Israel - "Silicon Wadi"
Within the framework of the institutional relationship between Universidad Complutense de Madrid and Banco Santander, the Vice-Rectorate for Knowledge Transfer and Entrepreneurship has launched the III UCM-Santander International Programme of Visits to Reference Entrepreneurial Ecosystems. This year’s destination is Israel, as it is one of the ecosystems that best combines high tech and social entrepreneurship.
Dates: 27 November to 2 December 2018
Applicants: University Researchers and Faculty.
Open until 23:59 1st October 2018.
In Israel, with a population of 8.5 million, more than 40,000 people work in the high-tech industry, contributing to 15 percent of GDP. In 2015, Israel's startups generated $9.5 trillion in outflows and 150 companies are indexed on the NASDAQ (third country after China and the United States). It is also the third country in the world in terms of registered patents in the United States.
Israel's universities, such as Ben Gurion University, Tel Aviv University and Hebrew University, with their Research and Development hubs are perfect incubation centres for driving innovation.
Israel's Ecosystem includes:
- 5.000 Startups
- 9 Public Universities
- 16 TTOs (time-trade-off) (Universities+Hospitals)
- More than 50 aceleradoras
- 18 incubators
- More than 100 capital funds
- 300 multinacionationals and R&D Centers
Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Tel Aviv:
- First Ecosystem of Entrepreneurship outside the USA.
- Nearly 30 percent of Israel's startups are in Tel Aviv
- The number of Research and Development centres has grown by 44% in recent years.
- The number of startups grew by 40 percent between 2012 and 2014.
- 19 Startups are created per square kilometre.
- Between 2012 and 2015 the number of accelerators, coworking spaces and innovation centers grew 138 percent.
From a social point of view, Israel has to be considered as one of the roots of participatory organizations.
Indeed, one of the nearby community realities is the "kibbutz" which remains one of the main engines of Israeli economic development. Although they constitute only 3 per cent of the Israeli population, they produce 40 per cent of agriculture and 9 per cent of industrial products. The first "kibbutz" was born in 1911 promoted by young people to absorb the masses of emigrants arriving in the promised land. It is characterized as a collectivity in which the means of production are communally owned including land; agrarian production is for the good of the whole nation; the group takes precedence over the individual; the principles of equality, democracy and solidarity of the members govern.
Israeli law defines them as cooperative development societies whose members live in community, organized according to the principles of collective ownership of goods, personal labor (rejection of salaried labor), equality and cooperation in the fields of production" of consumption and education.