Innovation in Israel: to the moon and beyond
It’s hard to avoid a jubilant tone in speaking about Israel and innovation when the first lunar spacecraft, made in Israel, is making its way to Earth’s natural satellite. In the last 20 years Israel has become a world leader in new technologies and science and there is no better proof to this claim that the flight of “Bereesheet” (“In the beginning” in Hebrew, the first words in Genesis) that started on February 22 and made Israel the 4 th nation in the world, after USA, USSR and China, who sent a spacecraft to the Moon. Some experts argue that the turning point for Israel’s innovation was in the beginning of the 1990s, thanks to a successful professional integration of the highly educated immigrants from former Soviet Union and as a result of a new form of collaboration between academia and industry encouraged by government. But the truth is that already in the first years after its establishment Israel embarked on innovative solutions to problems that faced many developin...