SIT fosters innovation in municipalities, regions and the public sector

SIT Case Studies

Greater Rochester Enterprises, NY: Fostering technological investment

Greater Rochester is one of the top five exporting regions per capita in the US, and accounts for nearly seven percent of all New York State exports.The Greater Rochester Enterprises (GRE) were looking to develop the region and increase its foothold in healthcare and optics, by bringing investment to Rochester or by bringing companies to relocate there.The GRE turned to SIT to foster a relationship with technologies from Israel, a country renowned for its start-up companies.

ImpactTeva Pharmaceuticals, an international pharmaceutical company headquartered in Israel, acquired a company in a $25M investment. New manufacturing site in NY for the Strauss Group, Israel’s second largest dairy.Angel investor of $3M for an Israeli start-up.Relocation of an Israeli office to Rochester.

Project InCiTe, New York: Developing creative youth programs

Reaching teens of today is no easy feat. The Board of Jewish Education in New York was alarmed when numbers showed their programs were attracting less than 15% of their target population. They needed to inject new content to reconnect with their teenage audience and engage them in activities.

ImpactPartnering with SIT led to the creation of Project InCiTE, a creativity and Innovation Fellowship Seminar. Educators were trained in SIT’s creative thinking techniques and mentored by both SIT and leaders from the field of education. Using this new knowledge and know-how, fellows collectively created two dozen programs to refresh the organization’s offering and bring back the numbers they had lost.

SIT offered a systematic approach to train people in skills that allowed them to open their minds to new possibilities. I was skeptic at first, but even at the end of the first sessions new ideas continued to emerge. There was something to having this systematic approach that was yielding results already in the short term. Immediately it started opening our minds to new possibilities.David Bryfman, Director, New Center for Collaborative Leadership

Ministry of Economy & Foreign Trade: Developing an innovative bureaucracy

The Ministry of Economy and Foreign Trade is responsible for attracting foreign businesses and investment to within its borders, in a highly competitive environment. Like most government offices, the ministry is bound by (often lengthy) procedures and bureaucracy to maintain quality honest trade. Yet they felt that finding the right places to inject innovation could give them a leg up, and entice corporations to do business in their country versus others.

ImpactUndergoing SIT training, the Ministry gained skills to help them leverage their small size, enabling them to respond faster and more efficiently. Long term results lead to:

Identifying opportunities for innovation in the services and offer they provide as well as in the way the Ministry operates internally. Building an internal capability among Ministry staff for applying and leading innovation Getting internal stakeholder buy-in for instigating change.

Singapore Ministry of Education: Applying innovative solutions to academic challenges and social routines

The Ministry of Education in Singapore partnered with SIT to help students and faculty members instigate change academically and socially. The program was held at Clementi Town Secondary School, with a team of teachers and students of different academic levels.

ImpactUsing SIT tools, the team created new and useful ways they could perform every day tasks differently:

Academics – New approach for tackling homework and writing essaysSocially – Better management of lines at the school canteen/kiosk, innovative measures for discipliningCharity – Using existing resources to foster better and rewarding relationships with elderly people in the surrounding neighborhoodScience: Developing “Why didn’t I think of that before?” types of ideas for the Young Inventor Competition

Israel’s Ministry of Welfare:Improving effectiveness of social services

SIT ran a series of Innovation Workshops directly with Israel's Ministry of Welfare aimed at developing innovative models for improving the effectiveness of the Ministry's work with social workers, management of information and decision-making.

ImpactWorking with the city of Nazereth Illit, the capital city of the Galilee, led to four different routes for creating change to better the lives of its residents. The core developments were services designed to empower middle and lower class residents, enabling them to understand and take control of the benefits they deserve.

Constructora Bolívar, Colombia: Making a successful venture of low income house construction

The Colombian Government requires all construction companies to engage in low income housing, by way of promoting affordable homes to its poorer citizens. Yet, a relatively high number of these types of projects were not completed because of the target audience’s low monetary status and their inability to pay even the small sum. This not only impeded achieving the housing goal, but caused tension with the construction companies who bore the loss of money and time already invested.One of these companies, Constructora Bolívar, suffered from 12% of unfinished deals. They partnered with SIT to not only reduce the risk of unclosed deals, but also to bring back customers they had lost.

ImpactRather than approaching this sales challenge in the usual way by working on the sales process to increase conversion, SIT led the management team to map their current internal operational processes as a starting point for innovating. Applying thinking tools, the team innovated a new process which solved the existing glitches causing customers to walk away in the middle, and even shortened the overall process. The nature of these solutions, together with creative project management allowed for implementation of the new process within two months. As a result, Constructora Bolívar achieved a win-win: it lowered the amount of deals that fell through, and even increased profit margins from such projects.

Sheba Medical Center, Tel Aviv: Developing tomorrow’s medical leaders todayThe Sheba Medical Center in Tel Aviv, a major medical faculty and the largest hospital in Israel, realized the need to overcome the gap between the evolving demands of medical leaders today, and the skills they are provided through traditional training.Sheba, together with SIT, deployed the Talpiot Medical Leadership Program, to cultivate the brightest young physicians into an elite group of doctor-managers, well-suited to hold leadership positions in Sheba’s future.The fellowship focuses on managerial, clinical research, and professional development skills.

Impact: • A secure future management level skilled to lead the hospital in its many

departments, laboratories, and research facilities.• Cadre of problem solvers who capably tackle complex healthcare issues.• Heightened research recognition from Fellows’ work.• Regular creation of process improvements (clinical and administrative), due

to the entrepreneurial spirit of Talpiot Fellows.• Better connections with the broader medical community by leveraging

Fellows' research and activities.

Sheba Medical Center, Tel Aviv: Developing tomorrow’s medical leaders todayThe Sheba Medical Center in Tel Aviv, a major medical faculty and the largest hospital in Israel, realized the need to overcome the gap between the evolving demands of medical leaders today, and the skills they are provided through traditional training.Sheba, together with SIT, deployed the Talpiot Medical Leadership Program, to cultivate the brightest young physicians into an elite group of doctor-managers, well-suited to hold leadership positions in Sheba’s future.The fellowship focuses on managerial, clinical research, and professional development skills.

Impact: • A secure future management level skilled to lead the hospital in its many

departments, laboratories, and research facilities.• Cadre of problem solvers who capably tackle complex healthcare issues.• Heightened research recognition from Fellows’ work.• Regular creation of process improvements (clinical and administrative), due

to the entrepreneurial spirit of Talpiot Fellows.• Better connections with the broader medical community by leveraging

Fellows' research and activities.

Helping young entrepreneurs to promote themselves better

Goal:Young Entrepreneurs Israel (YEI) is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to introducing teenagers to the business world. SIT delivered Inventive Thinking workshops and Entrepreneurship in Advertising workshops to YEI instructors and district managers. These methods are continuously implemented in the YEI program. Recently, SIT mentored the YEI team to finalize their product, define a single-minded marketing message and design their presentation for the global competition in The Netherlands.

Impact:• Providing a proven skill set to teens that they can carry with them to the

future.• Instilling a sense of competency in how they can use their minds.• Silver medalist for product innovation, and gold medalist for booth and

presentation: “Batzekalo” - an innovative rolling pin that stores flour within its body so that it can be easily shaken onto sticky dough with no fuss or mess.

Helping young entrepreneurs to promote themselves better

Goal:Young Entrepreneurs Israel (YEI) is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to introducing teenagers to the business world. SIT delivered Inventive Thinking workshops and Entrepreneurship in Advertising workshops to YEI instructors and district managers. These methods are continuously implemented in the YEI program. Recently, SIT mentored the YEI team to finalize their product, define a single-minded marketing message and design their presentation for the global competition in The Netherlands.

Impact:• Providing a proven skill set to teens that they can carry with them to the

future.• Instilling a sense of competency in how they can use their minds.• Silver medalist for product innovation, and gold medalist for booth and

presentation: “Batzekalo” - an innovative rolling pin that stores flour within its body so that it can be easily shaken onto sticky dough with no fuss or mess.

Amdocs Software: Helping them to achieve their social mission, and in record time

Senior management of Amdocs – a leading hi tech software company - got together for an innovation camp with SIT that began with an impossible mission - to create the Creativity and Innovation Center in Sderot, a relatively deprived town in the South of Israel, all within less than 20 hours!

The Innovation Center in Sderot is now an integral part of the “Tachlit Program“, which serves over 70 youth at risk who have dropped out of conventional educational establishments, and through their program exert a positive influence on the entire community in many ways.

For the video click here

Before

After

Hacienda Treasury Department, Bogota Municipality, Colombia: Making public management more efficient and friendly

Hacienda is the Treasury Department of Bogota City Council, the capital city of Colombia, serving a population of nine million. Their work is characterized by highly regulatory, bureaucratic processes and complex operations - not particularly user-friendly - that often get in the way of providing an effective and efficient service to the city residents. Most of the staff do not feel empowered to take personal initiatives to change the way things are. The aim of impacto-I during a period of political flux was to create the largest possible impact in the shortest time in the operational and cultural areas.Impact: SIT ran a 1-year process, principally involving the tax collection departments, which showed that it is possible to change an existing reality of how local government and citizens interact without spending vast sums of money or engaging in extensive regulatory change. This involved training a core group of 26 innovation coaches drawn from various treasury functions who then ran 26 innovation projects simultaneously across various departments. With the initial focus was on the tax area, the success of the results obtained so far have led to substantial financial savings quite quickly in a relatively short time and provide people with the confidence to extend the process to other support areas in the future.

Bat Yam Municipality, Israel: Promoting personal entrepreneurship in educationThe Bat Yam Municipality realized that the route to successful entrepreneurship needs nurturing and support, as it entails transforming a dream that often requires more time and money than is usually available, and ultimately someone who will believe and encourage you. The Municipality of Bat Yam, located in Israel just south of Tel Aviv has developed a reputation for pioneering innovative programs in education and wanted to provide practical support for all those pioneers engaged in developing their vision for education. They approached SIT to help them create a concrete program.

Impact:• Together with SIT, the City launched the Center for Entrepreneurship in

Education. This community of entrepreneurs now has some 400+ members who meet regularly both socially and for regular courses and one-to-one mentoring done by SIT and center staff to help them achieve their dreams.

• Alongside these activities, the Center launched an open innovation competition for new ventures in education which attracted over 300 entries.

• The centre runs regular programs and activities for educational entrepreneurs designed to bring entrepreneurship into the home and school and make it part of the daily educational experience.

SIT Head Office:16 Tozeret Ha’aretz St.Tel-Aviv, 67891IsraelPhone: +972-3-6070480Email: info@sitsite.com

Your SIT Contact

Veronica Rechtszaid,

Marketing Coordinator for the LatAm Team

Office: + 972-3-6070-491 | Mobile: +972-54-6655-367 veronica@sitsite.com,