The visit was organized through the bridge-building of Ambassador Leo Vinovezky, Israel\u2019s envoy to Angola, the DRC, Mozambique, and S\u00e3o Tom\u00e9 and Pr\u00edncipe \u2013 and I am grateful to the Israeli Foreign Affairs Ministry for entrusting a delegation of this caliber to our corner of the Negev. They could not have sent it to a more instructive place.<\/p>\n
The Negev Desert (credit: Wikimedia Commons)<\/p>\n
Vinovezky was quick to point out that the connection is anything but coincidental. The Foreign Ministry\u2019s Economics Division has maintained a long-standing partnership with Israel\u2019s kibbutz industry \u2013 a sector that has contributed to Israeli exports from the periphery for decades, long before \u201cstart-up nation\u201d entered the vocabulary.<\/p>\n
Bringing an African delegation to the Western Negev was, in that sense, a return to Israel\u2019s diplomatic roots.<\/p>\n
Shahar Belkin, one of the driving forces behind SouthUp, did not open with a pitch deck. He told Kayikwamba Wagner plainly what happened here. \u201cWe had 23 companies,\u201d he said, \u201cand 21 of them came back after we could reopen. Now we have 27.\u201d<\/p>\n
A major new facility is already rising beside Sderot\u2019s train station. They are calling it OfirTech \u2013 named after Ofir Lybshtein, the city\u2019s former mayor, who was among the first victims announced on October 7<\/a>. It will house 60 more companies.<\/p>\n None of that came from a government rescue package or an outside investor deciding the region was worth saving. It came from founders choosing to return to the same ground they had fled in the dark, and choosing to build something larger than what they had left behind.<\/p>\n Belkin put it in terms that cut through any polished pitch: \u201cAlthough they\u2019re called hi-tech, we seem to think they are spoiled kids playing with their computers. But they are the same spirit \u2013 second generation of the kibbutz founders.\u201d<\/p>\n He was right. The founders who drained swamps and coaxed crops from sand were not driven by ideal conditions. Neither are the entrepreneurs here. In Israel, a start-up that fails is not a scandal \u2013 it is data, a credential rather than a disqualification. Vinovezky put it plainly: success rarely arrives before the fifth or 10th attempt.<\/p>\n Kayikwamba Wagner understood immediately why that distinction matters. \u201cIf you have to make it right the first time,\u201d she said, \u201cyou are too afraid to take the risk of jumping into the water. You can get something good, but maybe nothing extraordinary. You get improvement \u2013 you don\u2019t get breakthroughs.\u201d<\/p>\n She said it over a lunch of hummus and falafel prepared for the delegation \u2013 a deliberately Israeli welcome, warm and unassuming. I found myself in a seat I will not forget: directly between Vinovezky and the minister herself.<\/p>\n This was not her first visit to Israel. She mentioned it was her third time in the country \u2013 but this time she had arrived as a minister, and the difference showed in how she listened. She was not here to absorb a tourism itinerary. She was taking notes.<\/p>\n That exchange, more than any product demonstration, captured why this visit felt significant. Two nations separated by thousands of kilometers found themselves describing the same problem: the gap between potential and delivery, and what it takes to close it.<\/p>\n Relations taking shape<\/p>\n The DRC sits on some of the most fertile land on earth. It has abundant water, a generous tropical climate, and the agricultural capacity to feed a significant portion of the African continent. Yet the country currently cultivates less than 1% of that potential, and the reason is brutally logistical.<\/p>\n Without post-harvest storage infrastructure, produce spoils before it reaches Kinshasa\u2019s 12 million residents. In the absence of cold chain solutions, the country resorts to flying fresh food by air cargo \u2013 one of the most expensive supply chains imaginable. The problem is not the land. The problem is everything between the land and the plate.<\/p>\n Three start-ups inside SouthUp are working precisely on those gaps. Led by CEO Pninit Gilboa Tal, CTO Yossi Cohen, and CSO Dr. Yulimar Castro Molina, Biotization uses breakthrough 100% biological technology to protect crops from field to storage.<\/p>\n By combating systemic diseases, the company reduces post-harvest waste from over 30% to under 1%, extending shelf life and improving supply chain profitability.<\/p>\n