As quoted on Business Insider, “these statistics show how insane Israel’s start-up scene is”.

• At around 4%, Israel spends about twice the global average of its GDP on research.
• In a country of 8 million people, there are nearly 300 development centres with about 60,000 employees.
• Israel has around 3,000 start-ups, with the numbers growing exponentially.

New r&d experiments are common news items. As I observed last week, Microsoft’s purchase of Secure Islands for US$150 million will enable the American conglomerate to base its growing international cyber activities in the Holy Land.

Such initiatives are not just left to the ‘big boys’. More and more countries are now trying to learn from Israel’s experience. The visit this week of Boris Johnson, the mayor of London, was no coincidence.  The two countries had previously set up a joint tech hub about four years ago.

In the past month alone:

• We have seen a 49-strong technology delegation from Australia spend a week visiting counterparts in Israel. Academics, bankers, young entrepreneurs of the year, techies – they did not go away empty-handed.
• The Jerusalem Business Networking Forum hosted a bio / medical delegation from Tomsk in Russia, seeking to learn from and partner up with Israeli teams.
• The Lublin science park from Poland announced that it will officially open up a resource centre in Israel in 2016, also with a biomed slant.
• And as I have previously written, Jordan and Israel have signed an agreement to build a new industrial zone, linked by a purpose-built bridge.

There is a common theme that brings together these developments. People and nations grow stronger through mutual support and trade. They learn to understand each other better, trust one another. On the flip side of the this coin of progress you can find boycotts and hatred. What do you prefer?