From Waterloo, Toronto to Tel Aviv and Beyond: 3 Weeks of Experiences and Studies in Canada and Israel

As I end my journey with 5 other Israelis and a group of 14 Canadian students, I look back on a fun and meaningful experience at Wilfried Laurier University and  Reichman University. I’d like to introduce you to the Entrepreneurship 3-week delegation and exchange in Canada and Israel. The exchange’s purpose was to build a network between the Canadians and Israelis in the entrepreneurship field, introduce the Canadians to the Startup Nation, and learn about the entrepreneurship ecosystem in Canada.

We landed in Waterloo where our Canadian students are studying, a quiet college town, unexpectedly a very important location to the startup hub in Canada. On our first day, we had time to settle in until the Canadians arrived the next day at the student apartments we all were staying at for the next few days.

During the first few days at Waterloo, we got to know each other as we dived straight into group work, learned about Waterloo being the hub for startups, and discussed Blackberry, which I learned started in Canada. We had group discussions about Blackberry and hopped on a Zoom meeting with Neelam Sandhu, Chief Elite Customer Officer, Chief Marketing Officer, and Head of Sustainability at Blackberry, to ask her questions. We also watched the movie about Blackberry which gave us a good background of the company from a startup to their pivot to IoT. 

On our last day in Waterloo, we visited various startups, companies, and programs that are backed by the government to support entrepreneurs such as SDG Idea Factory, Vidyard, Lazaridis Institute, and Accelerator Center. We learned a lot about how greatly the Canadian government supports entrepreneurs, I did not know it was to this extent! In Toronto, we also visited LedN and toured the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO)  and Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) climate change tour.

The next day we were off to Toronto, we went to visit the Schwartz Reisman Foundation where we had a no-questions-off-the-table dialogue between us the Israelis, and the Canadians. This was an important conversation to have with the Canadians to clear up any misconceptions they had about Israel and Israelis before our arrival to Israel and also it sparked conversations later on in Toronto as well as in Israel so that they can learn about our perspectives and culture.

Every day after lectures or planned activities, we had plenty of free time to spend exploring the area, playing at an arcade, visiting museums, going to restaurants, bars, local parties, shopping, or attending special events such as the Canadian National Exhibition (CNE), a fair, which happened to take place in the few weeks that we were there. What perfect timing!

The CNE will be a core memory for our group as it started pouring outside while we were there by the end of it we were all drenched but it created a fun bonding experience. Another core memory in Toronto would be the Blue Jays game. This was most of the Israelis' first time watching a baseball game and the Canadians taught them the game's rules while we were watching the game. What stood out to me was the graphics and music, they put a lot of thought into it to pull everything together, and was a great addition to the experience. It was also a great activity to end with before our flight to Tel Aviv the next day.

As soon as we landed in Israel, we were headed to a short tour of Jaffa and then off to our first Middle Eastern lunch with the Canadians, they really enjoyed the food and so did we :) It was their first taste of Israel. The next 2 days we visited HESEG, Shuk HaCaramel, the Canadian Embassy, and our first visit to Reichman University with the Canadians.

Then for a nice change of scenery, we headed off to Kfar Hanokdim, a Bedouin hospitality site. We slept in Bedouin-style tents learned about Bedouin culture, ate tasty food, and watched the amazing clear sunsets, and went star gazing. I have never seen such a clear sun and moon, truly the best views I have ever seen so far. We had a full day of activities before sleeping at Kfar Hanokdim. We visited the Dead Sea where we all covered ourselves in the mineral-rich mud then, we had lunch and hiked Masada and had our dinner at Kfar Hanokdim.

The next 2 days we spent in Jerusalem. We visited the Old City, Mount of Olives, the Western Wall, and Mahane Yehuda, had a powerful and meaningful tour of Yad Vashem, and a dinner with Rabbi Josh, who immigrated to Israel from Canada.

On our final days of the trip, we visited AppsFlyer, which deals with the analysis of marketing data of companies. We had a discussion with Eddie Nudel, VP of Business Strategy, and also with Ben Levy, CEO and Co-founder of  Localbird, a travel concierge, the first startup to receive an investment from RUNI Ventures.

During our free time in Israel, we spent a lot of it on the Tel Aviv beaches or in nature, restaurants, bars, shopping, at the Markets - we even taught the Canadians Backgammon at Shuk Machane Yehuda, picnicked at a park, and socialized on the rooftops of the hotels in which brought our group closer together.

To end, we concluded that Canadians live up to their reputation of being friendly :) I realized how similar and different Canadians are from Americans like me. It was interesting to compare both my American and Israeli identity to the Canadians and see many differences and similarities in approaches to various things in business and otherwise.

We are grateful to the Gerald Schwartz & Heather Reisman Foundation for providing participation scholarships to all members of the delegation, as well as for creating a space to bring Israel and Canada together.

I would like to thank Dr. Yossi Maaravi and Mrs. Sharon Zahavi for managing and executing the program. Special thanks to Mrs. Paquita Friere and Dr. Tali Ramon for being our instructors from both the Canadian and Israeli sides, the program would not have looked the same without both of you! Lastly, I would like to extend special thanks to Mr. Ofir Richman, Mr. Isaac Santi, and Ms. Emma Twells for joining us throughout the program and assisting us as needed.