Turning Knowledge, Technology, and Experience into Ventures
What makes expertise investable?
Not just a great idea. Not just breakthrough technology. And not even years of research.
The real challenge is turning expertise into solutions that address meaningful problems, create value, and have the potential to become sustainable ventures.
This question was at the heart of HIL’s Downtown Meetup, co-hosted with the BizTEC Entrepreneurship Program at the Technion, bringing together more than 70 founders, researchers, investors, industry professionals, and innovation leaders for an evening exploring the journey from expertise to entrepreneurship.
Three Founders. Three Journeys.
The evening featured three founders whose entrepreneurial journeys began from very different forms of expertise:
Gal Shaul, Augury : shared insights on building technology-driven ventures and the importance of understanding customer pain points to achieve meaningful product-market fit.
Moran Gendelman, NextFerm & Rosalind Bioculture: explored the transition from scientific research to entrepreneurship and the mindset required to transform discoveries into real-world products.
Hasan Abasi, HAAT Delivery: demonstrated how entrepreneurial opportunities can emerge from deeply understanding people, identifying overlooked problems, and building solutions around genuine needs.
Moderated by Doron Fahima, the conversation explored innovation, customer discovery, and what it takes to turn expertise into a company.
From Conversation to Connection
The evening continued with intimate roundtable discussions, giving participants the opportunity to engage directly with the founders, exchange experiences, ask questions, and explore new perspectives.
This is at the heart of the HIL community: bringing together people from across academia, entrepreneurship, investment, and industry to create meaningful connections and opportunities for collaboration.
Special thanks to Tiltan School of Design & Visual Communication for hosting us on its rooftop, and to the HIL team for making the evening possible.
Innovation doesn’t happen in isolation.
It happens when the right people come together around the right conversations.
