Scientists at Ofek La'Oleh plan their marketing strategy with Michigan delegates (photo by Avi Hirschfield)

Oren Sela, Marketing Director of the Ofek La'Ole technological incubator in Migdal Ha'Emek in the Central Galilee described the MBA program with the Business School at the University of Michigan as a win-win situation. "We save tens of thousands of dollars in making business plans," he said, "and the Michigan students gain invaluable international business experience."

The MBA program began in 1995 following a visit by Prof. Joseph B. White, dean of the University of Michigan's Business School to Migdal Ha'Emek. Since 1996 Prof. Andy Lawlor has supervised a program whereby teams of students come to the incubator each spring to prepare business plans for products being developed at Ofek La'Ole. The incubator enables budding Israeli entrepreneurs, mainly new immigrants, to develop new products in a sheltered business environment where they are offered subsidized logistical support and business advice.

The students spend the month before their visit to Israel investigating the project and then an intensive week in Migdal Ha'Emek examining the proposed product. Then back in Michigan, they are given five weeks to draw up the business plan. In total eight student teams have come to Israel with three or four students in each team. One MBA student, Chuck Hornbrook, returned to Migdal Ha'Emek in the summer to complete his business plan on a project for a new cobalt powder and also began a new project.

  November 1998