About Maya Elhalal

Maya is a serial Internet entrepreneur and an enthusiastic New Media Entrepreneurship educator. By the age of 30, she has built four successful Internet ventures, as CEO of Site-On-Spot Ltd., a holding company she co-founded in 2003.

Maya leads a LIP ( Location Independent Professional ) lifestyle, practices Tao Meditation and Ashtanga Yoga, has a thing for famous quotes and loves snowboarding.

Together with Prof. Shimon Schocken and Ran Navok, Maya is the curator of TEDxTelAviv, an independently organized TED event coming to Israel this fall, just in time for Tel Aviv centenial celebrations.

New Media Entrepreneurship Educator

Since 2006, Maya teaches New Media Entrepreneurship in the International MBA Program and in the Zell Entrepreneurship Program, at the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) Herzliya, a private university in Israel

Maya is passionate about promoting Entrepreneurship education to teens and is currently developing the entrepreneurship curriculum for Israeli NFTE (Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship) and the MEET (Middle East Education through Technology) organization, backed by MIT.

Maya lectures about Entrepreneurship in leading academic institute in Israel and abroad. See upcoming speaking events or featured lectures, with more than 20,000 views in Slideshare.

The Zell Entrepreneurship Program, is a venture creation program for outstanding undergraduate students in their final year of study at the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) Herzliya, Israel. The program, funded generously by Sam Zell of Chicago, allows students to take an idea and work to develop it into a business in the course of an academic year assisted by tailored academic courses, faculty guidance and an external business mentor.

NFTE, Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship, helps young people from low-income communities build skills and unlock their entrepreneurial creativity. Since 1987, NFTE has reached more than 230,000 young people, and currently has programs in 22 states and 12 countries outside the U.S. NFTE has more than 1,300 active Certified Entrepreneurship Teachers, and is continually improving its innovative entrepreneurship curriculum.

MEET is an innovative educational initiative aimed at creating a common professional language between Israeli and Palestinian young leaders. Working together with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), MEET enables its participants to acquire advanced technological and leadership tools while empowering them to create positive social change within their own communities.

2003-2008 - CEO of Site On Spot Ltd.

In 2003 Maya co-founded Site On Spot Ltd., a company that specializes in monetization of community websites.

The company’s most recent ventures are:

New Media Consultant

Maya provides consulting services to New Media Entrepreneurs in various stages of venture creation and capital raising,  and serves as an advisory board member at several funded Internet startups.

Education and other

Investment Portfolio Management, Hamil – The Israeli Center of Management, 2005-2006

BA in Computer Science and Entrepreneurship (Zell Program)
IDC, 1999 – 2002, Cum laude

Senior Programming Instructor
Sivan (now John Bryce) IT Training Center, 2000

Lieutenant at the IDF Psychological Qualification Unit
Israeli Defense Forces, 1996 - 1998.

What Clients and Students Say…

“Maya is one of the most professional people I have had the opportunity to work with. She has a deep level of knowledge in the Internet industry and she is a master of social media. Her passion for this industry and insightful commentary adds an authentic, keen voice to the conversation.

Maya has added significant value to our start-up company by showing us different kind of views and hence improving our business model as well as the technology and product.

Eli Ken-Dror, CEO & Co-Founder, Treezer.”

“…In a single academic course, Maya Elhalal and Prof. Schoken have succeeded to demonstrate the bridge between the academic and professional world. By covering ideas, methodologies and products, Maya explained how new Internet ventures emerge and operate and shared her profound knowledge that even experienced users could benefit from.

The course project encouraged me to initiate my first blog, what I wanted to do for a long time before.

Course was so interesting that I could not skip a session, additionally, her selection in guest speakers, CEOs and highly accredit entrepreneurs, made the course far more attractive than any other traditional Internet course I have ever attended.

Nissim Ber-Siman-Tov IDC MBA graduate, Product Manager at Intercast”

“Maya has extensive Internet and Business experience which has proved valuable while mentoring us in our entrepreneurial venture. She has continually coached and directed us to find the answers ourselves, while providing us with pertinent resources and ideas.

Throughout our work with Maya and afterwards, she has always handled all contact professionaly and diligently.We have been privelaged to have met and worked with her.

Like a devoted teacher, Maya keeps tabs on our progress past the academics and has always been open to meet and help.

Eran Abramson, Zell Program graduate, co-founder of www.walyou.com and www.pollsb.com“

“Being a consultant myself, and working with consultants in previous positions, I can safely say that Maya is one of the best consultants I have ever worked with.

Avi Cahlon, Founder of InCauda”