General Consul to Israel speaks on Business and Tech

Dani Dayan, ambassador to Israel from New York, arrived at Lehigh University to discuss his role as being a liaison between the U.S. and Israeli government in business and technological matters.  He started speaking to Lehigh FinTech Group members on how he ended up in Israeli politics. Originally born and raised in Buenos Aires in Argentina, Dayan dreamed of moving to a big city that would be active 24/7. When he was just 15 years old, Dayan and his family moved to Tel Aviv to start a new life. At the time, he was not so impressed with the city as Tel Aviv never used to be very fast paced. Though, as he continued his education in Tel Aviv, the city began to become a hub for business and startup culture.

He discussed that Israelis have a very entrepreneurial mindset, one that gives the Silicon Valley a run for its money as Israel has the most new startups compared to any nation. Dayan talked about an Israeli startup that came up with a self circumcision tool for anyone to use. He joked about how Prime Minister Netanyahu called it “cutting edge technology.” Though, Dayan stated that nearly 80% of them fail within the first few years. He continued to talk about the change that he has seen in Israel, especially in Tel Aviv, where there has been drastic change in the way business is being conducted since he moved there in 1971. Israel seemed to have no resources to make money off of by selling them. However, Israel soon discovered that it has an abundance of natural gas with offshore drilling, which it began selling to other nations.

At the time, most countries hesitated to do business with Israel because of political backlash and uncertainty in the region. However today, Israel has both great political and business relations with major countries in the region including China and India. He talked specifically about India and how the two countries had no relations whatsoever just over a decade ago. Today, India and Israel trade billions of dollars worth of goods. Dayan also discussed the sort of bromance that Prime Minister Netanyahu and Prime Minister Modi have with each other as they were seen taking their shoes off and walking together, hand in hand, into the Mediterranean Sea.

Dayan ended his talk off by giving some advice, saying that we should never take a pin from anyone as it could be some kind of audio and video recording device. He held a 10 minute Q&A session with students who asked questions ranging from how we should support Israeli startups to why he believes Israelis are so entrepreneur like. He ended the session around 4:55. I spoke to Akhil Patil after the event and he said, “It is so interesting to see how such a small and new county was able to progress so well with cutting edge technology and create lasting relations with many major countries.” Lindsay Slavit said, “I was amazed to see that he was a very comical man, making so many jokes all while keeping us engaged and getting his message across about the advancements of Israel.” All in all, it seemed that everyone enjoyed listening to Dayan and what he had to say about the benefits of Israel. This event was sponsored by The Tamid Group, Lehigh Fintech Group, and The Finance Club. 
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