(BBC News) Katia Moskvitch - Tiny Israel has managed to transform itself from a stretch of farmland into a high-tech wonder. Israel currently has almost 4,000 active technology start-ups - more than any other country outside the U.S., according to Israel Venture Capital Research Center. In 2010 alone the flow of venture capital amounted to $884m. The result: high-tech exports from Israel are valued at about $18.4bn a year, making up more than 45% of Israel's exports. Israel is a world leader in terms of research and development spending as a percentage of the economy; it's top in both the number of start-ups and engineers as a proportion of the population. "If you look at how this country was created, it was really a start-up on the large scale," says entrepreneur Yossi Vardi, who has invested in more than 80 Israeli high-tech firms. "A bunch of crazy people came here, trying to pursue a dream of 2,000 years."
2011-11-25 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive