What are the main achievements of Israel?

Answer 1

Science, hi-tech (ICQ, flash memory cards), agriculture (Israel invented the drip irrigation system, used in Africa to save millions).
The IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook (WCY) is the world's most renowned and comprehensive annual report on the competitiveness of nations, ranking and analyzing how a nation's environment creates and sustains the competitiveness of enterprises. The rankings were compiled by the Swiss Institute for Management Development (IMD). Hard data are taken from international or national organizations, private institutes and partners, and survey data are drawn from the annual Executive Opinion Survey of 4,460 respondents. The Federation of Israeli Chambers of Commerce is World Competitiveness Report's representative in Israel. The International Institute Management Development (IMD) at Lausanne, Switzerland, ranked Israel in first place in several categories, including its economy's soundness in the face of economic crises and in the functioning of its central bank. "Israel's ranking in the top place in terms of the economy's resilience to crises is a direct result of the actions taken by the Finance Ministry and the Bank of Israel, who withstood the pressure and didn't stream money to failing organizations and financial institutions as was the case in the US and Europe," said Uriel Lynn, president of the Federation of Israeli Chambers of Commerce.

Israel is ranked 17th in the IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook 2010 rankings, up from 24th place in 2009. Israel is ahead of China.

Israel's economy is No. 1 in the world for resilience to economic cycles.

Israel was ranked No. 1 for its expenditure in research and development as a percentage of gross domestic product, as it was last year, and in the innovative capacity of firms to generate new products, processes and services.

Israel has the highest ratio of university degrees to the population in the world. *Israel produces more scientific papers per capita than any other nation by a large margin - 109 per 10,000 people - as well as one of the highest per capita rates of patents filed.

*In proportion to its population, Israel has the largest number of startup companies in the world. In absolute terms, Israel has the largest number of startup companies than any other country in the world, except the US (3,500 companies mostly in hi-tech).

*Israel is ranked #2 in the world for venture capital funds right behind the US.

*Outside the United States and Canada, Israel has the largest number of NASDAQ listed companies.

*Israel´s GDP per capita( PPP) is higher than in Italy, South Korea and new Zealand.

*Twenty-four percent of Israel's workforce holds university degrees - ranking third in the industrialized world, after the United States and Holland - and 12 percent hold advanced degrees.

*Israel has the world's second highest per capita of new books.

*Israel is the only country in the world that entered the 21st century with a net gain in its number of trees, made more remarkable because this was achieved in an area considered mainly desert.

*In response to serious water shortages, Israeli engineers and agriculturalists developed a revolutionary drip irrigation system to minimize the amount of water used to grow crops.

*Israel has the highest percentage in the world of home computers per capita.

*Israel leads the world in the number of scientists and technicians in the workforce, with 145 per 10,000, as opposed to 85 in the U. S., over 70 in Japan, and less than 60 in Germany. With over 25% of its work force employed in technical professions. Israel places first in this category as well.

*The cell phone was developed in Israel by Motorola, which has its largest development center in Israel.

*Most of the Windows NT operating system was developed by Microsoft-Israel.

*The Pentium MMX Chip technology was designed in Israel at Intel.

*Voice mail technology was developed in Israel.

*Both Microsoft and Cisco built their only R&D facilities outside the US in Israel.

*The AOL Instant Messenger was developed in 1996 by four young Israelis.

*An Israeli company was the first to develop and install a large-scale solar-powered and fully functional electricity generating plant, in Southern California's Mojave Desert."

*All the above while engaged in regular wars with such an implacable enemy as Arabs that seek its destruction, and an economy continuously under strain by having to spend more per capita on its own protection than any other country on earth. This from a country just 60 years young having started off life on a very frontiers-like basis, whose population had mostly just emerged from the devastating World War II years.