ESRA's Volunteer Award Ceremony honors volunteers who have been chosen to receive an award for their special volunteering activity. It is a high point in ESRA’s calendar and this year we have invited best-selling author Saul Singer as our guest speaker.
 
A year ago Saul Singer co-authored with Dan Senor, Israel: Start Up Nation. This immensely successful book addresses the trillion-dollar question: How is it that Israel - a country of 7.1 million, surrounded by enemies, in a constant state of war, with no natural resources - produces more start-up companies than large, peaceful nations like Canada, Japan, China, India, and the U.K.?
 
So when Wall Street Journal poses the same question: "how has Israel managed to become the first technology nation?"; it also provides the answer.  "It may be enough, as this fine book does, to shine a spotlight on its success”.

The book is full of fascinating anecdotes.  It features stories of entrepreneurial success, such as that of Shai Agassi, the son of an Iraqi immigrant, with his electric-automobile technology, now in the process of creating "Car 2.0"; or Gavriel Iddan, who got his start as a rocket scientist, with his pill cameras that explore the inside of the human body, founding Given Imaging in 2001.

Before moving to Israel in 1994 and joining the editorial team of The Jerusalem Post, Saul Singer served as foreign policy adviser on Capitol Hill. 

There will be a Reception before the 2010 ESRA Volunteer Awards, followed by Saul Singer.