Itai Matalon,
Co-Founder & CEO
Started building startups a decade ago and doesn’t intend to stop anytime soon. Having studied psychology and being fascinated by people, Itai set a goal to make the startup experience available to all kids before they finish high school.
Zur Feldman,
Founder & Chairman
Holds broad international, executive management and directorship experience. Over 25 years of experience working with high-tech, rapid growth companies and with venture capital firms.
Shani Kedem,
Head of Community
Young & sharp, Shani is leading a fast growing international community of teen startup founders. Making sure that these young founders are getting tons of value from the UpNext community & platform
Tamir Scherzer,
CTO
Tamir is an X 8200 tech pro.
With numerous startups under his belt and hundreds of products he built for customers worldwide he is a tech guru and an inspiring source of knowledge.
Maor Pollyack,
Head of social media & content creation
Representing the entrepreneurial & Fast moving GenZers, Maor is running the largest and fastest growing TikTok channel about entrepreneurship in Israel.
Yael Rechter,
Head of Partners Program
Yale and Pratt graduate with vast experience in the visual arts. Interested in fostering innovation and creativity in education
Richard Rubenstein,
Head of Mentoring Program
Richie has been building startups since 2001 with some of his most successful ones still going today. Over the years, he has watched the startup community grow and learned many strategies, especially in growth hacking.
Cecile Blilious
Cecile is the Head of Impact and Sustainability at Pitango Venture Capital.
She is also the Founder and Managing Partner at Impact First Investments.
Cecile specializes in merging technology, profit and social impact, and is considered a pioneer of the impact industry in Israel as well as a thought leader of the impact industry worldwide.
Prior to founding Impact First, Cecile managed the Noaber Foundation’s Israeli investments for over 14 years and has extensive hands-on management experience with high-tech start-ups. Additionally, Cecile held executive positions and led several companies as a CEO and, on behalf of the Noaber Foundation, served as a chairperson and board member on many more. Cecile was one of the initiators of the Al-Bawader private equity fund, established to invest in businesses in the Arab community in Israel. Cecile volunteers as a mentor at the Keren Shemesh Foundation for the Encouragement of Young Entrepreneurs. Cecile is a board member and observer of Impact First’s portfolio companies. Prior to beginning her professional career, Cecile served as an intelligence officer in the Israel Defense Forces. Cecile is also an alumnus of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem where she studied political science and international relations.
Bruria Sela
A leading School manager and educator in Israel. She led “Ramot Yam”- an innovative experimentalhigh school for over 20 years. Winner of multiple educational prizes.
Professor Uri Weiser
Uri Weiser is a Professor emeritus at the Electrical Engineering department, the Technion IIT and is in the actively involved in numerous startups.
He received the bachelor and master degrees in Electrical Engineering from the Technion and Ph.D in CS from the University of Utah, Salt Lake City.
Professor Weiser worked at Intel from 1988 till 2007. At Intel, Weiser initiated the definition of the first Pentium® processor, drove the definition of Intel's MMX™ technology, invented the Trace Cache, co-managed the a new Intel Microprocessor Design Center at Austin, Texas and formed an Advanced Media applications research activity.
Professor Weiser was appointed to Intel Fellow in 1996, in 2002 he became an IEEE Fellow and in 2005 an ACM Fellow. In 2016 Professor Weiser received the IEEE/ACM Eckert-Mauchly Award for “leadership, as well as pioneering industry and academic work in high performance processors and multimedia architectures”. The Eckert-Mauchly award is known as the computer architecture community’s most prestigious award.
Prior to his career at Intel, Professor Weiser worked for the Israeli Department of Defense as a research and system engineer and later with National Semiconductor Design Center in Israel, where he led the design of the NS32532 microprocessor.
Professor Weiser was an Associate Editor of IEEEMicro Magazine and was Associate Editor of Computer Architecture Letters.