Atarim managAtarim manages and develops the Tel-Aviv – Yafo Coastline (Israel), paying special attention to the coastal ecosystem with its research center Migdalor and by supporting the creation of innovative technology. Through its various ventures Atarim group is in line with several of the goals of our AIVP 2030 Agenda. They look forward to collaborating and exchanging ideas with the other members on best practices in coastal management and adaptation to climate change.
Interview with Yaron KLEIN, Adv. CEO Atarim Group
Atarim is an AIVP member since March, 2022
AIVP – You have just joined the AIVP. Could you briefly introduce the other members of our international network to your organization?
Atarim Group is a municipal corporation engaged in developing and managing Tel Aviv-Jaffa’s coastline. The Tel Aviv-Jaffa’s coastline includes managing all the marinas, ports, boardwalks, and additional properties along the coastline. Our coastline is home to thousands of visitors from around the world, who enjoy the lively restaurant and bar scene as well as our vibrant culture center, alongside the dozens of fishermen, yacht owners, and marine sports enthusiasts who utilize the area. We combine culture, leisure, maritime, and nature. We aim to enhance the quality of life for residents, tourists, and businesses in the city and do so through Blue Economy and innovation.
AIVP – Why did you decide to join the AIVP, what do you expect from our international network and what can you bring to the AIVP?
We believe global collaboration and knowledge exchange are the keys to accelerating the blue economy ecosystem, enabling more innovative solutions to urban coastal mutual issues such as climate change, and strengthening the public and private sector in this field.
AIVP – You established Migdalor – The Research center for Tel Aviv-Yafo Coastal Strip – to research questions linked biodiversity health in the urban coastline and on questions of sustainable development. Could you explain why you established this research center and how you use data collected?
Atarim has established Migdalor – the Tel Aviv- Jaffa coastal research center, to build best-practice methods for sustainable developed the urban coastline. Migdalor mainly examines the unique strip of the ocean (sea) attached to the coastline: how the ocean affects the city, how the city affects the sea, and how it can be sustainably developed, benefiting both the local community and nature.
Migdalor works closely with stakeholders from various sectors to develop and rehabilitate the marine environment. One of our flagship programs is ongoing ecological monitoring. We research every centimeter in our coastline, building a long-term database. We aim to quantify human impact on the marine ecosystem, monitor marine hazards (such as invasive species). Our main goal is to identify development opportunities for rehabilitation of the ecosystem while contributing to the local community via development opportunities such as eco-tourism, innovation, and more.
We also monitor and study the weather conditions and sea forces at the daily and seasonal levels. Due to climate change, the impact of the sea has been increased by the proliferation of winter storms and rising sea levels. Atarim strives to best understand the trends in sea and climate conditions in the coastal strip and to map out the sensitivities to sea conditions in general from its complexes.
AIVP – You seem to place a lot of attention on the sustainability of the coastline. We see a good synergy with the AIVP’s Agenda 2030 Objective 2 – Energy Transition and Circular Economy. Could you introduce some initiatives you may have undertaken to foster the green transition of the Tel Aviv-Jaffa region?
The urban coastline is a unique strip combining nature and city, leisure and professionalism, respect to traditional approach while being the gate to humanity’s final frontier. These are all conflicts but also the flourishing ground for development and prosperity.
Being responsible for the planning and development of the coastline is a great responsibility, especially in light of the growing need for urban facilitation from one side and climate changes from the other. These pressures are our challenge and the main reasons why the coastline is essential to the city in its back. We believe the key to designing the future coastline relies on innovation!
To promote innovation, we built a beta site for urban marine innovation at the Jaffa port – where ventures can test their technologies in their natural environment, working alongside their target markets. In the Beta Site, one can find ventures from the world of renewable energy and the blue economy. Wave energy, Marina management app, ecological concrete, and more, if your venture can contribute to the intelligent design of the urban coastline of the future, you belong.
The ventures operate in our beta site in collaboration with Atarim’s skilled staff to ensure the design matches the precise needs of the stakeholders working on the coastline. They can test the systems, collect data and refine their ideas to establish the technologies that will shape the urban coastal strip in the future. This is happening at the Jaffa port- a prime location on the coastline of Tel Aviv Jaffa. All ventures are accessible to port visitors by infographics and to stakeholders worldwide with tailored tours.
We are very well connected to the entrepreneurial character of Tel Aviv-Yafo city and its massive innovation ecosystem to deal with the blue economy and Renewable issues. Local academic research, governmental research and innovation facilities, high-tech facilitators (accelerators, VCs, ) and of course entrepreneurs: we bring them all together to build a prosperous, sustainable blue economy ecosystem.
