Start-Up Nation's Saul Singer - A Teaser On May 13 best-selling author and experienced American-Israeli one-man think tank Saul Singer landed in Herzilya to talk about why Israel’s culture is so receptive to innovation. To a standing-room only crowd, he explained in our exclusive video how military tech not only “transferred” over to the civilian sector of the economy, but that “Israel’s cultural DNA” has made things like pill-cams that diagnose without need for surgery, or disks-on-key that make international espionage a snap, into a reality.
Given Imaging, which creates pill-cameras that can diagnose without surgery, took the idea from cameras found in the nose-cones of missiles and fighter aircraft. Olympus, the famed camera giant known the world over, is now playing catch-up.
That essence, as Saul has also explained in an interview with our friends at Maariv (in Hebrew), is rooted in that this country is still very young and unstable and one make big changes here in a way you cannot, he believes, back in the USA.
He added that the focus on the conflict obscures another part of the picture, which is the vibrant hi-tech culture that is now ubiquitous and influential. For example, Given Imaging, which creates pill-cameras that can diagnose without surgery, took the idea from cameras found in the “nose-cones of missiles and fighter aircraft.” Olympus, the famed camera giant known the world over, is now playing catch-up.
Innovation is not the classic image of a light-bulb going off: “Creativity is the least of it,” he said. After all, “there are a lot of creative people in the world.” These types of people need a “willingness to take risks, to improvise… you have to be willing to take that creativity” and channel it, so that what’s essential is your drive and instincts. So what gave rise to the hi-tech culture that is now the envy of the industrialized world (see OECD, acceptance into) is the Israeli style of teamwork, mission and self-sacrifice. Indeed, in Singer’s summation, “The whole country is a start-up.”
(Saul also tweets here. Feel free to Tweet back!)
