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"The initial step would be to create a vibrant start-up atmosphere in India. There is great scope for the two countries to do start-ups together. Israel can be a gateway for India to the huge Western tech world," Saul told PTI in an interview.
"Democracy is very important for entrepreneurship to flourish. And India has this advantage," the former editorial page editor of the Jerusalem Post, who was on a three-day visit to India, says.
On Israel`s great success story he says, "Today Israel leads the world in the percentage of its GDP that goes to research and development, creating both a technological edge critical to national security and a civilian tech sector that is the main engine of the economy".
"This transformation was not easy, planned, or foreseen.
It came later than Israelis would have liked ? there was a `lost decade` of low growth and hyperinflation between the founders` era of high growth and the current era of high tech.
But it came, and a thread runs through the founders` time of draining swamps and growing oranges to today`s era of start- ups and chip designers." .
So what makes Israel so innovative and entrepreneurial? "The most obvious explanation lies in a classic cluster of the type Harvard professor Michael Porter has championed, Silicon Valley embodies, and Dubaihas tried to create. It consists of the tight proximity of great universities, large companies, start-ups, and the ecosystem that connects them ? including everything from suppliers, and engineering talent pool, and venture capital," says the book, co-authored by Dan Senor, senior foreign policy advisor to the US government, and published by Hachette.
"Part of this more visible part of the cluster is the role of the military in pumping R&D funds into cutting-edge systems and elite technological units, and the spill-over from this substantial investment, both in technologies and human resources, into the civilian economy."
Military has been a great factor and a great motivator.
"Everybody has to be a part of the military in Israel. And it teaches leadership, team work, patriotism and other important things," says Singer.
According to him, innovation is not only about ideas but also of start-ups. "Apart from ideas, there should be the drive, determination and willingness to take risk. Israel has been able to turn all adversities into renewable sources of creative energy." .
An ideal start-up, according to Singer, is one that succeeds. "The ideal start-up has a strong team which compliments each member with skills. It becomes very easy when one differentiates between when to give up and when never to give up," he says.
The authors describe "Start-Up Nation: The Story of Israel`s Economic Miracle" as a book about innovation and entrepreneurship and how a small country like Israel came to embody both. The book is also being published in 14 languages including Chinese, German, French, Italian, Russian, Portuguese, Korean, Turkish, Czech, Bulgarian, Arabic and Hebrew.
