WATCH: 'My studies gave me the ability to integrate knowledge and take it to where I want'

Thursday, 14 March, 2024 • 5 pm Israel Time|10 am EST

Tamar Uriel-Beeri, Managing Editor of Jpost.com, speaks with Dr. Anat Lea Bonshtien, former director of the National Program for Smart Transportation and Fuel Alternatives in the Prime Minister’s Office and currently a partner at Mobilion Ventures.

Bonshtien, who received an MSc and Ph.D. in biochemistry from Tel Aviv University, explains that her studies provided her with an approach to learning that has helped her career. “My studies gave me the ability to learn –  the ability to ask questions, the ability to integrate knowledge and take it to where I want,” she explains. “I want to take all the knowledge that I have and do something impactful.”

As an initiator of an inter-ministerial program to promote Israel as a center of excellence and best practices in alternative fuels and smart mobility, Bonshtien worked with many sub-sectors, including chemistry, electric vehicles, data, and cyber, among others. “My background helped me understand how to integrate all of this into an actual program and leverage the knowledge in the universities and on the entrepreneurial side and combine them.” Bonshtien also served as the chairwoman of the steering committee of EcoMotion, Israel’s leading community of Israeli entrepreneurs in smart mobility.

In her work in the Prime Minister’s Office in the area of smart transportation, Bonshtien coordinated the activities of eleven different government ministries, with the mission of turning Israel into the Silicon Valley of the auto tech industry. During her tenure, close to 600 startups in the field were initiated in Israel, and virtually every multinational company in the field of mobility established a business presence in Israel. “We took our competencies in data, in sensors in artificial intelligence, and cybersecurity, and we brought all those competencies to form an auto tech hub,” she says.

As a partner in Mobilion Ventures, a venture capital fund that invests in early-stage startups in smart mobility, energy, and sustainability, Bonshtien works with Israeli, European, and Indian companies to develop solutions in these fields.