IRVINE, Calif. — The most recent episode of Voices of the Valley, the podcast hosted by Dennis Donohue, the Director of Western Growers Center for Innovation & Technology, and Candace Wilson, CEO of GreenVenus, explores global water management innovation with Ethy Levy, Israel CEO and founder of Bridge Hub.

As Israel has long been known as an innovator in water usage at both the public and private level, Levy explained that the lessons learned in her home country readily translate overseas, such as the work she’s doing in Australia with Bridge Hub.

“Israel, being where we are geographically in a semi-arid region, we’ve had to deal with water scarcity from day one,” she said. “I think that created lots of innovation around water in different verticals….water management on the macro level, but also on the micro level. Every grower, every farmer has his sources of water and knows how to manage them in the most efficient way — and that leads us to technology for irrigation.”

Besides receiving support from the government to advance agtech, Levy said there is a secret ingredient that drives success in Israel: Collaboration is in the country’s DNA.

“What usually impresses investors, entrepreneurs and foreign guests that come to Israel is the openness,” Levy said. “Because we like to share, there is lots of cross-pollination between different ideas and different sectors. You will go to coffee shops in Tel Aviv, and you will sit with your laptop, and the person next to you…will say: ‘You know what, I’m doing something in that field, maybe we can do something together?’”

Voices of the Valley is produced by Western Growers and its Center for Innovation & Technology.

The embed code for the episode is below:

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