Where Behavior and Brain Intersect

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ness skills they need to commercialize.
Among the companies involved
in the initiative are IBM, KPMG,
Rheinhold Cohn and Manpower.
At StarTau’s initiative 30 students
are presently enrolled in a new TAU
course, Entrepreneurship for Young
People, with leaders in business and
industry serving as guest lecturers.
And how does the university administration
feel about this studentled,
grassroots grab for entrepreneurial
success? Says Prof. Ehud Gazit,
TAU Vice President for Research and
Development: “This club exemplifies
the Tel Aviv entrepreneurial spirit
we’d like to foster on campus and beyond,
and it has the full support of
my office.”
Bee creative
BeehiveTAU, another student entrepreneurship
club on campus, asks
the following question on its website:
“Out of all the creative, innovative
ideas that buzz in your head, how
many have actually become a reality,”
and declares, “Like wildflowers in the
spring, TAU students have millions
of fascinating ideas. The Beehive is
here to help students unleash all the
sweet nectar inside each flower and
turn it into honey and possibly even
money!!!”
Says co-founder Nadav Eylath,
a 27 year-old student in industrial
engineering and management, “We
started the Beehive a year ago with a
pilot group of 35 students from different
degree programs.” From the beginning,
the group members decided
to direct their efforts toward generating
a spirit of entrepreneurship on
campus, and providing students with
Oren Simanian (left) and
Nadav Eylath
practical skills and resources. The
Beehive sponsors lectures and casestudy
presentations by entrepreneurs
and leaders in industry, as well as professional
workshops on intellectual
property law, patents, presentation
of ideas, and the first steps toward
creating a start-up company. They
also promote the national BizTech
innovative idea competition on campus.
Eylath says, “Competing in this
contest helps develop practical skills,
and there’s also the possibility of students
winning prizes of NIS 100,000
(about $27,000) for their initiatives.”
Ultimately, however, the leaders
of BeehiveTAU hope that their major
contribution is instilling courage.
“That’s probably the main thing,”
Eylath says. “A lot of people have ideas
but are too timid to do anything
about them. We want to create a
supportive environment that enables
people to develop courage along with
their new ideas.”
Passionate commitment
Vice President Gazit’s enthusiastic
support of these clubs reflects both
a growing emphasis on student entrepreneurship
at TAU as well as his
own personal passion. “It goes back to
my background. My field is nanotechnology,
and I am an entrepreneur
myself,” Prof. Gazit explains.
“When I became the VP for
Research and Development a little
more than a year ago, I decided that
one of the unique things about Tel
Aviv University is its spirit of innovation,”
he continues. “I really want to
position TAU as a place where creativity
and entrepreneurship are a major
focus – for undergraduate students,
graduate students, faculty members
and administrative staff. I think this
is a central part of Israeli culture, and
something well suited to TAU. This is
something that I would really like to
promote.”
Building on strong
foundations
Various opportunities for entrepreneurship
are already available on
campus. Ramot, TAU’s technology
transfer company, manages all activities
relating to the protection and
commercialization of inventions and
discoveries made by TAU faculty,
students and other researchers. It
provides the TAU community with
a bridging mechanism between innovation
and industry, and follows
through on promising new business
opportunities.
A major initiative of Ramot was
TAU-Tech, begun in 2003. Ramot
raised $8.5 million from private investors
in the US to fund the development
of seven TAU technologies
in varying fields that were not yet