Read "Punching above its weight: The secret of Israel's success" in The Economist. (Subscription necessary.)
"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, according to Ed Mlavsky, a veteran of the Israeli technology industry and the chairman and founder of Gemini, a big Israeli VC fund that was one of the investors in Saifun. 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 centres in Israel, which is also where Intel developed its Centrino chip. Not bad for a country with a population of 6.9m."
The bad news for other countries that wish to encourage the development of their technology industries is that few of the factors that account for Israeli success can be replicated elsewhere.
3 comments:
"...bad news for other countries ... is that few of the factors that account for Israeli success can be replicated elsewhere."
why not? what are those factors?
One factor that helped, and can not be replicated in many other places, is clearly the influx of highly educated and trained people that has occurred over the last half century. Then there is U.S. support, accounting to several billion dollars a year over decades – perhaps more than US$50,000 per Israeli family. European support must be added to that amount. The United States and Western Europe also opened markets preferentially to Israel, and many entrepreneurs the United States have been especially open to co-ventures and investments with Israel. And Israel is small. It occurs to me that many of these factors apply to Ireland, Taiwan, Singapore, etc., but will not apply to most countries. The precarious security position of Israel may help focus the mind, since such focus seems necessary for survival.
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