Development
From Tel Aviv to Paris: 2 Israeli guys in France
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We met Matan Markovics and Almog Luz last May during a hackathon in Tel Aviv. Both of them are developers, very active in the local startup community. We were impressed by their creativity and loved the way they used the Mailjet API to conceive CyberQueue, an online queue management tool (lines in public services seem to be a major issue in Israel). That is why we invited them to discover the Parisian tech scene. Matan accepted to give us some feedbacks about this experience.
How would you compare the Paris startup community to the one existing in Tel Aviv?
What impressed me the most was the fact that there is not one but multiple tech communities in Paris. There are clusters, accelerators, studios, co-working spaces… where you can find several different startups that work together. And those small groups of people full of ideas work together on an even larger scale. With this kind of process, everybody know what is going on and can establish new partnership with local companies. It is a different kind of emulation than what exists in Tel Aviv. And I like it!
During your Parisian trip, you have met French developers during another hackathon,Hack – Make – The Bank. What were your impressions?
The participants of this event were asked to develop and work on projects about banking security and other financial issues. I liked that idea a lot. Really cool projects were conceived that day. In fact, I think that is the essence of what hackathons should be: places to create new uses of existing programs, codes or APIs.
It reminded me a lot of what we did in May. When you participate to a hackathon, you have very short time to find clever solutions to answer the problem that has been asked. In that kind of context, we, developers, like to use quick and easy APIs. That is why we choosed the Mailjet’s API when we created CyberQueue.
What did you learn during your stay in Paris that could have improved the way you work today?
I think that Paris is the perfect city for startups. Like I said, the tech community is already established and strong. Mailjet is a good example of this, as a matter of fact! It started from scratch and now the company is one of the leaders in marketing and transactional emailing. I like to think that its growth and rise to success are linked to this dynamic Parisian environment. So, yes, we can learn one thing or two from you guys! That is why I intend to come back in France soon!
[ Posted Fri, 21 Feb 2014 09:02:24 ]
