7 Every massively successful ecosystem has institutions which took a leading role in its creation. In many cases, it is either a university, an accelerator or a massive corporation. In Israel, it is the army, which became one of the world’s top startup accelerators, by accident. Roy Caner, Head of High-Tech at Erdinast, Ben Nathan, Toledano & Co.With Hamburger Evron (“EBN”), points out: “service in certain large technological units in the Israeli army provides the founders with unequivocal experience.” Furthermore, there is also a tradition and mentality geared towards innovation, where success stories attract more talent and failures generally do not discourage, but encourage additional attempts.” Daniel Damboritz, partner at Yigal Arnon adds: “Israel is, ultimately, a very young country - just shy of 75 years old. Israel has had to be creative in securing its future from the day it announced its independence. So innovation has essentially always been a crucial factor for Israel’s ability to, literally, survive. This sense of need to be innovative has forced people to take responsibility over their own destiny. Israeli’s learn at a young age that if they want to achieve a goal, they will likely need to ‘figure it out’ it themselves.This results in early adulthood and a deep senseof responsibility, also brought upon by a mandatory military service.” Meitar partner Assaf Oz added: “We are living in an era of low interest rates, which has been so for, perhaps, longer than ever before. With that comes tons of money that needs to be deployed, and a significant part of such investments is being allocated to the high-tech industry.” Pointing to “thepandemic,governmental cash injections and the low interest rates in the financial markets,” Noga Devecseri Spira, partner at Naschitz Brandes Amir also highlights the fact that “Israel has seen a significant growth in founders willing and able to build significant organizations. It is about serial entrepreneurs, as well as executives in start-ups or global companies and first-time founders that are aiming to build start-ups that reach the market fast or are based on deep technology with a worldchanging vision.” Oded Uni, partner at Gornitzky, said: “We see very young students taking computer science and cyber-security courses at school with a view to be Why does Israel have a disproportionate amount of success in this field?
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