Boarot - Incubating Women's Health Projects
I have heard before that Tel Aviv is one of the four FemTech hubs (the informal list includes New York, Tel Aviv, Paris & Berlin). Upon hearing this statement I've always been a bit surprised and felt that if Tel Aviv is considered to be a hub for women's health, then there is a very long way to go.
Despite my cynical view, there are a lot of great initiatives happening in Israel. Last month I was at an amazing event organized by Keren Briah (led by Sara Tancman) that made me feel that Tel Aviv is truly a women's health hub and setting an example for hubs worldwide. Keren Briah hosted a keystone event for their Boarot women's health incubator. Each year, for the past two years, the incubator has offered 10 teams a grant for a diverse set of projects related to women’s health. Last month the ten teams from the 2019-2020 class prepared a short presentation about their project and came to the event with a problem or question they wanted participants to help them flesh out. Each team sat around a table and led two 1-hour sessions with guests, getting to know them and discussing the team's dilemma. Teams invited a wide range of experts to join them and it served as a great networking event - opening doors for the teams to continue the conversation about their projects with leading women physicians, health officials, therapists and entrepreneurs after the event.
Boarot is an Israeli based incubator, but a European-based accelerator is soon coming to Tel Aviv as well. In April 2020, 50inTech and AXA are planning a Learning Exhibition Week for the 10 selected FemTech companies that will participate in their accelerator. They are looking to help female teams form connections, meet mentors, and build their businesses while promoting gender parity and equality. Similar to Boarot, the accelerator will not take equity from participating teams, but try to help them develop their projects/businesses and promote women's health.
The Boarot event was really energizing and I'm looking forward to seeing more and more events like this one that are connecting and promoting women's health project. It was inspiring to see the expert women taking the time out of their busy schedules to give advice to the teams, kindly offering to make introductions and eager to continue the discussions after the event. Looking forward to hearing about the outcomes of all of this year's projects!