By Sarah Jarvis
After a long and informative day visiting with many startups and innovative leaders our last stop of the night was at a little office building in the heart of Tel Aviv. Inside this building is an animation studio called Snowball Studios . We are greeted at the door by little statues of what they call “snowballs” which look like little happy various colored monsters, in the same hallway we spot posters of different advertisements for various products. We then realized that we had been seeing these “snowballs” all over town this whole week. It was amazing to recognize that this studio produces something that the whole country sees every single day.
We then moved into a different room where we met with the CEO of Snowball Studios. Yoni Cohen gave us a passionate and inspiring presentation. He didn't just lecture us about what the company does but he told us a story. He told us the story of his childhood and how he loved to draw and imagine when he was young and he loved Disney movies and they inspired him to want to keep drawing and keep imagining. He began to develop his skills by learning how to use 3D modeling technology and then making a career for himself during his late teenage years. He went on to serve in the army where they helped him keep doing what he loved by allowing him to do art and 3D animation for the army. When Yoni finished in the army he decided he really wanted to go for it and began to start his own animation studio. He was a true innovator in the field in Israel. He worked hard to build up his clientele and now runs a very successful animation studio in Tel Aviv. After he spoke to us he showed us various clips of different projects his company is responsible for. They were all so different yet so funny and charming.
Yoni showed us that if you have a dream and a passion you just have to keep working at it and you can make something out of it and grow a career around it. We saw many innovators this day and learned different things from everyone about how to push your passion and make it something amazing. I can't wait to continue this journey and learn more from other amazing people.
