Below are the wonderful mentors that will be helping guide our groups and participants in the development of their apps.
Shai Almog - Co-founder of Codename-One
Shai Almog is the co-founder of Codename One a startup that allows developing native applications for all mobile devices in Java. Shai has been developing software professionally for over 20 years, in the late 90's Shai founded vprise consulting thru which he and his employees consulted to industry giants such as Sun Microsystems, IBM, Vodafone, NTT DoCoMo, Verizon, Sprint, Nokia, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Banks, government agencies and more.
Shai worked on the very first mobile Java device from DoCoMo, the first mobile development toolkit from Sun Microsystems and joined Chen Fishbein to co-create LWUIT the most successful mobile open source project from Sun Microsystems.
Shai is a JavaOne rockstar award winner and has been a regular speaker at the conference for many years, he has spoken at JavaZone, IBM conferences and most recently at an LTS special web event. He is a popular & influential blogger whose work is repeatedly featured by known aggregators and channels.
Roy Ben-Hayun
Roy Ben Hayun specializes in mobile technologies and engaging in outbound collaboration with tier-1 mobile industry players incl. OEMs, carriers, and ISVs in different segments and geographies. Mostly in emerging markets such as India. He started his career as a developer and engineer, moved to architect and consulting roles, he is the author of various developer books and articles, and in
the last years has been involved in technical product management, technical business development and technology market-adoption acitivities.
During his career he worked in both leading global companies such as IBM, Sun Microsystems, and is also the founder of various small startups. Roy is a frequent speaker at events and conferences. He loves sports, reading, and travel, especially to India
Hackathon Mentors
Ofir Leitner - Founder of Mobile Monday Tel Aviv
Ofir is the founder of Mobile Monday Tel Aviv, the official Israeli chapter of the global non-profit organization Mobile Monday, and the founder of the Israel Mobile Summit. Ofir has a rich background in mobile technologies and business practices, dating back to 2003 when he was a consultant to Orange Israel. In 2005, Ofir founded GamearraY, a Jerusalem based startup company known for its award winning user generated mobile gaming platform. In mid 2008 Ofir left GamearraY and became a consultant for Israel's leading mobile startups as well as to Oracle Israel Development Center.
Chris George - Cleanweb Initiative, USA
Community Catalyst for The Cleanweb Initiative, a member ¬driven organization composed of developers, entrepreneurs, investors, and enterprises large and small who believe that the growing web of information technologies may be our most powerful ¬and profitable tool to improve global sustainability, economic prosperity, and human well being.
Dr.Harold Weiner
With more than 20 years’ industrial and operational experience, Harold Wiener is a veteran in the world of biotechnology, chemistry, nutraceuticals (food supplements) and corporate strategic research and development.
He has led product development and marketing processes for early- and growth-stage companies. Prior to founding Terra in 2006, Harold was one of the founders and Business Development Manager for Algatechnologies, VP R&D/Business Development at Aromor Flavors and Fragrances and the CTO of the Misgav Incubator, the leading medical devices incubator in Israel.
Harold has a PhD in applied chemistry from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He has co-authored more than 20 scientific papers and patents.
Yaniv Feldman - Co-Founder and Editor-In-Chief, Geektime.
Chief-Geek at GeekTime. An Entrepreneur at heart with technology running in his veins. Yaniv has been writing about and analyzing the Israeli and European startup and technology scene for the past 5 years and his favorite hobby is finding complicated solutions to very simple problems.
Leehe Skuler - Former Impact Investing Professional and current Consultant for Enterprises in Developing Countries
Leehe Skuler worked at an impact investment firm in Europe and Ghana, which invested in clean energy SMEs and projects which promote rural electrification in Africa. Before that, Leehe worked with microfinance investments in developing countries, and also has a background in the Israeli non-profit sector. Leehe can contribute to Dev4Dev ventures by giving insight business models that work in developing countries and on strategies for raising money from impact investors.Today she is actively involved in the IsraelDev community.
Gaddy Wiseman
Gaddy Weissman brings Israeli innovation and technological expertise to address developing world challenges in the sectors of energy, water, agriculture, health and education - DevTech. Gaddy works with Israeli start-ups seeking to expand abroad and foreign MNCs seeking to scout solutions in Israel. Gaddy was Israel's chief technology negotiator to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Rio +20 summit. He was Director of Trade Linkages at the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labor where he led work on technology transfer to developing countries. Before concentrating on innovation for international development in Israel, Gaddy worked in VC and as an engineer at Teradyne, an S&P 500 technology firm. He holds Bachelor's and Master's degrees from MIT in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. He was also a Senior Goldman Fellow at Tel-Aviv University's Hartog School of Government.
Marc Segal - International Sales Manager at Chromagen
Mark is an entrepreneurial manager with extensive international experience in business development, marketing, and sales of innovative services and products. Experience includes working with developing countries, several years in Renewable Energy, consulting an organization in India that provides an innovative solution for literacy. Marc holds a BSC in Industrial Engineering and an MBA from IESE, a top ranked global business school in Barcelona during which founded “Doing Good & Doing Well”, Europe’s leading student-run conference on responsible business.
Yael Aberdam - Manna Center Food Security Program at TAU
Yael worked has over 12 years of experience managing social and humanitarian projects, in Israel and abroad. Most recently, she worked as a Human Resources Officer in New York, and as a Project Manager Mentor for the organization Medecins Sans Frontieres. She has worked as a project manager in various conflict and post-conflict settings since 2001, in places like Kosovo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Cote d’Ivoire, Burundi and Central African Republic. Yael received an MA in International Humanitarian Assistance from the Université Catholique de Louvain in Belgium; she also holds degrees in International Relations and French literature from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She also worked at the African Refugee Development Center (ARDC) in Tel Aviv. Yael now works as International Outreach Director at the Manna Center Food Security Program at TAU.
Dr Aliza Belman-Inbal - Director of International Development, Senior Pears Fellow, the Harold Hartog School of Government and Policy
Aliza Belman Inbal is Director of the Pears Program for Innovation and International Development at the Hartog School of Government and Policy at TAU. She comes to the school after a lengthy career both with the World Bank and as a career diplomat for the Israeli Foreign Ministry. She is an internationally recognized expert on capacity building in international development contexts. Before coming to the Hartog School, she headed up a team of evaluators at the World Bank in an extensive global study on capacity building in the developing world. She has also published on post-war constitutions and governance and on demand-driven techniques for post-war job creation and has worked as a speech writer for Prime Minister Rabin. Aliza has an MPhil in International Relations from Cambridge University and a PhD in International Development Administration at George Washington University. Her past positions in the Israeli Foreign Ministry include Deputy Chief of Mission at the Israeli embassy in Kinshasa, where she managed Israel's cooperation program (MASHAV) in central Africa; manager of Israel's cooperation program (MASHAV) in Jordan, Egypt and the Palestinian Authority; member of Israel's mission to the European Union, and desk officer for relations with the US Administration.
Boaz Sapir - Hub Tel Aviv
Boaz Sapir is a partner and former CEO at Hub Tel Aviv, a platform that supports very early stage entrepreneurs of double impact start-ups. Prior to Hub Tel Aviv, Boaz worked for 20 years in the Israeli Hi-Tech industry, holding various technological and managerial positions in organizations ranging from start-ups to big multi-nationals.
Adv. Stephen Barak Rozen, of counsel – Amit, Pollak, Matalon & Co. Advocates and Notary
Stephen Barak Rozen is of counsel to APM & Co. Mr. Rozen has extensive experience representing technological incubators, private equity and venture capital funds, and high tech and bio-tech companies in all of their transactions and day-to-day corporate and commercial affairs. These include but are not limited to: international commercial transactions, mergers and acquisitions, licensing arrangements and employment affairs.Mr. Rozen also frequently handles the formation of technological incubators and private equity and venture capital funds.From 2001 to 2006, Mr. Rozen formulated and drafted the military’s position on proposed legislation being considered by the Knesset and government. He is a Major in the reserves.
Curtis Peterson
Curtis Peterson is a consultant in global health and systems design. His work focuses on the operations and design of scalable, community-based health systems. He has a background in grassroots activism, including coalition building and nonviolent communication. Most recently, Curtis worked at the Center on Globalization and Sustainable Development at Columbia University's Earth Institute. Prior to joining the Earth Institute, Curtis worked at Harvard University's François-Xavier Bagnoud Center (the FXB), where he researched the application of quality improvement approaches to prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV/AIDS in Rwanda. In addition, he served as an editor of the FXB's flagship publication, the Health and Human Rights journal.
Lior Yekoutiel - Head of Nokia Developer Relations, Israel
Lior Yekoutieli is heading the Nokia Developer Relations activities in Israel, and an active contributor to the local mobile and tech community. With over 20 years of experience in the hi-tech and the mobile domains, Lior spent most of his career with Comverse, where he held various senior management positions in Israel and abroad. Among other roles, Lior was the Technical Director of Comverse in France, CTO of the Asia-Pacific Division and AVP, head of the Mobile Software department. Before joining Nokia, Lior has been leading technology scouting and business development activities mainly between France and Israel, specializing in advising to large European companies in searching for innovative startups and technologies in Israel. Lior is also a volunteer organizer of Mobile Monday Tel Aviv.
Lior Libman
Lior is a co-founder and president of One Hour Translation, The leading on-line
professional translation service. Established in 2008 One hour Translation provides
translation services in 75 languages to major brands such as Samsung, IBM,
Verbatim, RSA and others.
Lior is a lecturer for entrepreneurship at the Tel Aviv University and a mentor
Prior to One Hour Translation Lior gained his Ph.D. in Neuroscience from the
Hebrew University and an MBA from the Recanati school of business at the Tel Aviv
University
Elad Stav - International Business Development Professional
Elad has more than 12 years’ experience working in Southern African,promoting International Trade, innovative technology transfer andcapital raising for various Israeli companies. He served as aDiplomat- Commercial Attaché at the Israeli Embassy in Pretoria, andlater on worked as Business Development Manager in a multinationalInvestment Banking group active in Africa, developing complexinfrastructure projects.Elad holds a Master’s degree in Law and Business from the HebrewUniversity of Jerusalem (LLM) and Bachelor degree from Tel AvivUniversity (LLB), majoring in International Trade, Commercial Law &International Marketing.
Naftali Moser
Naftali Moser worked with hundreds of Israeli and US technology companies while at BIRD, the Israel-US Binational R&D Foundation.
Naftali has extensive experience working with partners in India, Jordan and Palestine.
Naftali has worked with the World Bank, International Finance Corporation, USAID and the EU to obtain funds for projects and ventures.
Expertise also covers amutot and NGOs, Ministries and universities.
Naftali mentors young entrepreneurs and olim hadashim.
Malvina Goldfeld
Malvina is the Head of Business Development for Africa at PayPal, leading all of PayPal's strategic partnerships, sales and marketing activities in sub-Saharan Africa.
Prior to PayPal, Malvina was a Vice President at Battery Ventures, a global VC fund, focusing on investments in e-commerce and internet applications. She also worked with McKinsey & Company in Israel and Eastern Europe on projects spanning diverse sectors such as finance, chemicals, and the public sector. While completing her MBA at Stanford, Malvina worked with a video technology startup, helped structure an innovation & entrepreneurship program for Eric Schmidt’s Innovation Endeavors VC and spent a summer working at Vietnam Investments Group, a private equity fund in Vietnam.
Malvina received an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a BA from Princeton University in Public and International Affairs with a diploma in Latin American Studies.
She loves foreign languages, and is fluent in English, Hebrew, Russian, Spanish and Portuguese, with good knowledge of Arabic, Japanese and French.
David Levin
David Levin brings a decade of strategy and innovation consulting experience. He has led, co-founded or helped launch ten start-ups in West Africa, East Africa, the Middle East, India and Southeast Asia. David specializes in financial innovation and technology, especially mobile financial services, information and communication technology for development (ICT4D) and emerging market growth strategy. He has served as an independent strategy consultant to leading global corporations, private equity funds, emerging market entrepreneurs and multilateral organizations. Previously, David specialized in mobile banking and financial inclusion as an Engagement Manager for McKinsey & Co. He was a Fulbright Scholar in India building mobile financial services for the rural poor, and worked as a strategist and speechwriter for UN General Secretary Kofi Annan on matters related to the private sector’s contribution to poverty alleviation and human rights fulfillment. David has an MBA from the Wharton School, an M.Phil. in Political Thought and Intellectual History from Cambridge University (where he published award-winning work on the philosophy of human rights and global justice), and a BA/BS (Summa cum laude) from The Wharton School's Huntsman Program at the University of Pennsylvania.
Liat Krawczyk
Liat Krawczyk works at at the Pears Innovation and International Development Program at Tel Aviv University, focusing on entrepreneurship and innovation for international development projects. Among her work, she coordinates the Pears Challenge, a competition-based accelerator which supports social ventures working on innovations for developing country markets in fields such as health, renewable energy, agriculture, water, ICT and education. Liat holds a B.A. in Human Rights and Film and an M.A. in International Development.
