Station J, A bridge between entrepreneurs & Investors
Station J wrapped up its first year as East Jerusalem’s newest innovation hub by hosting an Investor’s Pitch Day in cooperation with Jerusalem High Tech Forum (JHF) . Saed Nashef and Jamal Haddad, two leading Palestinian from investment sector came to Station J on the 19th of December to mentor and guide six entrepreneurs as they pitched their ideas in front of an audience of aspiring entrepreneurs.
Tamer Izhiman was the first entrepreneur to pitch his startup CoachWhizz. When Tamer saw that enterprises spend more than 5 Billion dollars yearly on professional training and capacity development, while studies show that trainees forget about 75% of what they learn, he immediately saw a gap in that market that can be filled. Therefore, he founded CoachWhizz. CoachWhizz is a regulated marketplace that connects professional certified coaches with enterprises and coaching academies that provide professional coaching training programs for individuals.
Another aspiring entrepreneur that pitched his idea was Mohamad Ben Wadi, the founder and CEO of Visalution. Mohammed, like any other Palestinian and Arab needs to go through a lengthy and tedious process every time he wants to apply for a visa to travel. This problem and need in the market led Mohammad to start Visalution, an app that collates all the travel and visa information you need in one place and handles the visa application for you.
Jack Malouf, the founder and CEO of Deelzat found out a few years ago that there is no one single e-commerce platform that has all sellers and buyers in one place. Additionally, online & offline sellers have a big challenge in reaching their potential customers and organizing the logistics. Jack presented his solution (an app) for these problems today with a lot of excitement and enthusiasm. The e-commerce app is designed to empower entrepreneurs and offer them all the tools to sell their products to customers. It brings online and offline stores to one platform to serve the market, offering them in-app and outside-app marketing, in-house logistics and customized user experience.
Basel Sader started his pitch today by explaining how much he struggles as a vegetarian and diabetic in finding food options at restaurants. Additionally, his research about the restaurant business taught him that only 40% of restaurants make it to a second year in business, and only 17% cross the 3 years mark. These two problems encouraged Basel to start Creative Restaurant Service (CRS). CRS is a one stop shop for restaurants to help them manage their business in the most successful way possible. They offer an automatic management tool to relieve the business owner of certain costs, and cut time on tedious tasks so they can focus on what really matters.
Kathem Naser Eldin, a security guru and expert saw a need in the market while he was working in security services. Kathem started his pitch by explaining the lack of on demand and comprehensive security services to businesses. To solve this problem he started Crownox, a startup that adopts a B2B model, through which it offers on-demand security services to businesses with high personnel mobility and global operation.
The event was wrapped up with a pitch from Hamza Sarraj. Having lived abroad for most of his life, Hamza always felt disconnected from his Palestinian identity. He always wished he could see, feel and experience events, religious sights, sunsets on the beach in Jaffa, etc. while he was living abroad. To solve this problem, Hamza started Zamakan, an app and virtual reality system that gives you the full visual experience of being anywhere in the world.
Station J and their partner JHF are very proud of the young entrepreneurs that pitched today and are excited to support the next generation of aspiring entrepreneurs in Jerusalem and Palestine.
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