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Landa says excitedly. “If you could convert a tiny fraction ofthat low-temperature heat into useful electricity, you couldpower cars, mobile devices, homes — you could save theplanet from global warming.” He estimates his ambitiousproject, now in its 14th year, will reach fruition in a relativelyshort time frame: 5 to 10 years.Thermal energy is something Landa discusses with asmuch enthusiasm as he talks about any of his many worksin-progress.“When people have a certain drive, a passion forsomething that could be as an artist or a technologist, youhave ideas and you have to see them through,” he says. “Youhave to see them work.”But his desire to achieve goes deeper than this. “I was bornin a panic,” he says, referring to the fact that his mother gavebirth to him as a displaced person en route from Poland to“ For the first time, youcan print digitally at thespeed, quality and costof traditional printing.”a refugee camp near Munich after World War II. “My life is apanic, because the clock is ticking and I need to get so muchmore done than the time permits. I feel there’s so much I haveto do and no time to do it.” Even now, he works 15-hour days.“When you have a background like mine that shows howfragile life is, maybe this is a factor in trying to squeeze somuch out of my time,” he says. “If you work 15 hours aday instead of 10, you squeeze a lifetime-and-a-half outof one lifetime.”ViewpointThe valueof flexibilityRonen Barel, Chairman, EY IsraelBack in January 2011, people were lookingquizzically at EY Israel. What, they asked,did we want with a company of hackers?We had just acquired the consultancyarm of Hacktics, a company set up in 2004to hack systems in order to find and plugsecurity breaches.The timing was certainly right. Thiswas when non-IT specialists were startingto understand, in growing numbers, that cybersecurity shouldbe a major concern for everyone. The match of an establishedconsulting firm and people with cutting-edge hacking abilities wasa great one. At the time, we had 12 hackers. Today, we have 50.Flexibility is one of the hallmark characteristics of Israelisociety and business. This is just one example of the value offlexibility in understanding the market, thinking laterally aboutclients’ and customers’ expanding needs, and if necessary,moving to where the market is.There’s an acute awareness across the Israeli population thatthis young state has enjoyed economic success by embracingchange. A country built on agriculture and famous for its Jaffaoranges has become known as the “start-up nation” and hometo “Silicon Wadi.” The Israeli technology sector is now hardat work on challenges relevant to new media, social media,cybersecurity and crowdsourcing.Where Israelis can do better — and this is a lesson forentrepreneurs and business leaders worldwide — is inrecognizing that there’s room for innovation everywhere andthat adapting doesn’t have to mean abandoning old fields tochase after opportunities in sexy new sectors.There’s often a sense that it’s an either/or equation: stayin long-established sectors or adapt to the market by gettingcreative in new fields. When large Israeli companies weresurveyed, a staggering 57% of respondents from “basic”industries had no R&D division, while a quarter had no staffdevoted to development and one in five simply didn’t invest inR&D. Admittedly, this survey — conducted by academics andfocused mostly on companies with more than US$10m in sales —was conducted eight years ago, but sadly, no major changeshave taken place since then.However, when Israeli companies and entrepreneurs dodecide to shake up old sectors, the results can be dazzling,whether it’s an update to the printing press or the massproduction of “predator” insects that gobble up pests andmake farming both organic and efficient.As consumer and client expectations change with increasingrapidity, flexibility should make its way on to every company’s“to do” list.More informationRead about Journey 2015, Israel’s most prestigious annualbusiness conference, at journey.evolero.com/2015.Exceptional July–December 201547