Tag: corporate innovation

Meet your healthcare providers post Covid-19: Greater agility, better infection containment, fast diagnostics & telemedicine

When the coronavirus surfaced in China in December 2019, it set off a domino effect worldwide – with the number of active cases snowballing rapidly.  By February 2020, the daily increase in people falling ill with Covid-19 was in the thousands and -though international borders closed down and households went into lockdown – active cases skyrocketed in June to approximately 130,000 new cases a day, according to Worldometer.  Major global cities from New York, to London, and Mumbai found their healthcare systems direly overwhelmed by the tsunami of symptomatic citizens. Many countries tried to “flatten the curve” of the contagious infection to manage the unprecedented overload on public health systems, and to distribute the demand for medical care, intensive care unit beds, and ventilators over a longer period.  This large-scale global pandemic made healthcare – an industry traditionally slow to adopt innovation because of cumbersome regulatory and governmental pathways, low IT budgets, legacy systems, lack of trained personnel, and more – ripe for disruption. Technology entrepreneurs, unfettered by politics, bureaucracy and public financial constraint, entered the mainstream for the...

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The Future Came Early

Traditionally, corporations that invest in innovation during a crisis outperform peers by up to 30% during recovery, a recent McKinsey report reveals. Ironically, the same report also reveals that current corporate commitment to innovation has been decreasing as CEOs prioritize their core business in the wake of Covid-19. A brief look into the history books reveals another truth: The average life expectancy of corporations on the S&P 500 has been decreasing sharply — from 60 years in the 1950s to less than 20 today. The main reason is tech disruption, or the introduction of a new technology to market that renders all previous products obsolete.  But while tech disruption is nothing new — it’s been with us since the industrial revolution — the pace of technology adoption has increased sharply over the years. It took Americans about 50 years to adopt electricity in their homes, but only 10 to adopt the smartphone.  Then came Covid-19, which has accelerated tech adoption like never before. Amazon is hiring 100,000 new employees to meet record demand for e-commerce. Online grocery shopping has...

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Download ‘Dawn of A New World’: How Pandemic-Related Innovation Will Change Everything

The latest issue of OurCrowd’s Innovation Insider discusses the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on technology, medicine, and entrepreneurship. In this publication we theorize that these recent developments are not only designed to help adapt to life during the pandemic, but are the beginning of a new reality. The issue covers topics such as telehealth, travel, retail, and finance. Download now or get a preview below. “Intensive Care” by Medical Investment Analyst Ariel Krause discusses the long-term changes she anticipates as a result of the adjustments made during the pandemic. This includes increased time-efficiency with medical testing and diagnoses. Krause also anticipates that there will be “greater agility in how hospitals and equipment are structured.” In order to “optimize infection containment and control,” Krause expects hospitals will move away from their curtain separated rooms. In “Have a Biosafe Flight,” Yakir Machluf, Mobility Lead at OurCrowd writes about the changes we can expect regarding air-travel and increases in biosecurity. Machluf notes that it will likely take years for airline industries to reach their 2019 numbers, but with the help of startup companies,...

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How to Navigate Israel’s Evolving Tech World

Israel is home to more than 6,500 innovative tech companies and startups, dozens of public and private innovation players, and over 530 multinational corporations (MNCs) from 35 countries. The institutional know-how is there, as is the entrepreneurial and innovative spirit. The question is, how can MNCs tap into the tech network? The Israeli Innovation Ecosystem Matures Israel has become a global powerhouse for technological innovation for many reasons; world-class R&D capabilities, effective government programs, military support for company building, and an audacious approach to risk-taking have created a unique and fertile ecosystem. The numbers speak for themselves. Israel has the highest concentration of startups (one company for every 1,400 people), the highest percentage of R&D spending per GDP at 4.5%, and the highest level of VC investments per capita at $674. However, breaking down the numbers even further shows just how much the Israeli innovation ecosystem has matured over the past few years. The number of Israeli companies raising between $10M and $20M has more than doubled since 2015, which is a testament to the country’s buzzing venture capital...

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Doing well by doing good: Impact investing & the OurCrowd Impact Fund

The heart of social entrepreneurship is developing ideas that can solve problems and turn a profit. The global impact ecosystem is starting to take shape. Investments can be powerful. When successful, they can benefit both investors and the invested. Money poured into a business that takes off provides job opportunities and helps the economy grow while investors recoup their money and make a profit too. If that is the capital of investing, then why not use it to improve not only the lives of people involved in business, but everybody else as well?  Investment can help solve problems facing communities, regions and the world. Impact investing is a way for investors to use their capital to bring about positive social and/or environmental change, coupled with a financial return – and it is a type of investment that OurCrowd embraces and promotes. With impact investing, we hope to use the power of investing to bring about positive change for many of the issues facing humanity. And given demographic trends, government cutbacks and a greater need than ever for solutions, we...

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