The Peres Center for Peace and Innovation

The Peres Center for Peace and Innovation organisation was founded in 1996 by Shimon Peres, the Nobel Prize-winning elder Israeli statesman who advocated for peace with the Palestinians and Israel's neighbours, and was one of the architects of Israel's peace agreements with Egypt and Jordan. The organisation is independent, non-profit, non-governmental and non-political. Its aim is to further Peres' vision of people in the Middle East working together to build peace through socio-economic cooperation and development and people-to-people interaction. It offers a meeting place for technology entrepreneurs, startups and investors, as well as a recently opened visitors' centre where the public can experience the story of Israel, the "Startup Nation".

Some time ago my dad came back to Israel for a visit and he and I joined a tour of the new centre. Former Prime Minister and President Peres wore many hats over his decades-long career in local politics. He was the Defence minister responsible for Israel's nuclear energy program, the architect behind the Oslo Accords and winner of a Nobel Peace Prize. He was also Israel's leading technology cheerleader, tirelessly promoting Israeli technologies and Israeli startups. This final chapter of Peres' life - he passed away in 2016 at the age of 93 - became the inspiration for the visitors' centre.

Our tour included a visit to a hall lined with 18 life-sized video avatars of Israeli entrepreneurs who have made their mark on the "Startup Nation". Tech celebrities include Uri Levine, founder of traffic app Waze, Dov Moran, whose company M-Systems created the disk-on-key and Hossam Haick, inventor of "Na-nose" technology that can sniff out cancer and other diseases.
We visited a replica of Peres' office from the time he was Israel's ninth president, then learnt about Israeli startups in automotive tech, agritech, medical devices, cybersecurity and more. We got a taste of where Israeli innovation could lead next in a virtual reality capsule and, in the final room, visited an exhibition highlighting 45 Israeli startups. The exhibit will change every year but companies currently highlighted include genealogy leader MyHeritage, radiation protection vest maker Stemrad, manure-to-renewable energy converter Homebiogas and water purity checker Lishtot. Our guide even offered us a taste of mass-produced kosher grasshopper from Hargol FoodTech. I decided to decline!

As well as the visitors' centre, the Peres Peace House also contains the Shimon Peres Archives, an auditorium, conference rooms and a conflict resolution library. Many of the Peres Center's activities, including public lectures and coexistence activities, take place within the Peres Peace House, as well as activities for the empowerment and development of the local Jaffa communities. The first event held at the building was a graduation ceremony of 21 women, mostly Arab, who graduated from a Women's Economic Empowerment Program and received their computer technician certificates.

In 2011, the Israel Tax Authority denied the Peres Center's request for tax-exempt status in Israel demanding that the organisation stop funding the training of physicians from the Gaza Strip in Israeli hospitals. The demand led the organisation to suspend its application for tax-exemption rather than stop the training project. However, in 2016, the Peres Center finally received tax-exempt status in Israel. The Peres Center for Peace also has tax-exempt status in the United States, the United Kingdom and Italy.

One of Peres' most inspirational quotes was, "Dream big. The bigger your dream, the more you will get". As you approach the entrance to the Peres Peace House, a giant sign reminds you to, "Dream Big." It is framed on one side by the sparkling blue Mediterranean Sea, and on the other, by the contemporary building that now houses the Peres Centre for Peace and Innovation. It moved to its current four storey high location in 2009. Built on the seashore of Jaffa, the building is a unique structure designed by Italian architect Massimiliano Fuksas and local architect Yoav Messer. In essence, the building is simply a long box emerging out of the hillside. The short end, facing the sea, is a wall of clear glass; the other three sides are made up of thin horizontal bands of copper-green concrete and glass of various thicknesses, layered apparently randomly, like sedimentary rock. According to the architect, the building materials represent "places that have suffered heavily"; solid concrete for times of stability and fragile glass for conflict and turmoil. The only clear view is out to the sea - to the future.

Inside, the Peace House had to be divided into rooms. The internal divisions are also glass, although there is a concrete core running through the building containing stairs and services, plus a reinforced bomb shelter on each floor. Every new building in Israel is required to have them.

The 7,000 square metre lot is located next to the poor Arab neighbourhood of Ajami and is enclosed by an old Muslim cemetery to the south and by the beach to the west. The building was built on the top part of the lot, surrounded by a public park - the "Peace Park" - which falls into the sea.

We took a walk through the park and along the seafront after our visit to the centre, giving us time to think about our time there and Israel's success as the "Startup Nation". Happily, it's hard to visit The Peres Center for Peace and Innovation and not feel hopeful for the future!

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