An update from Noah Shani
Minister, Trade & Economic Affairs at the Embassy of Israel in London.The start to 2013 has been particularly exciting so far.
Israel’s trade with the UK is flourishing, Israel’s innovators are creating and inspiring new technologies and new scientific discoveries and Israel’s entrepreneurial achievements continue to draw high praise and receive great acclaim.
This last month alone has seen another milestone in Israel’s rapid growth in the high-tech sector, with four major multinational companies opening R&D centres or innovation hubs in Israel. Apple, Samsung, Sprint and SingTel have all recognised the thriving high-tech community in Israel and have taken a strategic decision to tap into Israel’s talent pool for technology and innovation.
This follows the announcement that the city of Tel Aviv, the engine room of Israeli high-tech, has been named as the world’s second “most innovative city” in the Wall Street Journal magazine’s City of the Year contest (organised by non-profit Urban Land Institute).
Having made the final shortlist of three cities from the original list of over 200, Israel was recognised for its achievements in technology, high-tech innovation, research and science. Great importance was also taken from the fact that apart from Silicon Valley, the highest concentration of high-tech companies in the world is found in Israel.
Then again, this is all hardly surprising given the depth of resources in Israel that is made available to encourage and foster the development of high-tech and science. Indeed, Israel invests about 4.25% of its GDP in R&D, which is the highest ratio of any country in the world (according to the IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook 2012).
Furthermore, The Office of the Chief Scientist in Israel annually supports hundreds of projects, from incipient concepts within a pre-seed framework, followed by support of incubator and start-up companies, through to autonomous industrial R&D enterprises.
H
owever, government support is far from being purely financial. Israel’s government policy actively encourages the transfer of knowledge form academia to industry. In fact the WEF ranked Israel as eighth in the world for its research collaboration between university and industry. This close collaboration has regularly converted research into successful, profitable businesses.
Additionally, alongside the government support is the cultural support – from a people that place great importance on education and nurturing the entrepreneurial spirit.
Israel enjoys one of the most highly educated and multi-cultural workforces in the world. It boasts a ratio of 135 scientists for every 100,000 workers (the world’s highest proportion) and a quality of scientific research institutions that is ranked number one in the world by the WEF (2012).
This is a workforce that is noted for its inquisitive and determined entrepreneurial spirit and one that is famed for its ability to quickly transform its start-up ventures into profitable and competitive companies. It is the various successes of this cultural spirit that has helped to transform Israel into the world’s 5th largest venture capital market.
When all these things are combined, Israel comes to the fore in the high-tech arena and science, with strength of purpose and a talent for ingenuity.
Over the past month, the Trade and Economic Office in London has been involved in a number of projects that have brought these strengths and talents to the attention of the world’s business and technology leaders.
We have been working to build on the stories of Israel’s recent successes, and there have indeed been many, by developing new partnerships between British and Israeli entities, with the intention that these new collaborations will bring with them the next great success story.