I led a trip to Israel with Wyatt Roy, Assistant Minister for Innovation, for a group of 45 entrepreneurs, politicians and business people, in order to learn about Israel's startup scene.  I enjoyed meeting the Australian entrepreneurs, experiencing the culture and learning about the Israelis’ perception on “Start-up Nation”.

Day 1:  Group photo taken at Pitango Ventures, one of the top-tier VC Firms in Israel, with one of the co-founders and managing partners, Chemi Peres, who I would later see again in Melbourne.  This was one of the best sessions of the trip and I would have missed out on this if I hadn't taken my flight, so I'm glad I was there!

Here are some quick stats about Israel:

• Israel is ranked second in the world for venture capital funds, behind the US, and has the largest number of NASDAQ listed companies outside of the United States and Canada.
• Israel has the second highest concentration of hi-tech companies in the world, after Silicon Valley,
• In proportion to its population, Israel has the largest number of startup companies in the world. In absolute terms, Israel is second only to the US in terms of number of startup companies.

The Wailing Wall/ Western Wall in Jerusalem.  Men and women are segregated by the fence in the middle.  On the final day in Jerusalem, sitting right up against the wall, I had a bird poo on my trousers.  I took it as a sign that it would be an exceedingly lucky day.  Alas, it wasn't.

My main takeaways were:

• Everyone in Israel is doing a startup!
• Compulsory military service means the Israelis develop strong friendship and professional groups based on discipline, technical skills and abilities.
• Military service also gives them deep knowledge in world-class technical training.
• Israel is a small country - everyone knows everyone else, and everyone knows what is going on everywhere.
• Variety of and many grant schemes, whether you’re in academia, or various stages of the startup journey.
• Israelis value education.  The most embarrassing thing in Israel is to be uneducated and to not want to keep learning throughout your life.
• Teamwork and leadership skills are developed through the military.  They learn that “we’re all in this together;  we are only as good as our weakest link;  and we need everyone in the team to win, in order to win.”
• Entrepreneurship is celebrated.  Successes are in mainstream news, no matter how big or small.  If someone has a $20 million exit, the President will call and deliver their congratulations on national television!  Someone in our group from Australia had a $300 million exit and had no call or congratulations from the Prime Minister - he got investigated by the tax office instead.
• PhD students know what they need to do to start a startup.  They can ask their professors for a lab.  Their professors know where to direct and guide their students to successfully start a company.
• They know that life is short and anything can happen.  (Bombs going off, people getting stabbed in the streets, men with AK47s walking around Jerusalem with their fingers on the trigger, etc.)  So they work hard and work quickly!

I participated in a panel via my robot Teleport, with Wyatt Roy and the Chief Scientist of Israel, Avi Hasson, in Sydney, following the trip

I had a stopover in Bangkok, Thailand on the way to Israel.  They didn’t put up the gate number until it was time to board.  We ran and got to the gate 30 minutes before takeoff.  For some reason (at the time they said because we were young and had travelled to many countries), we were taken away.  I kept telling them I was leading a delegation to Israel of politicians, entrepreneurs and business people, on behalf to the Australian-Israeli Chamber of Commerce, to foster trade between Australia and Israel.

The room we were led to had other people being searched.  But it cleared up in the first 10 minutes.  We were the only ones left.  My travel companion Alberto was taken away and strip-searched.  I had my backpack searched.  They held us in the room until after the plane was meant to have taken off!

Alberto had to show security his laptop and answer questions about where it was purchased.  Alberto was told he could take his laptop on the plane.  

Then the head of security said we had to board the plane now.

We asked where were our things.  

They said I wasn’t going to travel with anything - not my backpack.  And not my suitcase.  Not only was my backpack not going to travel with me as carry-on.  It was not going to travel with me in the check-in!  It would have to travel on another flight!

I was flabbergasted.  

I kept saying that I was travelling with politicians, entrepreneurs and business people, in order to facilitate trade between Israel and Australia.

We were told if we didn’t get on the plane right now, we would have to wait 24 hours for the next flight.  I didn’t want to let the delegation down as their co-leader, so I got on the plane.

I went to Israel with my passport, a credit card, two pens and some scrap paper.  Even my mobile phone was taken off me!

The entertainment system on the flight was really bad - the dialogue cut in and out, so you could only hear half of it.  Worst flight ever.  And to think I paid extra, in order to not have to do three plane stopover!

As I promised security, the incident was reported in The Jerusalem Times, the AFR and everyone in Israel knew about it!  We received apologies all around Israel for the rest of the trip.

There were about seven people in our delegation who had their luggage displayed for at least a couple of days.

The airline later apologised as well.

And here's another group shot, taken on the last day of the 10-day mission.  Ahh, what great memories.  :)

On 22 September, by an esteemed panel that included Honourable Dame Quentin Bryce, Chloe Shorten, Today show co-host Lisa Wilkinson, 7.30 anchor Leigh Sales, Interplast ambassador Turia Pitt, Qantas executive Olivia Wirth, model Jesinta Campbell and co-founder of the Daniel Morcombe Foundation, Denise Morcombe, I was named the Australian Women’s Weekly Women of the Future Judges' Choice Winner.  Here are some photos from the evening.

The Award is sponsored by the Australian Women’s Weekly and QANTAS.  So I did a photoshoot for the magazine.  Here’s the photograph, taken in a University of Melbourne electrical engineering lab.

The award was to encourage the work I’m doing with Teleport, the telepresence robot - giving people the opportunity to connect and be present, even when they’re in another location, state or country!

Aipoly aims to help the blind navigate the world. Our first application enables blind people to take a photo of their surroundings, and have it described to them in a sentence. Aipoly’s initial prototype uses convolutional neural networks to interpret images and relay them to the user in real time, and an API with a human layer for more descriptive semantic responses.  We got into TechCrunch with Aipoly!  My first ever TechCrunch article!  :)  You can read it in full here!  I worked on the project with my Singularity University classmate Alberto Rizzoli from Italy.  Mark Parncutt from Australia helped us create our first prototypes.

Here is the video we made during the first week of our two-week project at Singularity University showing users' response to the app.

I was attending a picnic with 70 blind people and showing them the app, when it became morning in Australia!  So I did a Weekend Breakfast interview with ABC News 24.

After two weeks at Singularity University, our work on Aipoly and our pitch impressed our classmates and the judges so much that we were given the privilege of presenting at the Closing Ceremony as the final speakers.  Here is a video made by Singularity University where we speak about that experience!

And finally, Andrea Bocelli used and gave us feedback on our Aipoly app!

From June 13 - August 23, I am staying at NASA AMES Research Park, funded by Google, studying with 80 people from around the world in Singularity University's Graduate Studies Program.

I'm at week 4, and I love it so much.  My mind gets filled to the brim every single day.  My peers are amazing.  It is so much fun to be surrounded by people that push you to be and do better.

To share with you what it's like here, I created a video showing a day in my life!

From January - May this year, I worked on the first prototype of the production model of my telepresence robot, Teleroo.

Teleroo was launched onstage at the Sydney Opera House during TEDxSydney on 21 May.

Thank you for making this happen!  Thank you Dianne Boddy, thank you 2Mar team - we pulled it off!  :)  Thank you Remo!  Thank you TEDxSydney team!  TEDxSydney, you are the best TEDx in the world!