Israel: Punching Above Its Weight. The Secret of Israel's Tech
Success
Israel is third only to America and Canada in the number of
companies listed on NASDAQ, and the country attracts twice the
number of venture-capital (VC) investments as the whole of
Europe. In 2003, 55% of Israel's exports were high technology,
compared with the OECD average of 26%. Tech giants such as IBM,
Motorola, and Cisco have research centers in Israel, which is
also where Intel developed its Centrino chip.
The pump was primed by government grants in the 1970s, by
the BIRD Foundation (a joint American-Israeli initiative that
supported many start-ups before VC money was widely available),
and by government schemes to encourage Russian immigrants who
arrived after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Another big
factor is the army, that gets hold of everybody at age 18, and
if they have a glimmer of potential, it catalyzes their
transformation into engineers or scientists. Israel has 135
engineers per 10,000 employees, compared with 70 in America, 65
in Japan, and 28 in Britain. (Economist-UK)
