A recent study found that Israel’s hi-tech industry, while made up of over 335,000 people, is led by about 20,000 people, or 6%. The study by Sparks Consulting shows that Israel has done a stellar job marketing itself as the startup nation, and its position as a tech giant is valid; however, only a handful of the population is responsible for its economic, financial, and technological success.
Perhaps this is largely why the Israeli ‘brain drain’ is a real concern, and why the state of Israel needs to find a way to maintain the hi-tech population, while balancing new opportunities for education and resource-sharing, for those who are commonly looked over or marginalized. Creating a more balanced and broad view, instead of focusing simply on the elite view, could make the startup nation not only flourish but remain sustainable in the future.
Ron Tzur, CEO of Spark Consulting, says that after in-depth interviews with senior executives, he understood that the number could be even less than 20,000, their importance invaluable as “creative people who are in the forefront could be even smaller. We call hi-tech the engine of the economy and these people are the motor of that engine.”
For Israel to stay the startup nation and keep its current technological advantage, the startup system needs to expand in a number of ways, which includes creating more benefits for the ‘brains’ to remain in Israel, as well as offering more value to the employees who make the engine turn.
Tzur suggests a focus on enlarging the group of these talented employers: “Hi-tech today is not realizing the potential that exists in the haredi, and Arab populations and amongst women because of cultural and occupational obstacles. In these populations, there are enough people to enlarge this reservoir of talents by 20,000. We interviewed a female entrepreneur who employs haredi women and she told me that there are certainly superstars, but many companies miss out on them.”
While maintaining the startup nation is crucial to Israel’s economic success, sustaining it for the future starts with individual opportunities for growth.
