Educating Tomorrow's Leaders Today: Fostering Entrepreneursh...

The Negev is home to more than 200,000 Bedouin citizens, by far the most economically disadvantaged group in Israel. Closing social and economic gaps between Arabs in Israel's peripheries and Arab and Jewish citizens in general has become a major priority for strengthening the economy as a whole. 

Iris Reff-Ronen, CEO of Unistream and Rony Zarom, an Israeli businessman and philanthropist, view entrepreneurship as an important capacity to advance among disadvantaged populations in Israel. They spoke to guests of the Greater Fedederation of Metrowest's Israel Arab Committee on current developments and programs being established to bring business and economic independence to Bedouins in the South. 

About the speakers:

Iris Reff-Ronen, CEO

Graduating with excellence from the MBA program the New York College of Technology, Iris has been the CEO of Unistream since its inception in 2001. During the past 13 years, Unistream has undergone ongoing development under her devoted administration. From a single Center, Unistream has grown to its present capacity – empowering over 700 youth in 13 Centers that function in Israel’s periphery and accompaniment of 600 Unistream alumni. Ms. Reff-Ronen’s experience as assistant CFO at Take-Image INC. and CFO at Shilav bestow Unistream the professional financial management that allows for the continuous growth in its scope of activities.

Rony Zarom

Mr. Rony Zarom is the Founder and Chairman at Decima Ventures Ltd. Mr. Zarom has established himself as one of most successful entrepreneurs in the technology sector. Mr. Zarom is also the Chief Executive Officer at Etagon. His most recent success was the founding of Exalink. Only 14 months after the company was established, Exalink merged with Comverse in a deal valued at approximately $550 million. Before Founding Exalink, Mr. Zarom held several senior management positions at elroNet, which merged with Netvision. He also served as the Managing Director at ELRON, heading up a new venture in the IP Telephony field known as i-Fax. Following the merger of i-Fax, Mr. Zarom served as the Executive Vice President of Business Development at ArelNet. He is also the Chairman of PineApp Ltd.