BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (JTA) — An Argentine municipality has officially adopted Israel as a model of start up development.

The Israeli flag was seeing flying on Tuesday in the Argentine district of Vicente Lopez, when the municipality government hosted the conference “Start Up Nation, Israel as a paradigm of the entrepreneurship ecosystem.”

The Vicente Lopez municipality, with a population of some 271,000, is located about 12 miles north of Buenos Aires City and is part of the Buenos Aires province.

On Tuesday, for first time, the municipality presented Israel as a model for start-up development. The panel was composed by Eduardo Viñales General Director of Economic Development for Vicente Lopez;  Ariel Kijal,  Pro-Secretary of the Keren Kayemet Le Israel in Argentina; Ryan Fain, the Hillel director in charge of the Hilabs, an entrepreneurship center and incubator of companies for Jewish entrepreneurs; Alejandro Melincovsky, a journalist specializing in entrepreneurship; and the Jewish  entrepreneur Julian Gurfinkiel. They presented the Israeli model to develop start ups to more than 60 business people in a public program.

“The Israeli model has a lot to bring to our society, the panel was inspiring for our entrepreneurs and we want to improve the institutional links with Israel. After this success we want to continue showing here the Israeli model in order to transfer to Vicente Lopez Israeli methodologies and experiences, Viñales told JTA.

“Argentineans and Israelis share a basic personality trait, which is the ability to challenge the limits and think we are capable of achieving great things without fear of failure,” he said.