomit Cohen | Yaniv Benji | Noa Eilon | Shani Yavin

⁠Fun fact: This year’s keynote holds not only the title of CEO but the #tallest one in the industry! But that’s not all. He was also the first to accept our invitation to keynote our Annual Conference this year, which wasn’t easy given the events of the past year. In a fascinating discussion with his longtime friend Amir Faintuch, CEO of Volumez (and former SVP at Intel Corporation) and our very own steering committee member, Rene Haas, CEO of Arm shared his takes on leadership, industry trends, and the future of semiconductors. We won’t give it all away, but here are some key takeaways for the founders among us: Sometimes cutting a #profitable business is the right call. As Rene said: “It’s not about the profit you make today; it’s about where you want to be in 10 years.” Talking about decision-making. Rene emphasized the importance of making quick decisions, even with incomplete information, because not making a decision is often the #worst decision of all. Yasmin Lukatz I Jessica Hare I Noa Topaz I Karyn Priel I Liat Miller I Shlomit Cohen I Yaniv Benji I Noa Eilon | Shani Yavin

#FounderMode: On. Missed the buzzing Twitter debate? Let’s catch you up with Assaf Rappaport's take on how management style fuels success. At our #Cyber Day, Assaf, Co-founder & CEO of Wiz, dropped some game-changing insights during an epic fireside chat with Yasmin Lukatz. His approach? Trust your team—but when you're truly passionate, don’t just lead, #immerse. Roll up your sleeves and go deep. And guess what? This ripple effect spreads. When you’re all-in, your team levels up too, digging into their own domains with the same intensity. From the latest in cyber to the intricacies of leadership and startup strategy, we covered it all—and left a few gems for those in the room only. 😉 But here’s the takeaway: Start strong. From day one, Assaf built Wiz for #scale - no shortcuts, no backtracking. Because the wrong move at the start? That’ll cost you, big time. We also had some great questions by Ron Efroni, Guy Horowitz, and Andrew King. It was our Cyber Day in its essence, the people shaping the industry sharing insights and setting the trends.

Paying It Forward That’s one of the key reasons Michelle Zatlyn, Co-Founder, President, and COO of Cloudflare, chose to keynote our Cyber Day. Rewind a decade: as an early-stage founder, attending events like these was invaluable for her, learning from those who had already paved the way.  Fast forward to today: now it’s her turn to inspire others. Michelle was interviewed by our very own Oren Yunger, managing partner at Notable Capital, and she shared her entrepreneurial journey. Spoiler alert: it’s probably the definition of Scaling— from zero to 4,000+ employees and $1.6 billion in revenue, all within 14 years. Today, Cloudflare is the world’s leading connectivity cloud, committed to building a better internet. Whether for startups or Fortune 100 companies, Cloudflare delivers fast, secure, and cost-effective #cloud solutions in a world that’s anything but simple. We tried to sum it up, but honestly, it’s a talk you need to hear.  Catch the full recording here: https://lnkd.in/dtCMm4Fq And a special shout-out to Cloudflare — happy 14th birthday! 🎉

This year, more than ever, I couldn’t be prouder of the incredible lineup of speakers at ICON’s 2024 conference—a showcase of the strength of the Israeli tech ecosystem. The organization has been around for a decade, and each year the community, led by ICON’s talented team, managed to bring a dream-level keynote speaker—CEOs of giant companies like Zoom, LinkedIn, Oracle, and YouTube. We canceled the 2023 conference due to the war. When we started working on the 2024 conference, we were worried that speakers of previous years’ caliber would be hesitant to attend an event so closely associated with the Israeli tech #community. Spoiler: in the end, we featured six keynotes. To be honest, it wasn’t easy. The concerns were valid. Even when a CEO accepted the invitation, their diligent communication teams explained that it “didn’t fit” their schedules (we were very flexible), and sometimes they said outright (which I appreciated) that it was simply not a good year to be affiliated with Israel. 🥺 But then, like mushrooms after the rain, we started getting more and more yeses, from the most amazing speakers we could have hoped for. And now it’s time to say thank you: Thank you to Amir Faintuch, who brought Rene Haas, CEO of Arm (trivia fact: Rene is the tallest CEO of a tech company), a super relevant company in the age of artificial intelligence. Thank you to Ariel Cohen (an incredible keynote himself) who brought the legendary investor Ben Horowitz (Ben was the first keynote speaker who believed in ICON back in 2014 when we didn’t yet have an impressive history of speakers. We also secured Ben’s commitment to be our keynote when we celebrate 20 years of the organization). Thank you to Oren Yunger, who brought Michelle Zatlyn, Co-founder of Cloudflare. Special thank you to our co-chair oren zeev who brought Shaun Maguire, Sequoia’s superstar partner and true supporter of Israel, and to the #ICON team for bringing Emilie Choi, President and COO, Coinbase, and Meyer "Micky" Malka, from Ribbit Capital; Michael Kagan, CTO of NVIDIA (did someone say AI?); and, of course, Assaf Rappaport, who is first and foremost a friend but also the Founder and CEO of cybersecurity giant Wiz, for an intimate conversation (among other topics) about how the hell you turn down a $23 billion acquisition offer (you had to be there to know the answer 🤷♀️). As always, I was thrilled to see so many of our program’s alumni at the conference, but honestly, what touched me the most was that my mom came to our annual conference for the first time in the decade the organization has existed. 🫶🏼

A new year is here :) This past year has been a challenging journey for us all. Yet the Israeli tech #ecosystem continues to deliver, innovate, and lead the way to new achievements. We couldn’t be prouder of our ICONs around the world, each and every one of you contributing to keeping Israel’s #growth engine thriving. May this new year bring blessings to us all and see our hostages safely returned home. From all of us at ICON - Shana Tova! Yasmin Lukatz I Jessica Hare I Noa Topaz I Karyn Priel I Liat Miller I Shlomit Cohen I Yaniv Benji I Noa Eilon | Shani Yavin