Israel: Silicon Valley Of The Middle East

[JStone]

Business Week Magazine: Israel's High Tech Hot Spots. From Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, The Mideast Nation Is Blanketed With Science Parks And Creativity Clusters.

Israel's flourishing technology sector has earned the nickname "Silicon Wadi" (Arabic for "Valley") thanks to its powerful mix of pioneering high-tech and pharmaceutical companies and world-class research facilities such as the Weizmann Institute of Science and Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. The country has attracted global tech giants such as Intel, IBM, Microsoft, and Motorola, which run major engineering centers there, but also has produced scores of homegrown innovators such as Teva, the world's largest generic drugmaker. Israel has the highest concentration of high-tech companies in the world outside Silicon Valley, and the most Nasdaq-listed companies of any country outside North America. For a look at 12 Israeli tech hubs, click on
Israel's High-Tech Hot Spots - BusinessWeek

Haifa: Israel's third-largest city boasts two world-class academic institutions, the University of Haifa and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, dubbed Israel's MIT, shown here. The city also is home to the country's oldest and largest high-tech park, which hosts research and development facilities for Intel, Philips, Microsoft, and Google, among other multinationals. IBM runs labs at the University of Haifa, and Hewlett-Packard at the Technion. Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, the governmental company that develops weapons and military technology, is based here too.