University Signs Entrepreneurial Agreement with Wolfson Medical Center

Bar-Ilan University, which established UnBox Ventures, has signed a cooperation agreement with the Wolfson Medical Center. UnBox Ventures is a platform that creates, curates, and invests in startups founded by Bar-Ilan researchers and off-campus entrepreneurs that have potential to make positive global impact. These projects bring "disruptive innovation" to various aspects of health related to the body, mind, spirit, society, and the environment.

As part of the collaboration with Wolfson, joint groups of researchers and physicians will participate in a mentored entrepreneuship program led by the UnBox team and the finest mentors, perform product-customer validation in the global market, and establish startups with founding partners from Bar-Ilan, Wolfson, and outside entrepreneurs.

UnBox is headed by Ariel Sella, who has four decades of experience in entrepreneurship, investment and management of start-up companies in a variety of fields around the world. To date, the ten startups established at UnBox have achieved global collaborations.

Bar-Ilan University President Prof. Arie Zaban: "Collaboration with the Wolfson Medical Center is a great source of pride for our young entrepreneurial center that has established influential startups within just a short time.  As part of our collaboration, Bar-Ilan will offer the interdisciplinary aspect and Wolfson the clinical aspect in the wide-ranging areas of health. By ensuring that our researchers have access to the clinical field, we will be able to accelerate the development process of research-based ideas at both institutions."

Wolfson Medical Center Director General Dr. Anat Engel: "The need for innovative and advanced medicine is a necessity that we at Wolfson Medical Center have set for ourselves as a top priority, and this kind of collaboration is exactly the way we wish to move forward.  The Entrepreneurship Center will provide a generation of entrepreneurial researchers the opportunity to effect change and make an impact, and we will all reap the fruits of their labor in the future.  Along with providing medical services, we at Wolfson are excited about this opportunity to invest in research and receive creative and advance medical entrepreneurship in return."

The UnBox entrepreneurship program, designed for university researchers and students, Wolfson researchers and staff, and outside entrepreneurs, will include an inspiration phase comprised of lectures, seminars, and panels with entrepreneurs, venture capital investors, and health experts, and an acceleration phase for selected founding teams which includes individual guidance by mentors and experts, pre-seed funding dedicated to product-customer validation in the global market; and a royalty-free intellectual property license.