Amb. Reda Mansour: Innovation key to start-up nation’s success

Israeli Druze diplomat ambassador Reda Mansour, director of resource development at the Technion, recently visited Australia to champion the institution’s world-leading innovation and generate increased support for its research and technology.

“Science is very expensive because you want to compete for the best scientists, and our scientists are really good,” Mansour said. “To keep them, you have to build them the best laboratories you can and to give them a team of researchers that can work with whatever ideas they’re working on.”

When asked how the Technion became a leader in innovation, Mansour said, “In a way the Technion was built to build Israel, they knew they needed engineers to build a new country.

“It’s a country that didn’t have any natural resources, very few. So, they had to be very innovative to find solutions to the challenges they had … This problem-solving attitude, I think, is what’s behind the fact that we became the start-up nation,” Mansour remarked.

Before joining the Technion, Mansour served as a diplomat for over 35 years across Brazil, Panama, Ecuador, Portugal, Atlanta and San Francisco. Appointed at 35, he was the youngest ambassador in Israel’s history and the first Druze career diplomat. He noted that Israel’s foreign ministry has opened up to more minorities over the last decade, which is helpful in overcoming misinformation about Israel.