The government is expected to approve today (Sunday) the establishment of the ministerial committee headed by Minister of Innovation, Science and Technology Ofir Akunis.
The ministerial committee will deal with encouraging coordination and promoting innovation, science and technology in Israel.
To advance Israel to the top 10 in the world in the field.
High-tech company office building in Kfar Saba, photo: Yehoshua Yosef
Today, the responsibility for the various aspects of high-tech is distributed between many parties: between government ministries, academia and the various authorities.
Over the years, high-tech executives strived for the existence of a single body that would coordinate the treatment of all parties in the industry.
Many others spoke in favor of non-intervention and in favor of minimal government involvement.
If the committee does come to fruition, it will surely face challenges such as the growth potential of Israeli high-tech, and questions about the ways in which it can be helped to compete with foreign countries. It is also possible that this is also a signal to Israeli high-tech, which operates quite independently, that the government takes responsibility for the industry, in order to to help him with the challenges that lie before him.
Minister of Science and Technology.
Ofir Akunis, photo: Ziv Koren
Minister Akunis said about the establishment of the committee, that it "is expected to engage, among other things, in the coordination and promotion of innovation, science and technology between all governmental and public bodies in a continuous and consistent dialogue with industry and academia."
He also said, "Our main and immediate goal is to return Israel to the top 10 leading countries in global and groundbreaking innovation, to curb the slowdown in the number of startups opening in Israel and change the trend upwards."
Let's recall in this context that Israeli high-tech developed from the beginning in the 1980s and 1990s on the basis of personnel originating from the defense industries as well as on the basis of the financial support of the government investment funds.
To this day, high-tech benefits from an influx of quality personnel originating from the security bodies and the Israeli education system, benefits from cooperation with the academy that is financed with public funds, and is assisted by government budgets originating from the Innovation Authority.
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