Read it all here
With a concentration of start-ups just behind that of Silicon Valley and an impressive pool of engineers, Israel is becoming the new standard for high-tech, with a unique business model.
Internet-related activities contributed 9 billion euros (12.6 billion dollars) to the Israeli economy in 2009, representing 6.5 percent of GDP, according to a report from management consultancy McKinsey.
The sector is worth more than the construction industry (5.4 percent of GDP) and almost as much as health (6.8 percent).
The web economy has also created a total of 120,000 jobs, accounting for 4 percent of the country's workforce, McKinsey says.
From Microsoft to Intel through Google, IBM and Philips, almost all the giants of the Internet and technology have set up important research and development centres in Israel, spawning products and systems used worldwide.
"Israel is the country with the most engineers in its population, and it ranks second behind the United States in the number of companies listed on Nasdaq," said David Kadouch, product manager at Google Israel, which opened its R&D operation in 2007 and currently has 200 employees.
"It's really a second Silicon Valley. Besides the multinationals, all the major American investment funds are present," he said.
"The scientific community is very active, there is plenty of manpower and especially an entrepreneurial culture. There is a huge ecosystem around high tech, and what is fundamental is that here we think global."
Some 500 start-ups are created every year in the country of 7.7 million people, which grew by 4.7 percent last year according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development against an average of 2.8 for its member countries.
The OECD forecast for Israel in 2011 is 5.4 percent.
Israel's higher education institutions, particularly the Technion, the prestigious technological university in the northern city of Haifa, must take a large share of the credit for this creativity.
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Oh, yes oh yes oh yes. BDS is on a roll! Check out that momentum. Its unstoppable. And, btw, who are the Pixies anyway?
2 comments:
and in the mean time S.F. Bay Area Israel haters like Tom Vee (local al-jazeera outlet), paul larudee (hamas stooge), the uber disgusting wallach sisters and the Quasimodo like kate raphael make excuses and/or support all the other players in the Middle East that export very little more then oil and terror to the rest of the world.
i've been listening to NPR for the past couple of weeks and i've finally heard the first bit of reporting of the flotilla. after a brief summery of the situation which was fairly objective they interviews a couple of gazans about the flotilla. although they to no surprise support the flotilla's as moral support they both admitted that the goods thus far from the first one mostly just ended up on the black market and or with hamas specifically. the reporter for that segment was Lourdes Garcia.
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