Hot desert. Early civilization. Judaism, Islam, Christianity. Conflict.

That really was all I knew of Israel before I had the opportunity of a lifetime. I went for two weeks with the Dean of the Pamplin School of Business and the Vice President for University Relations from the University of Portland[1] this past May as part of a small delegation from the university focused on cultural and business relations. The trip started in Tel Aviv for a bit, included travel throughout Israel (including the West Bank) with our final destination being Jerusalem for a few days.

Prior to the trip, I read Start-Up Nation: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle by Dan Senor and Saul Singer (highly recommend it). It illustrates a fascinating picture of Israel’s economic development by intertwining the history of the young nation, with anecdotes and interviews on how the explosion and success of technology research and development came to be as a result of their turbulent history and their compulsory military service, among other things. (For instance, Israel has more companies listed on the NASDAQ than any other country outside of North America, with about 125 at present!)

I also then read Palestinian Walks: Notes on a Vanishing Landscape by Raja Shehadeh, winner of the 2008 Orwell Prize (also highly recommend it). Shehadeh, a celebrated human rights lawyer and writer who currently lives in Ramallah, writes about his observations of his homeland’s changing landscape, observations made as a result of literal walks he took through Palestine over a period of 25 years.

Though those books provided me just a morsel of the complex nature of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, I left America with an open mind, proficient knowledge of both histories, and enthusiasm to learn more.

I got more than I bargained for. The trip quickly became more than meetings with tech start-ups and visits to famous historical sites. This conflict, only depicted to me via Western news media outlets, came to life. It became a personality that I got to meet first hand, through the perspectives of locals, the West Bank security barrier, the Muslim morning prayer and the Shavuot festivities. This personality, coupled with the phenomenal technological developments of some of the Israeli tech start-ups we met made me realize: innovation is about execution of great ideas, not politics.

What if Israeli and Palestinian entrepreneurs were brought together to collaborate on the one thing they have in common outside of their conflict? Enter Startup Weekend Tel Aviv. One hundred and thirty participants—Israeli and Palestinian—got together recently in July to build new businesses over the course of a weekend at the Peres Peace House in Jaffa, Israel.

Says Amir Harel, the organizer of the event, “[The group is] not taking any political stand, and we are not associated with any political group—we just want to send a message: we can do things different, we can do things better, and it needs to come from the ground up.”[2] The power of Startup Weekend Tel Aviv demonstrates the capability of entrepreneurial collaboration serving as a kind of peace mediator; how do we harness this power and encourage other innovation influencers to take part in this movement? Groups like Jerusalem Venture Partners[3] and their portfolio companies, managing partners of the Middle East Venture Capital Fund[4], the Palestine ICT Incubator[5], social entrepreneurs from PresenTense[6]--what if they broke bread in Startup Weekend or TED-like settings where the topic of conversation is ideas for the future?

It could mean the future, too, for peace.

(Image credit: http://simbiosisgroup.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/1114.jpg)

[2] http://startupweekend.org/2010/07/10/startup-weekend-tel-aviv-brings-people-together/

[3] http://www.jvpvc.com/

[4] http://www.eib.org/projects/pipeline/2009/20090347.htm

[5]http://www.picti.ps/Default.aspx?portalid=1&cpage=~\Default.aspx&tabid=1&tabindex=0&lang=en&mid=0&itemid=0&verno=0&pino=0&pvno=0&pl=en&page=~\Default.aspx

[6] http://presentense.org/