Why is the Summit held as a virtual event?
While the COVID situation in Israel is fairly good, and some conferences are already held in-person, the Summit is international in its DNA, and we can't truly hold it in-person without having everyone from around the world join us - and with Israel's current rules for foreigners entry, this is simply not possible.
Israel was closed off for foreigners until very recently - and only opened up on November.1 - however unlike other countries which allow entry simply with a negative COVID test or a vaccination certificate, Israel requires that foreigners who enter the country are either recovered from COVID or vaccinated against it - but vaccination means either having 3 doses of the vaccine (which is standard in Israel for all age groups) or 2 doses when the last dose was given not more than 6 months ago. And since most countries do not give a 3rd dose to all age groups (or at all) - this means that many people will not be able to enter.
In addition there are still limitations of having more than 600 people in a closed space, and the Summit is bigger than that.
We do hope that with time, the entry rules will be relaxed, or even better that the virus will be weakened, and then we will be able to host all of you in-person in Israel like the good all times. Until then we will meet in a virtual way, the upside being that we can invite speakers without any geographical limits and have superb content this year too.
While the COVID situation in Israel is fairly good, and some conferences are already held in-person, the Summit is international in its DNA, and we can't truly hold it in-person without having everyone from around the world join us - and with Israel's current rules for foreigners entry, this is simply not possible.
Israel was closed off for foreigners until very recently - and only opened up on November.1 - however unlike other countries which allow entry simply with a negative COVID test or a vaccination certificate, Israel requires that foreigners who enter the country are either recovered from COVID or vaccinated against it - but vaccination means either having 3 doses of the vaccine (which is standard in Israel for all age groups) or 2 doses when the last dose was given not more than 6 months ago. And since most countries do not give a 3rd dose to all age groups (or at all) - this means that many people will not be able to enter.
In addition there are still limitations of having more than 600 people in a closed space, and the Summit is bigger than that.
We do hope that with time, the entry rules will be relaxed, or even better that the virus will be weakened, and then we will be able to host all of you in-person in Israel like the good all times. Until then we will meet in a virtual way, the upside being that we can invite speakers without any geographical limits and have superb content this year too.