TAMID Fellowship 2018: Opening Event, Tel Aviv Stock Exchnange
By: Ariela Hekmat, University of California, Berkeley
TAMID’s opening night at the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange was a perfect preview to the amazing summer to come. With all 230 participants in one room, I couldn’t help but feel overwhelmed. However, I felt more thrilled to be spending the rest of my summer with these inspiring students from all around the world.
After introductions from Yonah and Adina, each student got to choose an industry expert to listen to about their career. I chose Cecile, an impact investor who cofounded Impact First Investments. Before listening to Cecile’s talk, I didn’t know much about the space. But as a student who is studying business/entrepreneurship and hopes to one day create her own social enterprise, impact investing really intrigued me. And I can say that I gained a new sense of inspiration and hope after leaving her talk.
Cecile first gave our intimate group an overview about what impact investing is: investing in companies that create social or environmental impact. She has helped spearhead it in Israel, and she is in fact known as the mother of impact investing in Israel.
There is one thing that Cecile said that really resonated with me: impact investing needs to be normalized. This really stuck with me because it was everything I had been feeling about social entrepreneurship put into words. Both impact investing and the creation of social enterprises need to be something that is normal. It should not have to be considered its own space. Rather, we should all want to create social or environmental impact in this world.
With that being said, I am very grateful for the opportunity to have listened to Cecile. She has left me with excitement and eagerness to enter the space of social entrepreneurship and maybe even impact investing.