About - Start Up North
The Idea
Start Up North (SUN) is an innovation growth engine that drives a vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystem in the Galilee. SUN is committed to creating new ventures and employment opportunities in the Galilee region by leveraging existing human potential capabilities as well as attracting new population through growing an innovation driven entrepreneurial community.
SUN was established to actively organize the entrepreneurial potential, creativity, experience and knowledge that exists in the northern periphery and provide intensive coaching, mentorship, education, and guidance from the earliest idea stage to commercialization of a valid business initiative. SUN will serve as a high quality platform to nurture and launch new businesses, both independently and in tandem with existing enterprises seeking to expand their innovation capabilities through an Open Innovation framework.
The Galilee’s Unique Challenges
The Galilee is a mosaic of heterogeneous populations including Jewish, Arab, Druze, secular, and religious, living in few cities and a lot of small communities. In general, this region lacks an entrepreneurial scene and experience. Commercial activity is localized very small scale, and there is a dearth of innovative technology companies. A lot of strong technical and business people are having a long work office commute to central Israel or Haifa. The region is missing an active, energized, holistically designed framework that can enable innovation to flourish and an entrepreneurial community to thrive.
A Unique Program
SUN is on-going building a community of likeminded entrepreneurs, including "meetups" contributing to connecting people while providing entrepreneurial inspiration and enrichment. In addition, SUN has established a framework based on a unique process that evolves an idea from the earliest general idea concept stage to market stage, divided into three parts:
Together, these stages offer an end to end holistic framework for driving high potential innovation while each stage can also serve as a standalone unit that provides value and answers the needs wherever an entrepreneur may be on the entrepreneurship life cycle curve.
Initiation Hub The Initiation Hub is a framework that enables potential entrepreneurs, including those who formulated only a raw idea or, haven't formed a team yet or maybe just want to join someone with a raw idea, to explore, experiment, and experience very early stage development and innovation in action. This framework provides an intensive hands-on curriculum designed to enable the participants to acquire the tools, know-how and experience to develop an idea from concept to initial validation, while working on their own creative ideas and keeping their day job on the same time. This pre-accelerator hub will be a place where people of all ages, background, gender, and professional orientation can share, support, and cultivate new innovation together.
Participants will create teams and make progress through interactions with each other and mentors, lectures, workshops, and their own research. Another source for creative ideas is an Open Innovation track. Local companies seeking to expand their innovative capacity can partner with SUN to sponsor a team that will address a need provided by the company, intended for its industry. This is a win-win situation for all.
Acceleration This stage is modeled after the accelerator mode of innovation development and customized to the Galilee region’s specific characteristics. The SUN accelerator will serve as a framework for entrepreneurs who have already established a team and an initial business model validation. The purpose of the accelerator is to provide an environment that enables further validation, including early customers, and getting early stage funding when relevant.
Unlike the vast majority of accelerators, SUN is technology and industry agnostic. The initiative does not even have to be technology based as long as it's innovative and will drive regional job opportunities in the fields of high-tech, commerce or industry. SUN is not focused on micro ventures such as freelance businesses, bed & breakfast, and small home based businesses.
The SUN accelerator will provide access to mentors, both local and external to this region, various industry networks, subject matter experts, potential investors, and strategic partners.
Commercialization The commercialization phase of the program serves as the launch pad into the market. This stage reflects our philosophy of nurturing a new venture from seedling to fruit-bearing tree. The SUN commercialization center provides high quality business tools and resources to enable fledgling companies to acquire customers or partners and become established in the market.
Initiation Hub The Initiation Hub is a framework that enables potential entrepreneurs, including those who formulated only a raw idea or, haven't formed a team yet or maybe just want to join someone with a raw idea, to explore, experiment, and experience very early stage development and innovation in action. This framework provides an intensive hands-on curriculum designed to enable the participants to acquire the tools, know-how and experience to develop an idea from concept to initial validation, while working on their own creative ideas and keeping their day job on the same time. This pre-accelerator hub will be a place where people of all ages, background, gender, and professional orientation can share, support, and cultivate new innovation together.
Participants will create teams and make progress through interactions with each other and mentors, lectures, workshops, and their own research. Another source for creative ideas is an Open Innovation track. Local companies seeking to expand their innovative capacity can partner with SUN to sponsor a team that will address a need provided by the company, intended for its industry. This is a win-win situation for all.
Acceleration This stage is modeled after the accelerator mode of innovation development and customized to the Galilee region’s specific characteristics. The SUN accelerator will serve as a framework for entrepreneurs who have already established a team and an initial business model validation. The purpose of the accelerator is to provide an environment that enables further validation, including early customers, and getting early stage funding when relevant.
Unlike the vast majority of accelerators, SUN is technology and industry agnostic. The initiative does not even have to be technology based as long as it's innovative and will drive regional job opportunities in the fields of high-tech, commerce or industry. SUN is not focused on micro ventures such as freelance businesses, bed & breakfast, and small home based businesses.
The SUN accelerator will provide access to mentors, both local and external to this region, various industry networks, subject matter experts, potential investors, and strategic partners.
Commercialization The commercialization phase of the program serves as the launch pad into the market. This stage reflects our philosophy of nurturing a new venture from seedling to fruit-bearing tree. The SUN commercialization center provides high quality business tools and resources to enable fledgling companies to acquire customers or partners and become established in the market.