Israel Innovation Labs The ILDC Labs is following a new innovation model which was launched in the U.S. last year. Its goal is to provide an environment and framework which foster the creation of new, highly disruptive products and technologies. While existing incubations and product groups typically target a 2-5 years timeframe, the Labs target a 5-10 years horizon. While product groups typically focus on incremental innovation and product improvements – the Labs focus on ground-breaking, paradigm-shifting technologies and business-models. For example, technologies or products which re-invent information display or change the future of search and advertizing. The ILDC Labs funnels ideas from across the ILDC (Microsoft Israel Development Center), Microsoft and even the outside world. It exposes its activities and incubates many of them publicly to test their viability in a viral way (go to http://labs.live.com for an example). The Labs encourage a dynamic, highly speculative and experiential research and development process. Small (4-5 people) teams are allowed to form and re-form, to move from applied research to implementation and back and to diverge into uncharted waters which may hold even greater promise. The small size of the teams coupled with the BIG-BET nature of the projects forces extremely versatile skills – research, design, creativity, and implementation are expected from each team member in addition to tight teamwork and collaboration. The ILDC Labs collaborates with other Labs across Microsoft by sharing best practices, technology insights and in some cases teaming up on specific projects. Ultimately – the goal of the Labs is to bring a few of its projects to the point of “irrefutability”. This is a point where a product group sees the value of the technology or product and wants to “acquire it” for full-fledged incubation, similar to the existing ILDC incubations. Because of the long-term, speculative nature of the Labs, we expect a very high failure rate, but that’s exactly what we need in order to unleash the type of ground-breaking, bold bets we envision. With these Labs - we have created an environment that will allow our innovative and creative employees to dream up and propose new ideas, with no limits on subject, scope or focus. The propositions bearing the most merit will be launched as new incubations within the ILDC Labs and will receive an environment that will support the inventor from idea to fruition.