“As human beings, some of our behaviors will evolve. The first thing that’s evolving is how do we [and the health care system] approach our health care.”
Dr. Yossi Bahagon is a family physician and serial entrepreneur who founded and managed the digital health division at Clalit Health Services – the second largest health maintenance organization in the world. Dr. Bahagon is a founding managing partner at OurCrowd, a global venture investment platform.
The pandemic will inevitably force human behavior to evolve in many ways. This is especially true for our approach to health care and its delivery. Israel has been an early adopter of health care digitalization and telehealth. Clalit Health Services was created over ten years ago and allows 100% of Israel’s population to access one’s own health information through a phone or computer. Empowerment through digital access creates a more collaborative relationship between patient and doctor, a dynamic termed participatory health. “Participatory health is about how do you make the patient a true partner in his or her own health care… this is what the digital health revolution is all about.”
This digital health foundation in Israel has been central to its successful vaccination efforts. Citizens have become familiar with the digitalization of their health care which has made communication and delivery of vaccines into patient arms more seamless. “Within a month and a half, 45% of the Israeli population is already vaccinated. If things continue at this pace, in a month or two, we will gain herd immunity.”
LISTEN AND SUBSCRIBE
SPEAKER
Dr. Yossi Bahagon
Founder & Manager
Clalit Health Services' Digital Health Division
MODERATOR
Anthony Scaramucci
Founder & Managing Partner
SkyBridge
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
John Darsie: (00:12)
Hello everyone. And welcome back to SALT Talks. My name is John Darsie. I'm the Managing Director of SALT, which is a global thought leadership forum and networking platform at the intersection of finance, technology and public policy. SALT Talks are a digital interview series with leading investors, creators, and thinkers. And our goal on these SALT Talks is the same as our goal at our SALT Conferences, which is to provide a window into the mind of subject matter experts, as well as provide a platform for what we think are big ideas that are shaping the future.
John Darsie: (00:44)
And we're very excited today to welcome you to the latest episode of SALT Talks that we're doing in partnership with OurCrowd, which is an Israeli-based crowdfunding platform. And today's episode is going to focus on the miracle of the Israeli rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine, something that we could definitely learn a lot from here in the United States, as in various parts of the countries, we're achieving success and in some cases not achieving success in rolling out the vaccine in a efficient way.
John Darsie: (01:13)
But our guests today on this SALT Talks episode is Dr. Yossi Bahagon. Dr. Bahagon is a clinically active family physician, a serial entrepreneur, and a global key opinion leader in the field of digital health. Dr. Bahagon founded and managed Clalit Health Services Digital Health Division. CHS is the second largest health maintenance organization in the world. CHS's digital activity led the digital transformation of the Israeli healthcare system and became a global benchmark for nationwide digital health deployments. It serves today millions of patients in tens of millions of interactions monthly, and they were definitely ahead of the curve in what is now a mega trend in terms of telemedicine. Dr. Bahagon has also been a founding team member of several successful digital health companies and co-founded Qure Ventures, Israel's first digital health focused investment fund. Dr. Bahagon serves as the special advisor for the World Health Organization, as well as an advisory board member of Best Buy Health and Almirall Pharmaceuticals and a mentor at Microsoft's Think Next Accelerator and Biocat's Digital Health Accelerator.
John Darsie: (02:28)
And hosting today's talk is David Suisa. David is the Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of the Los Angeles Jewish Journal, the largest Jewish weekly in the country, Los Angeles being one of those locations I was referring to earlier that could learn a lot from Israel's vaccine rollout. For the past 13 years, David has been writing a weekly column in the Journal that earned him the Best Columnist Award by the LA Press Club and First Prize for Editorial Writing by the American Jewish Press Association. Prior to journalism, David was a founder and CEO of Suisa Miller Advertising, a marketing firm that was named Agency of the Year by USA Today. In 2005, he sold that company so he could dedicate himself full time to the Jewish world and we're very excited that David is joining us as a first time moderator here on SALT Talks. And with no further ado, I'm going to turn it over to David to conduct today's interview.
David Suisa: (03:22)
Thank you, John. Thank you to SALT Talks and to OurCrowd. I have a special fascination with our subject today. For one thing, every time I go to a doctor's office, I still have to fill out all the forms on real paper with an old pen. And all I see is hundreds and hundreds of old paper files. And I always ask myself, when are we going to enter the digital age here in America? But then at the same time, recently, I have a sensor on my skin that has really changed my life, because it helps me measure my glucose. So I've tasted both worlds, and I'm delighted to be able to talk about this subject with Yossi today.
David Suisa: (04:07)
So I'd like to start, Yossi, with something you wrote 10 years ago in a medical journal that caught my attention. And let me quote from what you wrote. "In the upcoming decade, digital platforms will be the backbone of a strategic revolution in the way medical services are provided, affecting both healthcare providers and patients. Digital-based patient centered healthcare services allow patients to actively participate in managing their own care in times of health, as well as illness, using personally tailored interactive tools." That sounds like a wonderful world, Yossi. When you think back of what you wrote 10 years ago, how does it look today?
Yossi Bahagon: (04:52)
So first thank you, John. And thank you, David and OurCrowd for connecting the dots here on this SALT Talk. Hearing what you are quoting me, I probably should read back what I wrote a few years ago. Maybe I will know how to read the future better. So definitely we are speaking over Zoom in a world that half of it is under lockdown. And unfortunately that COVID led to the revolution that we are experiencing today in remote care services.
Yossi Bahagon: (05:35)
But actually this came true faster than I imagined. It's just a year, a year and a half ago, people, as you described, every time had to go to the physician's office for every routine check, for every child check, for an ear pain and so on. Things have dramatically changed these days and accelerated and COVID which accelerated this change. We see a world that is actually going today through what you just read. And I believe that what we are seeing now is just the tip of the iceberg, meaning COVID is going to stay with us, whether we like it or not, even with the vaccinations, which we will speak about later on, it's going to stay with us for the months. And maybe even for the two, three years to come, if everything will go right.
Yossi Bahagon: (06:40)
And some of our behaviors as human beings will evolve and started evolving during this period. And since it's a healthcare crisis, the first thing that is evolving is how do we approach our health care and how does the healthcare system approach healthcare? So exactly that, how healthcare is delivered and how healthcare is perceived.
Yossi Bahagon: (07:13)
I think the main thing that I pointed out back then, and I can still reiterate it today is what I like to call participatory health. Participatory health is how do you make the patient a true partner in his or her own healthcare? So the technology aims that we will speak about later on, we need to remember that they are only means for this objective of making the patient a true partner, just like you hinted with regards to your continuous glucose monitoring that is attached to your arm, which gave you the power to know where your glucose stands with a glimpse of an iPhone or a smartphone that you get nearby the sensor. So this is exactly what the digital revolution is all about.
David Suisa: (08:20)
You know what I find also fascinating is that there is an acronystic system that seems very, very difficult to change, which is a human being entering a doctor's office. And that's something that's been with us for hundreds of years. And I still feel that it's like granite. It's like an old school. The doctor expects it, the patient expects it. I go into an office and I see a doctor in person. And what I've noticed is that we've been forced to change that during the pandemic, because we had no choice. So now we're entering telemedicine, whether we like it or not. And I'd like to discuss now the situation in Israel, because it seems to me that you were better prepared for the pandemic and for the spread of the vaccine, especially than other countries. And you personally, Yossi, you were involved with creating a digital health system in Israel through Clalit, correct? Could you spend a few minutes discussing how you helped create this digital health system and how it helped you when the vaccine finally came, helped spread the vaccine so quickly?
Yossi Bahagon: (09:45)
Sure. Happy to, thank you, David, for the question. I don't know if you and the audience know that, but for more than 10 years now in Israel, 100% of the population, 100% of the population have access to their personal health record. Meaning I can with one tap, go into my smartphone and enter my personal health record. And not only I can see all my data there, meaning diseases, medications, hypersensitivities, my last x-ray, my last lab test and so on, everything. I can also act upon it in various ways. So having telemedicine sessions, ordering my chronic prescriptions, all the data is analyzed at the background so to enable personalized medicine. So for example, the system crunches the data in order to find a woman who have a higher risk for developing breast cancer and send them proactively notifications for doing preventative medicine in order to find it in early stage.
Yossi Bahagon: (11:10)
If you ask me why am I personally attracted to this field beyond the cool stuff and technology, which will... It's about the ability to change people's life in the masses. When I was a physician in a clinic, I had 1,000 patients that were under my responsibility. When we established the Digital Health Division at Clalit, as John said, it's the second largest health organization in the world after Kaiser. Now, and this is what I told my team, it's not about technology. It's about the human experience that you create. And it's about touching the lives of millions of peoples through this digital platforms and changing their lives. We can point out to this specific woman that because of the system that we built, we saved their lives from a deadly breast cancer. And similarly with regards to men, that we saved their lives from a myocardial infection from a heart attack.So it's not numbers and digital. It's people's lives and people's experience.
Yossi Bahagon: (12:32)
From this platform, again, I'm speaking 10 years before COVID. When we started it, I told people telemedicine, they asked me, "Tele who?" So today, obviously everybody knows what telemedicine is, but this platform was the foundation of the great success that we are experiencing this days and in the vaccination rollout. We are moving from a startup nation to a vaccination. So I can describe you my experience. I got the text message inviting me with the date and place and with a QR code, got there five minutes before time, the gate opened based on me presenting the QR code. 10 minutes later, I was out. A day after, I got a text message for my second vaccine booking, together with an electronical form there to fill if I had any adverse effects. This system is built on what we built, what we are building for the last 10, 15 years in which enables now that's 45, within a month and a half, 45% of the Israeli population is already vaccinated.
Yossi Bahagon: (14:01)
And if things will move forward in this space, in a month to two months, we will get in what is supposed to be the herd immunity. And we are already starting to see the numbers go down and we are already starting to see that the economy's opening. And this is because again, yes, you can call it digital health, but it's essentially, now digital life.
David Suisa: (14:31)
What I'm hearing from you is that the digital technology is encouraging a model of cooperation between the doctors, the providers, and the patients. Now here in America, I've seen something different. When people encourage patients to take ownership of their health, they tell you to do your homework on Google, find out and almost interrogate your doctor. Ask questions, and also look for second opinions. From the doctor's standpoint, he pays huge malpractice insurance. So he needs to protect himself against malpractice. There's almost, I don't want to exaggerate the point, almost a confrontational thing where so many of us, first of all, are taught to really trust the doctor completely or interrogate them. What I'm sensing hearing you speak now is a completely different model, where the doctor sees the patient in a kind of a partnership model, where the technology encourages partnership.
David Suisa: (15:41)
And it's amazing, because I've been living this partnership for only two weeks now because of my Libra Sensor, and I emailed back and forth now with my doctor. So this is the first time in my life I'm actually living through this and I see it as a real game changer, but it's happening because I have the kind of doctor who is willing to work with me as a partner. So is this what we're hoping for, for the future of healthcare around the world, to create a model of partnership that may even be introduced in medical schools as the model to strive for? And hence technology can be a facilitator of that new, more productive model.
Yossi Bahagon: (16:26)
You describe it in a beautiful way, and I can only fully agree. Maybe I will give one example to anchor to what you just said. So what we are seeing today is that the digital platforms are entering the traditional healthcare world and they are providing the physician and the patient better tools to provide better and more personalized medicine. This is supposed to create a situation where the physician, instead of focusing on crunching the data and collecting the data himself, will be able to go back to the traditional model of the interaction between the patient and the physician, meaning humanity. Because this is something, that at least for the foreseeable future, digital platforms are not supposed to do. So, for example, if you just ate lunch and your blood glucose is above the target, you will get the message, "Hey, David, your glucose levels is 183. If you would walk now for seven minutes, based on your past logs, you will bring your glucose levels back to target." So it's combining advanced data science with behavioral science and user experience in order to improve your clinical outcomes.
David Suisa: (18:05)
Yossi, I want to get more personal if you don't mind. You are a doctor who is now the managing partner of OurCrowd Qure. I'm interested in how you've added the investment side to your life. What made you think of adding this component to your life? And tell us a little bit more about OurCrowd Qure.
Yossi Bahagon: (18:34)
Yeah, so it's a good personal question. My grandmother, when people asked her, "Your grandchild is a physician, what exactly does he do?" And she didn't know to tell, "He's an expert in medical infomatics." She didn't know how to explain it. So she said, "Oh he's some kind of physician of computers."
David Suisa: (19:05)
Sounds like my mother.
Yossi Bahagon: (19:09)
There is the personal things that you are attracted to. So I was attracted by technology, but at some point I saw early on that this could change so many people's lives. Usually when people ask me about my background, I say, "This is digital [inaudible 00:19:27] is not what I do for a living. It's my life's mission. It's my passion. It's my way to bring back good to the world." That I'm saying it though, it's very, very personal. I'm saying it here because I feel it's genuine enough to put it on the table.
Yossi Bahagon: (19:48)
I want to tell you a story about one of the things that led me to where I am today. So I was sitting there one Friday in my clinic, and I got a call from a patient of mine. She was back then in a small island in Thailand called Ko Phi Phi. I remember it because you will understand in a second. And she told me that her son, a four-years-old son is suffering from fever and is coughing for the last three days. And can I help her because it was an island without any communication and so on. And I told her I opened, I think it was Skype back then, and I looked at the child and I said to her, "Rachel, I really want to help you, but I can't. Why? Because you are there and I am here. And I can't listen to the child's lungs and diagnose whether he has pneumonia and you needs some antibiotics and so on."
Yossi Bahagon: (20:52)
After this call, I gave a call to two entrepreneurs that I knew, and I asked them, "Listen, can we build a solution that will enable me to send a long hand from Israel to Thailand, and not only see my patients, the way we talk to each other now, but also check them up as if they were now entering my clinic." Seven years later, there is this Israeli company called Tyto, which is now used by tens of thousands of families in Europe, in US, in Israel, which enables exactly that, to enable not only remote visits via video, but to enable actually remote examination as if you were entering the physician clinics.
Yossi Bahagon: (21:52)
Now these are the type of experiences that you say, "Hey, it's not about the funding. It's not about the return." These are, I don't want to say side effects. It's not. Good business usually leads also to good execution, but the motivation lies in the doing good. And the investment side is an enabler.
David Suisa: (22:19)
I'll tell you another thing, Yossi, that fascinates me. When we talk technology here in America in terms of healthcare, we often talk about the kind of technology that has made healthcare exorbitant, that had made the costs skyrocket. For example, new surgery techniques, new big machines, and new technologies that a lot of times doctors feel they got to use. Sometimes they overuse any, and it skyrockets healthcare costs in America. And what I'm hearing from you is a different type of technology, the type of technology that actually makes healthcare not just more human and more cooperative, but also more efficient and cost effective.
Yossi Bahagon: (23:09)
Definitely.
David Suisa: (23:10)
So when you consider, because you're always exposed to these kinds of new innovative technologies as the leader of this OurCrowd Qure, do you make a distinction between those two categories?
Yossi Bahagon: (23:25)
So definitely. And this is also an opportunity to say a bit more about Qure. So Qure, as John described at the beginning, is the first fund in Israel that was purely dedicated to digital health and we've so far invested in 12 companies in different areas, in genomics, in telemedicine, in preventative care and so on. And the criteria that you just expressed, meaning it the fact that it's a cool tech is by far not being enough. And we put a rule. It was one of the things that when we started investing was in front of our eyes. If it makes medicine more expensive, it's not for us, because the hurdle is how to gain better care, with better partnership from the patient and to reduce the costs, because the costs are already going through the roof, especially if, you mentioned the US and it's about, I believe today, 20% of the US GDP. So indeed this was one of the criteria of how do we take the costs down? And it's an important criteria.
David Suisa: (24:51)
Now another thing I've noticed with technology is sometimes you just have really, really cool gadgets and the new generation, they're used to having cool gadgets, new apps and new social media. Everybody's on Clubhouse now. And I'll give you an example. All right, gadget happy. I go for walks every day. And my sister in Montreal also goes for walks. And my mother is getting on my case because my sister counts all her steps through her iWatch, right? And my mother bugs me every day. "Why aren't you doing what Judy's doing? Count your steps. She does 10,000 a day." And I'm saying, "Mother, I'm not the gadget type of guy." Right. I go for an hour walk, whether it's going to be 8,000 steps or 11,000, it doesn't make a big difference for me. I'm not gadget happy. However, the Libra is unbelievably useful and game-changing. So I'm wondering if that's also one of your criteria, that you stay away from stuff that may look too cool. And does that come up in your [crosstalk 00:26:04]?
Yossi Bahagon: (26:04)
Actually it comes up, it comes up a lot. We were in a discussion with the large global pharma company just a few days ago. And they asked exactly the same question. This is a very good point that you bring. Many times, the people that suffer from chronic diseases are not the ones that go to jog three times a week at the Central Park. On the contrary, they are are the ones that are less tech savvy. There are the ones that you need to motivate in order to encourage them to do work. They are the ones that are standing in front of Apple Stores all the night to get the latest version of Apple. And, you know, guess what? This is 80% of the chronic patients, the type of people that I just described.
Yossi Bahagon: (27:01)
We have a very strong collaboration with Johns Hopkins, with regards to doing clinical trials with these digital health solutions. So one very important point to emphasize is that digital health is more health than digital. Meaning if you want to bring solution, you need to verify that it brings results. And the only way to verify it brings results is to create this evidence together with leading organizations like Hopkins, as an example. And in choosing the population that will come into these clinical trials, you need to choose not only the young ones or the tech savvy. On the contrary, you need to see how it affects the average Joe was is 75-years-old, who is low to medium socioeconomic state and so on in order, indeed, to make sure that you point and you target to the masses. This is where the change will come from.
David Suisa: (28:11)
I saw an interview with Steve Jobs years ago, and I never understood why he started crying. It was after the iPad came out and he said of everything he did in his life, that was the one thing that touched him the most deeply. And I never really understood that. And then I went into a place that was for crippled children, and I saw how they were using iPads to discover color and sounds. And then 10 years later, I saw my mother, who never used a computer in her life. Finally press a finger on an iPad to see videos of her grandchild in Israel. And I understood. The reason he cried that day is because he understood that that was the ultimate product for the masses, because all he was asking was something that was true millions of years ago, which is the ability to just touch.
Yossi Bahagon: (29:06)
Exactly.
David Suisa: (29:07)
The ability to touch. And what you bring up is such an interesting point. If 80% of the people that are severely ill don't have that high tech capability, then those kinds of innovation now are going to have to have that high-touch component. Can you give us a few examples, Yossi of some of the innovation that is happening right now under OurCrowd Qure that you're excited about?
Yossi Bahagon: (29:34)
Yeah, for sure. So I gave already two examples of Tyto, the remote physical examination solution and of Sweetch, which is an AI-based solution for chronic disease prevention and management. Zebra, who is the company, if we started our discussion from the data that was accumulated in Israel during the last 15 years, so Zebra collected tens of millions of images from different healthcare providers in Israel, and based on creating this smart algorithms, the company, the system now knows how to diagnose in a very precise way, a variety of health conditions. If we want to connect it to COVID, so we know, one example is, when a patient enters the ER and the staff takes a chest x-ray, based on this chest x-ray, Zebra is able to predict which patients will be prone to a more severe disease, so they need more medical attention and which can be just with a watchful waiting.
Yossi Bahagon: (31:04)
Again, when you combined large data sets with advanced data science in order to improve clinical outcomes, and likewise Side Diagnostics, Side Diagnostics is clinic-based lab, which can use one drop of your blood to get a full, a complete blood count reading based on a technology that uses higher again, advanced data science together with advanced imaging solutions. And you can get in 60 seconds exactly whether you suffer from a most probably from a viral infection or from a bacterial infection. So these are just a few of the companies that we've invested in out of hundreds of companies that we've screened along the way.
David Suisa: (32:07)
So when John from SALT Talks introduced us at the beginning of the show, he brought up the idea that's probably the highest subject of interest, where I live anyhow, the vaccine. Everywhere I go, it is the number one subject of conversation. Everyone wants to know did you get your first shot. Did you get your second? How did you do it? It's unbelievable. I have really wealthy people that I connected that have not been able to get a shot. High-risk people that have not been able. It's just the number one subject. It's seen as a miracle, and everybody wants to get their vaccine.
David Suisa: (32:45)
So you mentioned, we are fascinated here in Los Angeles by what's happened in Israel and how fast you did it. So you mentioned at the top of the show that the data management was absolutely critical. In fact, I remember interviewing the head of the prenatal center at Sheba, and he mentioned that as soon as a baby is born in Israel, they immediately go into the data bank. I don't know if that's accurate, but that's what I recall from interviewing. So you really have a huge importance on getting this consolidated data, ID database, but is that the only reason why the vaccine has had such a rapid rollout?
David Suisa: (33:30)
I heard that your Prime Minister called the head of Pfizer 17 times. This is from the head of Shaare Zedek, Jonathan Halevy.
Yossi Bahagon: (33:39)
Yeah, Jonathan Halevy.
David Suisa: (33:42)
He told me that Prime Minister Netanyahu called the head, Bourla at Pfizer, 17 times. I wish we had that same kind of, I don't know what you call it, chutzpah maybe. And they paid extra. Basically, there was a sense of urgency that started from the top in terms of we're going to do absolutely everything we can to acquire as many doses as possible. And I almost said that there's been almost an army-like execution. Can you talk more about the success of the rollout?
Yossi Bahagon: (34:19)
So I think it's a combination of several factors. The political thing that you've mentioned and the data played, we've discussed at the beginning of the show, but the truth is that it goes back to what you said about chutzpah. This is a very important point when it comes to understanding the Israeli innovation, and why we don't get no as an answer. It's as simple as that.
David Suisa: (34:53)
No. Is there a request for more information?
Yossi Bahagon: (34:57)
Yeah. So I don't know if the story about Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu and the 17 calls is a reality, but I'm sure that it reflects a reality and it's reflects a very Israeli thing. We don't get no as an answer, whether it's we have an issue that is related to defense and security issues, so we need to build Iron Dome in order to continue our normal life here. Or we have an issue with overcrowded roads, so we need to build the Mobileye for autonomous driving, or we have an issue with chronic diseases, so we need to build an interoperability system that will consolidate all the data. And at the end, this spirit of innovation that simply doesn't get a no as an answer. The common thing, you ask why, if you would ask me at the beginning, who would be the country, that when there will be vaccines will unroll it the fastest, I will tell you Israel because of this main fact.
David Suisa: (36:09)
Now there is a backlash, right now. It's what I call the dark side of technology. Everything has two sides, the plus and the dark. And right now the dark side of technology that I'm sensing both here and in Israel, which is the spread of misinformation throughout social media, where you see these videos of so-called experts that are talking about how vaccines are dangerous, that vaccines are not necessary, that the COVID itself is just like the flu, and they're getting, Yossi, hundreds and hundreds of thousands of views on the internet.
David Suisa: (36:50)
And in fact, I was reading an article this morning in one of these Israeli papers that show that there's a rise in the number of Israelis that are skeptical of the vaccine. So it's not obvious that every Israeli now wants to get vaccinated. And we need a certain amount percentage of the population to get vaccinated so we can get to herd immunity. Now are you aware of this backlash? And can you talk a little bit about it? Is that something that concerns you?
Yossi Bahagon: (37:24)
Of course, something that I think we are all over the world are suffering from this fake news related to the vaccine and we all pay the price. So the only thing, there is the media that can fight it, but there is also, us as human beings, every one of us have to push the close and far interactions that we have and to state it in a very clear way. We want our life back. So it has a pathway which we can walk through and discuss that these vaccines did went through proper clinical trials. And these vaccines, the numbers now in Israel, they are already very loud. I'm speaking about millions of people that, for example, in Clalit. Clalit published a study just last week of 1.2 million people that were compared to a group that was not vaccinated. And the results are outstanding with regards to the immunity and with regards to stopping or reducing the infectious factor of the virus.
Yossi Bahagon: (38:49)
So it's no longer a clinical trial. It's already real world evidence. And for people who ask me, you don't know what the longterm effects of this vaccine will be. No, there is a very simple answer. It's the risk-reward question. Nobody also knows what the long-term effect of getting COVID will be. And if I decide in which hands to be with regards to long-term effects, whether in the hands of scientific evidence or in the hands of a virus, I prefer to take my chances with the scientific evidence.
David Suisa: (39:32)
Well my rule of thumb is, I ask my doctor friends, "Is this something you will put in your body?" And if they are willing to put it in their body, they have quote, unquote, literally skin in the game, then who am I to say no? Before I let you go, Yossi, I'd like to talk a little bit more about OurCrowd. I knew OurCrowd before it was born. I'm a big visitor of Israel. And then I saw OurCrowd when it was born and I visited your offices. And over the years, it's become this phenomenal global investment platform. I'm curious if I can get your impressions of OurCrowd in general, what brought you to be associated with them and give us a little bit of an overview of what OurCrowd brings to the picture?
Yossi Bahagon: (40:25)
So OurCrowd today is one of the largest, I believe the largest and the most active VC in Israel. So it fuels the innovation that we spoke about in many areas, whether it's automobile and healthcare and cyber security and digital consuming and so on. And it actually became, I joined OurCrowd four years ago after I did my own diligence and met with the leadership and understand what are the values behind this. So there is the democratizing of investments value. So today if you have even a small amount, relatively small amount that you want to invest, you can do it just like the big ones. This is a big value. And we hear about it a lot today with regards to companies like Robinhood. So think of OurCrowd as a Robinhood, not for investing $500, but for investing $10,000 or $5,000 or $50,000. For a bit of the larger amounts, where all the investments are validated by a professional team before they are brought to the platform. So this is one value.
Yossi Bahagon: (41:49)
The second value goes to Israel and OurCrowd in many aspects became the window for Israeli innovation. Just a year ago, last February, 2020, there was the famous OurCrowd Summit happening in Jerusalem. 15,000 people, for more than 80 countries came to this conference. And if this is not a [foreign language 00:42:22], I don't know what is. So now, bringing the data about vaccination to the world, bringing Mobileye to the world, bringing all the other weeks that helps companies build the digital based solutions, Tyto, Sweetch, Site Agnostic, Zebra, Brain Queue, which we didn't even discuss that is utilizing AI to make people who suffered from a spinal cord injury walk again.
Yossi Bahagon: (43:04)
So for me, what OurCrowd is, it's building a healthier and a better humanity. And that's the core value. And from that you go to the investment thesis and so on. Part of the success is it all starts and ends with the people that you have and the quality of the people that you have and the values that they carry. So if we talk about the OurCrowd success, I believe it belongs to the people who created it and who will maintain it on an ongoing basis. Maintaining, we discussed it before, to maintain the high-tech touch and the human touch.
David Suisa: (43:50)
On that note. I want to show you my screen. Check my glucose. This is my Libra. And this is the example of everything you spoke about today. I want to thank you so much, Yossi. I know it's late in Israel right now, and you took a whole hour to really discuss some really, really important issues. And I'm very grateful for you taking the time. John, do you want to have any final?
John Darsie: (44:16)
Yeah, I'll say a few words just to send us off here, but thank you, David, for joining us as a first time moderator here on SALT Talks, and Dr. Bahagon, thank you for joining us as well. Hopefully we can learn a little bit from the amazing technology that is taking place and has been taking place in Israel, as well as everything you guys are doing to contain the virus and now roll out the vaccine. So thank you so much for joining us.
Yossi Bahagon: (44:41)
Thank you, John, for hosting us and thank you, David, for the great moderate.
David Suisa: (44:46)
My pleasure. God bless. Stay safe.
John Darsie: (44:48)
Thank you everybody who tuned into today's SALT Talk as well. We always enjoy doing these episodes with our friends over at OurCrowd. They bring us fascinating guests and interesting companies that are doing interesting things and innovating in a variety of different fields. So just a reminder, if you missed any part of this episode or any of our previous episodes, including ones that we did with OurCrowd back in December, you can access our entire archive of SALT Talks free on demand on our website at salt.org/talks, and also on our YouTube channel, which is called SALT Tube, where we have a fast growing subscribership there.
John Darsie: (45:23)
Now we're also on social media. We're on Twitter @saltconferences where we're most active, but we're also on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram as well. And please spread the word about these SALT Talks. We think a lot of the topics that we cover, it's important to educate people about things that are going on in the world. And on behalf of the entire SALT team and our hosts today, David, to signing off from SALT Talks for today, we hope to see you back here again soon.