Can Entrepreneurial Collaboration Bring Peace in the Middle East?

by Nathaniel Whittemore · 2010-07-07 23:11:00 UTC
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It's hard to follow Middle Eastern politics for very long without becoming frustrated and pessimistic at the seeming intractability of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. Yet for those willing to look a little closer, there are citizens on both sides who refuse to let the conflict define them. The forthcoming Startup Weekend Tel Aviv is Exhibit A in the real life bridge building that can happen far beyond the negotiation table.

Startup Weekends are two or three day get togethers in which hackers, product and marketing people come together to form startup ideas and smash out prototypes. The event was started by current TechStars community manager Andrew Hyde in 2007, and is one of the most beloved institutions in the growing "Lean Startup" movement that focuses on getting products in the hands of users more quickly, and learning how to be mobile, change-oriented companies.

Startup Weekend Tel Aviv started when convener Amir Harel tweeted asking why their wasn't a Startup Weekend in Israel yet. The directors responded and basically said: "How bout you do?" After pulling off their first successful event in Tel Aviv in late 2009, Harel and his co-conveners began to ask how they could use the event to further social change objectives as well.

According to an exclusive interview with the Startup Digest, they thought about a number of approaches before settling on their plan: "We thought about organizing a women’s Startup Weekend and a few other ideas, but since Startup Weekend is such an amazing platform to bridge gaps, we decided to focus on the greatest one — the one between Palestinians and Israelis."

The event will happen between July 14th and July 16th, and will be cosponsored by the Peres Center for Peace, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization working for greater economic, business, and social collaboration between Israelis and Palestinians.

Maybe the most impressive piece of this whole thing for me is that the organizers are actually organizing for 20-30 of the 130 or so participants to be residents of the Palestinian Territories. It's no mean feat of organization to get approval for that sort of challenge. And while it would have been the easy way to just have Israeli-citizen Palestinians, this shows a real commitment to the larger collaborative goals.

Can entrepreneurial collaboration bring peace in the Middle East? Not on it's own. But it's a bold and important step that exposes the undercurrent of hope and conviction among many of the average citizens of both countries. I hope it convinces others to follow in their footsteps.

Follow them on Twitter at @SWIsrael

Photo credit: goldberg

Nathaniel Whittemore is the founder of Assetmap. Previously he was the founding director of the Northwestern University Center for Global Engagement.
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