Israeli Innovation
In Den Senor’s book, Start-Up Nation, Israeli culture is attributed to the innovation that has made Israel the country with the highest density of start-up companies per capita in the world.
Senor connects the universal military service requirement to this fact. Military service gives young Israelis leadership experience while it teaches them to manage people, time and even money. Interestingly, it also teaches them how to improvise and make “tough decisions with imperfect information,” said Senor.
In general, Israeli culture is tolerant of questioning authority, debating and challenging hierarchy. Entrepreneurs in Israel have also historically invested a lot of money in research and development, which has developed strong IT and technology industries. Watch the video above to hear the author speak about his findings, which lead him to write Start-Up Nation.
Valerie
In this book, according to some articles that I read in the Israeli journals, there are more reasons for the “power” of Israeli innovation besides the army.
Another aspects that I would suggest is the encouragement people receive here to try and realize their ideas. It is also governmental money and companies that invest in new ideas, but also universities are open to competitions. For example right now there are several competitions where students are asked to give suggestions and solution to problems encountered in commercial companies. The competition is sponsored by two groups: newspaper that gives the publicity and an organization that will give the money for the winning team.
2nd cultural aspect- the fact that if someone doesn’t succeed it is not the end of the world. He failed, he lost money (it could be she too…), but he can try again with another idea.
Thank you for posting this post