VIVA SARAH PRESS

When I was interviewed for the Childhood Elsewhere documentary by journalist Zhou Yijun about education in Israel, I was filmed as my alter ego, Oshi the clown. My message, however, was one I regularly speak about in the innovation talks I give: the culture of failure. Failure is a buzzword in entrepreneurship and education today. Zhou Yijun dedicated a whole series to Israeli education and looked at how different educational methods – from elementary school to university and

Two years ago, I crossed the lines of writing about the arts -- which I’ve done for over 20 years as a journalist -- to being in the world of the arts. At first, it was a very strange, curious and out-of-my-box experience to be on the other side. It was Oshi, my clown alter ego, who took me to the other side. Of course, that’s one of the key things an alter ego is good for: to do something completely out of your box. And clowning – medical, educational, social – was definit

Sometimes you need an outsider to show you what's happening in your neighborhood. Journalist and filmmaker Zhou Yijun dedicates an episode of her education series, Childhood Elsewhere, to what's happening in Israel. The documentary series, now showing on Youku, offers a fascinating look at the culture of education in Japan, Finland, India, the UK and Israel as compared to China. The Israel episode looks at this country’s views on education styles, innovation from a young age,

$100 million. That’s about how much the Beresheet spacecraft mission cost to put Israel in Lunar Orbit. It’s also the sum an international consortium is set to invest in Israeli food tech and agritech initiatives, in Kiryat Shmona. What else can you do with $100 million? A whole lot. Obviously. And when we’re talking about innovation – and a country of innovators – there are oodles of wild ideas just waiting to be converted into global solutions via collaboration or investmen

Learning from failures is important. Being able to fail, to really embrace a failure, is even more significant if the experience is to be learned. I preach it to my kids. I tell it to myself. Oshi, my alter ego, breathes this motto every moment. I envy her joy of failing; her ability to be so unsuccessful at so many different undertakings. Oshi, an educational clown, is all about bringing pleasure to people she meets. But in order to create this joy she usually needs to fail.

“You’re so lucky. You get to do what you love,” a mother from my son’s class recently told me. We were sitting on beach chairs, finishing off our picnic lunch. I sat in my chair. I listened to what she had to say. “Yes, I am lucky,” I agreed. “It took me a long time to get here, but I’m here.” Here is being an independent/freelancer. Here is being a journalist, educational clown, speaker and content writer/editor. Here is doing more than one type of work. Being creative in wh

The eight-year-old was the youngest attendee at a talk I gave today. There were also a bunch of tweens and teenagers in the audience, as well as their parents and grandparents. These mixed generation audiences are always fun and distinctive. After all, many of the groups that invite me to speak are uniform in age or profession. Earlier this month, I spoke to a synagogue group from Santa Barbara (ages 50-80). Last month, I addressed a group of business folks. The inter-generat

Autonomous vehicles. Self-driving cars. When I first hosted a radio show on the concept of AV in 2014, people were still calling it a wild idea/imaginings. Fast forward to 2018, autonomous vehicles are being built. The tech inside them is in hot demand. And while drivers may not be ready for them just yet, the idea of a self-driving car is accepted. Connected cars are also high in demand. So, I turned to some of the experts I had interviewed back in 2014 – as well as to some