It’s not unusual to find the Jews and Arabs of Jerusalem side by side in stores, buses, and trains, working together in hospitals, and studying together in institutions of higher education. It is quite unusual, however, to find a Jewish and Arab duo who are close friends and startup cofounders. That’s what makes Hesham Taha and Avi Israel’s story so intriguing. Their company, Teramount, connects optical fibers to silicon chips, enabling the transfer of terabytes of data at the speed of light for applications requiring high bandwidth, like 5G networks, cloud computing, data-center infrastructure, and machine learning-based applications. The details are scientifically complex, but these two have years of experience in applied physics. During his Ph.D. studies at Hebrew University in 2002, Taha was working in a lab where Israel was an undergraduate assistant. Though the men are not far apart in age — Taha is now 45 and Israel is 43 — Israel had entered university after three years of military service and another year of traveling abroad. Their shared interest in physics research led to a warm working relationship. “Our friendship is a benefit but it’s about knowing the whole person. The trust and confidence you must have in a cofounder takes some of the risk off the table," Israel commented. Source: Israel21C 🇮🇱 IF YOU LOVE ISRAEL - SHARE NEWSRAEL! 🇮🇱