How does a Startup (almost) Start Up? or - A Real Story From My Experience

February 2018
Two years ago,  I left the industry back to the academia to pursue a PhD combining clinical psychology and artificial intelligence. I was four months pregnant, not the best timing for a transition, surely not the best time to start thinking about a venture. Sometimes plans and reality conflict. 

The first PhD research goal was detecting a person's distress level from their language. Several months earlier I started collecting every piece of work regarding diagnosing mental state through text (see: my private space oddity). The work that caught my eye most was about methods for identifying posts in support communities that may indicate a risk of self-harm.

I was already thinking about what is waiting out there after finishing the PhD. 
I was both curious and worried:
In the functional level - What am I going to do next? Will I go back to the hi-tech industry? Will it be in a large corporation? Will I freelance, be a consultant or maybe start something of my own? (how does a startup start up?) I amused myself with the thought of  breaking down the statistics by being a woman-startup-founder (see: from birth to a startup where do all the women disappear).
In the content level - Will this PhD be used for something? for me? to the world? will my next job combine both of my interests - psychology and computer science?
In the global level - What will happen with the technology I'm researching? To date, psychological tools were reserved for psychologists. They went through a very long filtering process to become psychologists, have been undergoing long training, and are committed to ethics. Now, we are going to develop technology that may fall into the wrong hands -- hands that might take advantage of it.

I was actively looking for answers to my questions. I joined various industrial and entrepreneurial circles: forums, Facebook communities, meetups, conferences, work-spaces, Google for startups (see: a visit to the Google campus), the Israel innovation authority, and more. I looked for mentors that (1) succeeded with establishing a startup and reaching an exit (though, I must say that an "exit" isn't a goal of mine) (2) combined their academic PhD knowledge with their own business (3) combined parenting and entrepreneurship. I found a few who gave (and are still giving) helpful advice.
I also looked for interesting data outside the university. Data that could leverage the things I was researching and hopefully - a potential research collaboration, customer or a partner.
Since I care about the world, I was carefully choosing the connections I made. I was hoping to find a good worthy home for the technology of identifying people's mental state (so it would not be utilized in a manipulative manner). For example, for the judicial system or for helping people with disabilities etc.

While I was doing these things, I didn't think about it at all. I didn't feel like I was making a special effort. A mysterious force pushed me to do it and things just happened, on the move, in harmony, without restricting me or requiring me to give up on anything. These things happened when waiting for a doctor, while driving to university or back home, while watching my kids playing in the yard or in the evening after the kids went to bed and I would be left exhausted for anything else.
March 2018
The same mentioned mysterious power led me to join the amazing community called Yazamiyot (Women Entrepreneurs) and later on register to the first meeting. The event title was "A LEGACY OF INNOVATION" and included a talk on behalf of the Israel Innovation Authority (IIA). I didn't think twice whether to attend or not. I was interested in hearing about the funding options that IIA has to offer. The title of the event also sounded interesting as I like thinking of myself as innovative. Lastly, I wanted to meet managers from the industry face to face, hoping to find a potential match for the research I was working on and maybe make them interested in the idea.

April 2018
At the beginning of the event, the organizer suggested that everyone in turn will present themselves. I presented myself too. I listened carefully to each woman's pitch, running in my head all the questions I'm bringing along with me everywhere. The last participant to present herself was Zina (name changed for privacy). Zina is the CEO of a social media platform. When she said "... I employ three women to read all the uploaded texts in the platform in order to monitor distress ...", I thought "BINGO!!! if she is willing to pay for it - she will understand the value of automating it". The moment she sat down, I turned to her and whispered "We need to talk". She looked back at me and said "I know".

May 2018
I was visited Zina's office. Along with me I brought a stack of articles. We first had a 1x1 where I convinced Zina that automatic mental state detection from text is possible, by citing and summarizing article after article. When I finished, she gathered all the rest of the team, introduced me, and asked me to tell every one about the new idea. I re-summarized the articles' main ideas. They where astonished, amazed, couldn't believe what they just heard. It was a bit funny to see them shocked since I was reading those articles for several months and got used to the idea. Now it was my turn - "Show me the data".

July 2018
Nine months pregnant, already with labor contractions, I couldn't walk, I couldn't sit, I couldn't stand, I couldn't lay, I couldn't do anything besides thinking about the pains. But instead, I was sitting for several hours in a meeting with representative of the Israel Innovation Authority**. We were asking for a nominal fee (only a few hundred thousand shekels) to build a POC, explaining the motivation, the potential, and that we know how to and are able to do it.

August 2018 - August 2019
I was holding Michal. Somewhere around October, we were awarded the nominal fee. I was really excited to hear that. Choy (a fake name) started to implement the system according to the plan. I was with my eyes open, I knew I'm giving up the chance to be the CTO. What could I do? I had a little sweet lovely baby to care for. I did the best I could. All this time I was in the background - advising, teaching, mentoring, using my network to solve problems, attending (remotely) important meetings for patents, planning, strategy, etc. At the end of the year, while we were planning our tasks, preparing to submit another IIA application for the next year, I was crowned by Zina and Choy to be the Chief Science Officer (CSO) and just then, I realized, that actually, I didn't lost the chance to be the CTO but won role which I enjoy much more, that puts me in the position of my aspirations (see: what it means to be a researcher) and integrates in perfect harmony with my life and with the new team.

September 2019
Zina, Choy and I were sitting again for several hours in the meeting with a representative of the IIA. Now we asked for much more money. We had to go productize our POC.

October 2019 - January 2020
We have been waiting for the IIA response which was delayed to arrive (probably due to the unstable state of the government). During that time we were looking for "matching", i.e., an investor that would match the same amount of money we were asking for. We met an interested angel investor and started an evaluation process. We have also been looking for customers, and found some potential leads. We signed up for startup related activities such as accelerators, conferences and meetups. Eventually the IIA approved the entire budget (!) and we continued to look for matching.

February 2020
Unfortunately, our team had some disagreements which we could not overcome.

Closure
This is all fresh and I'm a bit overwhelmed. I'll have to take some time to digest, to learn the lesson and wait for a new passion to sprout.
Michal is one and half years old. She is walking, speaking and still nursing.
The PhD is also advancing, we submitted a paper to a psychotherapy journal and presented the work for several audiences (come to see us - WiDS 23.2.2020  SPR-Israel 26-27.2.2020 and AI4HumanLanguage 5.3.2020)
This year is devoted to researching language interactions. This is awesome, can't wait to see the fruits.

** If there is something that impresses me most in this two-year summary, it is the fact that I sat on a chair for several hours with labor pains. I don't know how I did it.

Soft Skills (2)

This is an amazing video. I encourage you to see it by yourself (direct link).
Anyway, here is an TL;DR:

"High-achieving groups were not those where they had one or two people with spectacularly high I.Q. Nor were the most successful groups the ones that had the highest aggregate I.Q. Instead, they had three characteristics, the really successful teams. 

First of all, they showed high degrees of social sensitivity to each other. This is measured by something called the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test. It's broadly considered a test for empathy, and the groups that scored highly on this did better. 

Secondly, the successful groups gave roughly equal time to each other, so that no one voice dominated, but neither were there any passengers. 

And thirdly, the more successful groups had more women in them."

My Private Space Oddity

Yesterday Elon Musk sent a car towards Mars. See more details and pictures here:
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/feb/07/space-oddity-elon-musk-spacex-car-mars-falcon-heavy
One of the funny things planted in the car was David Bowie's song "Space Oddity" that's playing in loops (look and listen: Space Oddity nice clip). The original song was released several days before the first man landed on the moon. The song's lyrics were inspired by the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey and its melody by the same movie's song Also Sprach Zarathustra (📳🎶🎵🎶 my ringtone 💙💙💙)

Speaking of 2001: A Space Odyssey - besides envisioning what space travel would look like, it has many elements from Artificial Intelligence. More than 50 years ago, when computers could barely solve basic math, it envisioned a super computer (called HAL) speaking in natural language, playing chess with humans, reading lips, taking responsibility for unexpected missions and more...
See the next video, a scene where HAL is working up a psychology report:

Transcript from the video above - HAL (the sentient computer) in action, working on a psychology report

Deep Blue, IBM's chess-playing computer winning world champion on 1996

We are not there yet but we are definitely on track. Artificial Intelligence is competing against humans in the most complicated games (see also how AlphaGo won Lee Sedol). No one exactly programmed its moves. IT LEARNS.
In some sense, computers have basic "understanding". When we search for something in a search engine, we get good results.
The question is not whether but, WHEN will computers have a DEEP UNDERSTANDING of human beings and HOW we humans will give them that skill. WHAT will be the technology that will allow us to do that?
I see it as a real challenge that the whole world was waiting for, for many years.
Because I love challenges, I'm concentrating now on researching the Natural Language Processing domain and in particulate with Psychology data, wishing to teach computer to "read" people.
As in all research, no one knows what it will lead to, and for me that future is an intriguing oddity.

How does a Startup Start Up? or - A visit to the Google Campus

I already miss the action I had in the corporate life: meeting new people every day, hearing ideas, getting exposed to different industry roles, getting updated in the latest technology through firsthand stories, lunch with colleagues, sharing my thoughts and accessible opportunities for mentoring, volunteering and society contribution.
Fortunately, every Sunday and Wednesday Google dedicates its 34th floor in the Electra building in TLV (near Azrieli) for entrepreneurs. I thought about visiting in order to smell the aroma, to learn about the newborn startup first steps and maybe even find people to whom I can contribute my acquired knowledge and expertise and my network connections. I also hoped to meet an old friend (currently working at google) for lunch.
So I didn't need to think twice -- I was on my way to the Google Campus.

If you are planning to visit, I suggest you come with public transportation since the parking in Tel-Aviv is a rare commodity and quite expensive. I use the free-of-charge "Fast Lane" shuttle (the parking for the car is also free). It has a stop next to the Hashalom train station. Yes, getting by train is a good way too. The station is a two minute walk from the Google Offices.
Walking in the heart of the city in the rush hour is an energizing experience.





I sat there and was in an observing state. There were some young people with books. I guess they were students that came to study in a nice place (like in a public library). There were also freelancers/self-employed who came to enjoy the comfortable offices. Eventually I opened my laptop and worked on my things. Several minutes later an impressive-looking woman (let's call her ILW) sat next to me.
ILW: "Is it a 'work from Campus' day today?"
Me: "Yes, Actually this is my first time here. Do you come here often?"
ILW: "Yes"
Me: "What are you working on?"
ILW: "I'm founding a startup"
Me: "Really! And why here?"
ILW: "I'm sitting here with another co-founder"
Me: "What is your startup about?"
She told me about her startup, which sounded quite complex, not because of the technology but rather because it requires deep knowledge in high level management in industry.
Me: "How did you get this idea?"
ILW: "I was previously VP in a different company and had to do all these things on my own. Now I'm automating the process".
...
The atmosphere was very pleasant there, people were friendly and I even saw one demo.

At lunch time I was invited by my friend to join her in the Google restaurant, catching up on years we had no time to talk. Surprisingly we found out that one of her team members is a good friend of mine -- and that is how I found myself eating lunch with the Google-Waze team. I felt like I was hanging out with celebrities. So many times I would wonder who that engineer is that improves the ETA algorithm. When Waze perfectly predicts the time it should take me to get from one place to another, I think "that engineer did a good job!" On the other hand, when Waze mistakenly ignores the predictable traffic, I think "I'll have to talk to that engineer some day...." imagining him debugging and rewriting the algorithm. When one of the team members introduced himself to me as working on the ETA feature, I pointed out: "I can't believe you are the one who is responsible for the ETA algorithm!" and he immediately answered "I can't believe its me either!". They were a really nice group, it was fun having lunch with them.

A good pointer for beginners (Hebrew):
https://www.themarker.com/st/c/prod/tm/technation/startup/

Campus official web page:
https://www.campus.co/tel-aviv/en

Leaving IBM-Research

This week I'm leaving IBM-Research and moving on to my next chapter.
I joined IBM-Research at the age of 28 holding an M.Sc and with 3 years of experience in the industry.
I was already settled in my personal life - happily married with two children and living in a permanent home. IBM-Research gave me the present of feeling settled in my professional path as well by providing me the title of "Researcher" in a company that I admired for its rich past of innovation and values: professionalism, excellence, open-mindedness, diversity and many more... I was honored to be part of it. During this period my third child was born. Being a career-mother was not an easy task, and IBM was there for me by giving me total trust and flexibility in time and space allowing me to excel in both roles. I remember nights where I was holding my baby in one hand, nursing him, while programming and chatting with other colleagues with the other hand. Speaking in front of student girl visitors while carrying my baby with a carrier on me. This baby boy is celebrating 3 years exactly today.

I got a lot from IBM. Being involved with the most interesting and fascinating projects, the state of the art technology and non-stop innovation with a lot of responsibility.  Everything was moving fast to a large scale.  When a POC (proof of concept) developed by 2-3 researchers in our laboratories went well, the next quarter we had a customer and a fleet of developers to help us go through production process. Managing meetings with Chinese engineers in the mornings, Americans in the evenings and sometimes everyone together at noon (Israel is located in between). Working with the best experts inside IBM - Distinguished Engineers, Senior Technical Stuff Members, Architects, Product Managers, getting consultation from other research groups and colleagues researchers with different expertise etc...  and partners outside IBM - working directly with the CTOs and the CEOs. The next quarter we worked with data from more than 3000 stores all over the USA. Producing reports and analyzing data. Even with all this action we found time to write down some of our work as patents and for a research paper. I had the privilege to fly around the world and present our research.
And if I thought that I saw everything, I didn't know what was coming the following year...
When this research project came to an end, IBM gave me the opportunity to team up with a different group and acquire new skills. As I wanted to be involved more in "heavy" research projects, in high level algorithms, in AI domain and projects that make the world a better place - I joined an ambitious long-term exploratory grand challenge project, more than 40 researchers in Israel (many more overseas) working together fighting cancer by building the next generation of radiology assistance. I have worked with research experts in deep-learning, machine learning, computer-vision, NLP, data science, UX, reasoning, cloud platforms, medical doctors and more... to build a mega-POC (see also: Eyes of Watson).
I also had the honor of leading (as a secondary researcher) a major research project with a leading healthcare provider in Israel, handling medical files of thousands of patients.

It was a great pleasure working at IBM. I have had the chance to be part of three different research departments: Big-Data Analytics, Mobile & IOT and Health Informatics. It allowed me to get to know IBM-Research very well, to be exposed to hundreds of "startups" (since every research group is actually developing something new), to meet a lot of talented and brilliant people from which I have learnt a lot, to create friendships and mentoring relations - much of my success is thanks to them. I attended the best research and engineering courses. Visited interesting conferences. Was a member of the patent review board. Part of the ambassadors group. Represented IBM on stage in volunteering activities. Wrote on behalf of IBM and received a lot of respect just because I'm a researcher in the prestigious "IBM-Research" unit.

For me, the peak of all this fun was - participating in exploring the IBM-Next-Grand-Challenge.
I wrote a proposal, pouring all my passions, visions and beliefs into it. This proposal was chosen to represent Israel. It was unbelievable to me that IBM, a company of 400,000 employees, gives equal opportunity to each one of its researchers to design the future of the company and to have a real influence on the company's direction and as a result - the whole world's.

Next week I will join the new Data Science Institute at Bar-Ilan University as a PhD student, combining Computer-Science with Psychology, two of my passions. It is going to be fascinating!

Goodbye IBM. You have been good to me.

Soft Skills

I'm a strong believer in soft skills. Here is an article I just read and liked:
The surprising thing google learned about its employees and what it means for today's students

TL;DR:
Project Oxygen shocked everyone by concluding that, among the eight most important qualities of Google’s top employees, STEM expertise comes in dead last. The seven top characteristics of success at Google are all soft skills: being a good coach; communicating and listening well; possessing insights into others (including others different values and points of view); having empathy toward and being supportive of one’s colleagues; being a good critical thinker and problem solver; and being able to make connections across complex ideas. 

From birth to a startup: Where do all the women disappear?

Translated from an article describing the prevalence of women in Israeli hi-tech:
http://www.themarker.com/st/c/prod/tm/2016/03/woman/timeline/4/