The Academic Wellsprings of the Israeli High Tech Industry
Video recorded interviews with Professors: Jacob Ziv, Moshe Zakai, Israel Bar-David, Michael Rabin and Moshe Arens
The Israeli high-tech industry is an exceptional success story worthy of research and study. This industry is based primarily on information and communication technologies (ICT), on electronics and computer science and is a dominant contributor to the Israeli industrial exports and is considered to be the driving force of the Israeli economy.
Many, justly, attribute this success to massive investments over many years into the defense infrastructure R&D, to the elite technological units of IDF and to the entrepreneurial spirit of the Israelis. But, the pivotal contribution of the Israeli research universities and their faculty is less known and go unrecognized, though without their input this industry would have not evolved. In retrospect, one finds that a small number of professors from the Technion and the Hebrew University, back in the 1960s, laid the academic foundations of the disciplines which are at the root of the high tech industry. These academic departments educated many thousands of graduates, who equipped with frontier knowledge in their respective field, created the high tech industries, form the core of this industry and lead it.
Three academic departments were the pioneers in creating the hi-tech industry: electrical engineering and aeronautical engineering at the Technion and computer science at the Hebrew University.
This website contains videotapes (and transcripts) of recorded oral history of the pioneering professors who tell firsthand the authentic story of how the academic wellsprings of this industry has been created. It is a fascinating story which shows how a handful of very talented people with big vision who happen to be in the right place and the right time can change the course of a nation.
Interviewer: Professor Zehev Tadmor, Chairman of the S. Neaman Institute and President Emeritus of Technion (the videotapes were recorded in the summer of 2011)
I wish to thank the help and support of Ms. Yvette Gershon from Public Affairs Division and the Israeli Academy of Sciences.
Video recorded interview with Professors Jacob Ziv, Moshe Zakai, Israel Bar-David:
Video recorded interview with Prof. Moshe Arens:
Video recorded interview with Prof. Michael Rabin:
