Entrepreneurship Abroad

CCEI supports experiential education and opportunities to see the world from a different perspective. Travel courses present students interested in innovation and entrepreneurship with a chance to visit places where this type of activity thrives and is an embedded part of the culture, and bring lessons back to their own communities.

Program Details

• Open to UConn juniors, seniors, and graduate students
• January 2 - January 12 2018
• Students will enroll in a 3 credit course which will be included on the Spring 2018 class schedule
• 3 pre-departure class meetings during the fall semester. 
• Present at CCEI coordinated event upon return.

Highlights:

• Pre-departure workshops covering business; entrepreneurship; technology; intellectual property; commercialization; history, geography, politics, and government of Israel
• Visits to Israeli universities, including university technology transfer offices.
• Connect with UConn alums living in Israel.
• Hear from Israeli politicians and business leaders at intimate lunch and dinner receptions.
• Visit government offices, large high tech enterprises, venture capital investors, technology accelerators, and academic institutions.
• Visit kibbutz, and learn about how the kibbutz movement lead to many of Israel’s technological innovations.
• Meet leaders of the Israeli startup scene, including leading accelerator programs.
• Visit important cultural and historic sites, float in the Dead Sea, and spend time immersing ourselves in Israel’s culture from the Old City of Jerusalem, to the Mediterranean Sea and the modern city of Tel Aviv

Israel is arguably the most innovative country in the world. Despite its small size, arid climate, challenging boundaries, mandatory military service, and other characteristics:

• Israel has created the most NASDAQ-listed companies outside of the U.S, with more than all of Europe, and all of Brazil, Russia, India, and China, combined.
• Israel is consistently ranked one of the most innovative and entrepreneurial countries in the world. It is ranked #1 in R&D investment, investing 4.5% of its GDP in R&D activities.
• Israel is home to core R&D facilities of many major multinationals including Microsoft, Berkshire-Hathaway, Motorola, Intel, HP, Siemens, Google, Samsung, GE, Philips, Lucent, AOL, Cisco, Applied Materials, IBM and Johnson & Johnson.
• Israel is ranked first in the world for number of technology start-ups per capita.
• Israel is ranked fifth in the world for venture capital availability. In 2008, Israel attracted as much foreign venture capital as France and Germany combined.
• Israel also has a highly developed government programs for funding technological advancements.

All of this in a country with 7 million people that is only 60 years old, and with virtually no natural resources.