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Israeli Economic Minister Talks High Tech at Hadassah

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Hadassah Ein Kerem. A new Hadassah tower is currently being built on that campus.

Israel’s Economic Minister to North America Nili Shalev paid a visit to the Manhattan headquarters of Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America this Monday.
Shalev was invited to lecture on the “role of Israel’s tech boom in protecting its citizens, creating opportunity, and providing innovation health care like that seen at Hadassah Hospital In Jerusalem,” according to advertisements released before the event.
Mostly attended by members of the Hadassah’s Meira Chapter—primarily comprised of “professional, working woman,” according to the Hadassah Web site— the lecture gave attendees the opportunity to learn more about the workings of Israel’s high tech industry, and how, through the raw power of human resources, Israel has become an innovative hub of international business appeal in recent years. In honor of its centennial—Hadassah was founded in 1912 by Henrietta Szold—the lecture’s organizers, Meira presidents Gillie Nevel and Alicia Post, hoped the gathering would help illustrate Israel’s rise to global prominence during the last one hundred years.
Before Shalev addressed her audience, Marcie Natan, Hadassah’s national president, briefly spoke about Hadassah’s current building project in Israel. Despite having undergone a significant financial setback in the wake of the Bernie Madoff scandal, Hadassah has returned to fiscal health, and Natan elaborated on the latest hospital renovations taking place in Israel to signify the organization’s enduring commitment towards offering progressive educational and healthcare opportunities to Israelis of all walks of life.
In extensive detail, Natan outlined the one million square foot project underway in Ein Kerem, the site of one of the Hadassah Medical Organization’s (HMO) two hospital complexes— the other being located in Jerusalem at Mount Scopus. The Sarah Wetsman Davidson Hospital Tower is offering inpatient housing, intensive care units, and surgical and medical treatment divisions, and will be gradually admitting more patients as building progresses, the Hadassah president explained. 
After Natan concluded her remarks to enthusiastic applause, Shalev, who made use of a PowerPoint presentation, took the podium and began moving through her slides. As she did, the economic minister explained Israel’s economic engine and the role she and her team play in realizing Israel’s business plans in North America everyday.
In one slide, Shalev used a graph to illustrate Israel’s transformation from an agricultural- to technology-based economy. Since the early 90s, the influx of Russian immigrants, combined with governmental support (the Yozma program in 1993, for example) and the formation of a venture capital community, have allowed Israel’s start-up economy to flourish. As the commercial environment in Israel grew more hospitable to innovation, Israelis, with their entrepreneurial spirit, drew from their military experiences and educations to build a bustling tech industry.
“If someone fails with their idea in Israel, he or she is not considered a loser,” Shalev explained. 
As ideas, rather than items, became Israel’s most prized commodities, even the agricultural industry began to revolve around increasing agricultural knowledge, rather than promoting certain products. Shalev explained how this focus on innovation has relegated marketing to international powers, such as the U.S., as multinational companies have come to Israel in recent years and invested or bought out strong Israeli research and development (R&D) companies. While there are concerns about international conglomerates overtaking Israel’s tech industry, Shalev stressed how finding a balance between making a product and making it marketable will likely serve as a guiding business principle for Israelis in the future.
As economic minister, Shalev defined her job as “matchmaking,” albeit not in the traditional sense, of course. Operating out of the Consulate General of Israel in New York, she detailed how her six-man team works to pair Israeli investors, academics, and researchers, among others, with interested North American professionals working in the same fields.
In listing various stats about Israel in her presentation, Shalev continued to show how the Jewish state has ranked high in a number of national economic metrics. In R&D expenditure, for example, Israel has been perennially dubbed the world’s leader. 
Shalev added that research in the life sciences—“bio-pharma,” as she abbreviated it—represents Israel’s strength, and noted how Jerusalem is also a global leader in the registry of medical device patents.
From Teva pharmaceutical products such as Copaxone to Azilect, to medical technology companies such as Given Imaging and InSightec, Israeli innovation continues to yield products with important healthcare applications, Shalev said. In addition to refining existing technologies—and creating new ones—Israel is also a leader in health information technology, as the economic minister demonstrated in a chart comparing the U.S. to Israel in that area.
For all of these reasons, Israel leads even the U.S. in critical welfare measures such as life expectancy and infant mortality, explains Shalev.

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