The Networking Culture

The Israeli culture is in many aspects very close to the Silicon Valley culture of young and dynamic people working and playing together. These past few years have been characterized by the development of many "serial creators ," who have become the new go-getting superstars of commerce such as those who created Mirabilis and Check Point.

The unique Israeli spin is that these creators are not only animated by the spirit of the economy, but they also have developed a strong capacity to network, which forms the basis of the Israeli model. These networks, which include business partners and competitors , and also their families, schools , the Jewish Diaspora, and Israel's American links, are omnipresent in the daily life of these managers. The networks are maintained and strengthened every day through any exchange and communication opportunity that might appear. Not surprisingly, Israel is one of the countries with the largest number of mobile phones per inhabitant.

Some government efforts have been made to set up formal networking, mainly initiated by the Ministry of Industry and Trade. In particular, a magnet program that resembled an R&D network was initiated to convert military technology into civilian applications. ^[2] Scientists from the Institutes take part in a few Magnet programs. Today the magnet program is not limited to the conversion of military technology.