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Source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-10787_3-10073407-60.html
Explaining Israel's High-Tech Success
[CNET News] Charles Cooper - High-tech services now comprise about half of the country's total industrial exports. What's more, the country boasts the highest number of publicly traded companies on the Nasdaq outside of the U.S. and Canada. Some, like Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, are in the health or scientific fields, but the list is tech-heavy, featuring the likes of Check Point Software and Aladdin Knowledge Systems. Israel's ratio of engineers to population is 135 engineers per 10,000 employees, compared to 80 in the U.S. The Israeli political-military establishment was keen to build up a qualitative edge in weaponry to compensate for Israel's tiny population and small size and to adequately equip itself in the face of conflict with its Arab neighbors. "The idea was to build and design everything that we needed to defend ourselves," said Yair Shamir, the chairman of Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), which has since developed a range of UAVs. (Some that can travel as far as Iran.) The company also developed Israel's first spy satellite; eight of them currently circle the globe.