Co-founder Israel Tech Week Miami and Miami-Israel Collective. Built the largest Israeli tech conference outside Israel — 1,500 attendees, 150 speakers, nine verticals. The institutional bridge between Israeli founders and Florida capital.
Lior Halabi is the co-founder of Israel Tech Week Miami and the Miami-Israel Collective — the institutional infrastructure connecting Israeli technology founders and investors with the South Florida business ecosystem. With co-founder Ayal Stern, Halabi built the largest Israeli technology conference outside of Israel at a moment when most Israeli-focused conferences were canceling or postponing.
Israel Tech Week debuted in 2025, attracting 1,500 attendees and 150 speakers in its first edition. The 2026 conference — April 27-30 at The LAB Miami — expanded to nine technology verticals: defense tech, cybersecurity, AI and data, fintech, healthtech, life sciences, agtech, cleantech, and space technology. The conference drew opening remarks from Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava and featured keynotes from founders and investors actively deploying Israeli capital in the US market.
Why Israel Tech Week Matters More During the War
The timing was not incidental. As Halabi told the press: "This year, bringing the event to life carries added significance. It creates a space for Israeli founders and investors to stay visible, continue building, and engage directly with global partners at a time when that access is more important than ever." Multiple Israeli technology conferences in the US were postponed or cancelled in 2025-2026. Israel Tech Week ran — and grew.
The conference functions as a deal-flow platform: startup showcases, investor roundtables, private executive breakfasts, and curated one-on-one meetings between Israeli founders seeking US capital and American investors seeking Israeli innovation. The format is designed to produce transactions, not content. Every session leads to a meeting room.
The Miami-Israel Collective and the Ecosystem Layer
The Miami-Israel Collective — the organization behind Israel Tech Week — operates year-round as the community layer connecting Israeli entrepreneurs with the South Florida ecosystem. It bridges the Florida-Israel Business Accelerator (FIBA), local venture firms like Blumberg Capital's Miami office and Ocean Azul Partners, and the growing community of Israeli founders who have relocated to South Florida since 2020.
Halabi and Stern recognized early that the Israeli tech migration to Florida needed institutional infrastructure to become sustainable. Individual founders relocating is migration. An organized conference with deal flow, investor access, and government engagement is an ecosystem. The difference is whether the migration compounds — or dissipates.
Where Halabi Sits in the Florida–Israel Corridor
Halabi is not a founder in the traditional sense — he didn't build a product company or a development portfolio. He built the connective tissue between Israeli innovation and Florida capital. In a corridor with 429 Israeli-founded companies, someone has to organize the market. Halabi is that organizer. Israel Tech Week is his platform. The Miami-Israel Collective is his institution. The Florida–Israel corridor has a developer (Dezer), a tech report (5WPR), an accelerator (FIBA), and now a conference (Israel Tech Week). Halabi built the last piece.