Update October 1999: Israel

1. IS National / Regional Strategies and Action Plans

• The Office of the Chief Scientist at the Ministry of Trade and Industry is one of the main focus in the stimulation technological innovation in Israel and the support to R&D. As significant proportion of this support is channelled to initiatives related to the the infrastructures needed for the development of the IS: information technologies, multimedia, broadband communications, computer and software industry, microelectronics and the like.
  
  The budget of this office is about 1,600 million NIS (about 376 million dollars). One of the interesting discussion in Israel in the latest months concerns the plans of the Ministry of Finances (MOF) to cut in this financial aid to or at least to change its conditions.
  
  Structural changes in the economy are to be reflected in the national budget proposed for year 2000. The changes proposed by the MOF originally included the doubling of the payment by successful projects on their earnings from the innovation from 3% to 6%; and the change of the interest rate to 2% over the international interest rate of the dollar. Due to the strong reaction of the Chief Scientist, from the Minister of Trade and Industry and from the high tech industry which met with the Prime Minister a compromise has been proposed by the MOF: from the year 2000 the premium will be 4.5% of the total assistance and the interest 1% over the international interest rate of the dollar. The compromise still hasn't been accepted by the Ministry of Trade and Industry.

• Risk Capital Funds in Israel, which are increasingly available, support the Ministry of Finance position. Their stand is that the funds available from the Office of the Chief Scientist compete with the funds they made available to promising technological R&D projects. Shlomo Kalish, the Chairman of the Jerusalem-Global Corporation, specialist in supporting start-ups, stated: "There should be a drastic reduction of the subsidy by the Office of the Chief Scientist for the Hi-Tech industry. I do not think that the government should subsidise thesector that is the most successful. The government does not produce money so the subsidy to this sector is at the expense of other sectors." (Yediot Aharonot, Economy, 18.8.99, pp. 3).
  
  In contrast the president of the Electronics Industry Association, Zohar Zissapel, is very angry with the Budget Division of the MOF. He stated that the Division was responsible for a loss of about a billion dollar in exports of the Israeli Hi-Tech industry. The last two years in which the Division demanded a revision in the R&D policy created uncertainty that was the main cause that the expansion of Hi-Tech exports was only 5% a year instead of reachin a rate of 15% annual growth.

• Call for the establishment of a consortium for Generic Technologies in the Area of Internet: Ilan Peled, the head of the Generic Technologies program (MAGNET) at the office of the Chief Scientist published a call for expression of interest by companies for the eventual establishment of a consortium in the area of Internet related technologies. The MAGNET program deals with pre-competitive R&D and the goal of the proposed consortium is to establish laboratories and bench mark facilities for testing new components and technologies; to stimulate cooperation in the introduction of relevant knowledge for the companies active in this field. The deadline for the call was October 15^th.

2. Information Content Stimulation

• The HQ for the Second Phase of the Computerization of the Educational System (Directorate for Science and Technology in the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports) completed the process of selection of special demonstration projects by schools and other educational institutions for the innovative demonstration of the use of computers and computer networking in education (Roni Dayan, Chief Inspector for Computers in Education; Nava Gilad, in charge of the special projects program). Forty-two projects have been selected in all regions of the country and will serve as spearhead for innovative initiatives using computer networking in the educational system (http://194.90.204.5/scitech/project/std80.htm).

• Netdays Europe 1999 (13-21 November) : the activities of Netdays Europe in Israel include the distribution to all schools in the country of promotional material received from the EC through the Finland, Helsiki Municipality Education Department that is serving as coordinator this year. The materials include posters, postcards, tattoo stickers and more. The National Coordinators for Israel (The MAKASH NGO and the Ministry of Education Directorate for Science and Technology) are distributing, through the sponsorship of the Israeli Internet Association (ISOC-IL) a brochure with detailed instructions and examples of successful computer mediated communications educational projects for teachers at all schools in Israel. http://netdays.org.il

• Internet II/New Generation Internet: the German-Israeli NGI Workshop was sponsored and organised by the Ministry of Science in cooperation with the BMB-F, the DFN, the Inter Universitary Computer Centre, the Council of Higher Education and the Ministry of Industry and Trade. The two days workshop held at Nve Ilan near Jerusalem, September 6-7, provided an opportunity for a wide review of NGI related technologies and projects in Israel and Germany and the discussion by researchers of both countries on future joint projects in this area (see: http://www.most.gov.il and http://www.internet-2.org.il).

3. Other tools

• Year Two-Thousand Bug: Dr Nadin Bodeau-Trachtenberg from the Bank Hapoalim estimates that more than a billion NIS were spent by the largest 100 companies whose shares are marketed in the Tel Aviv Exchange for preparations for the Year 2000 bug. She estimates that 0.5%-1% of the GNP were invested in correcting the Year 2000 bug. The largest investments were made by the banking sector and they reached about 400 million NIS. The telecom sector spent about 260 million NIS and the chemical sector 77 million NIS. Holding companies have spent 136 million NIS from which 130 by Koor (which reported not only his own expenses but those of its affiliated companies too).

• Preparations: Although Israel is widely regarded as one of the best prepared countries regarding the Year 2000 problem. An special HQ under Yossi Kuchik the general director of the Prime Minister Office has been established and several exercises carried out to test the preparedness of the emergency services, the telecom companies, the Israel Electric Company, the water, health, police and army services. With all that the main officers of these institutions have adopted a mildly optimistic attitude stating their expectative that no great disruptions be caused to the economy.

• Fifth Framework Program: Israel is a full partner of the 5FP of the EC and 150 Israeli companies are already participating. In the last IST call 32 Israeli institutions are participating, for a total of more than 17 million Euro, in consortia whose projects were approved. Other areas in which Israeli companies are participating: Life Sciences, 7.5 mEuro; Energy, Environment and Development, 4.5 mEuro; Competitiveness 6.2 mEuro; and more. See: http://www.iserd.org.il

• W3C Consortium Office in Israel: The steering committee for the establishment of a W3C Office in Israel was constituted. Members are Prof. Daniel Dolev, dean of School of Computer Engineering at the Hebrew University (HUJI) and chair of the Inter University Computer Center; Prof. Michel Bercovier, from School of Computer Engineering at the Hebrew University (HUJI); Prof. Gotesman from the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology; Prof. Hezi Yeshurun, head of the National Committee for Information Technology Infrastructures and Tel Aviv University; Prof. Moti Sokolov, head of Interdisciplinary Center for Technology Assesment and Forecasting in Tel Aviv University; Dov Winer from the board of the Israel Internet Association. The office will stimulate activities for the dissemination of the W3C work in Israel and the adhesion of Israeli universities and corporations as members of the consortium. The official opening of the office is planned for the first months of 2000. See: http://www.isoc.org.il/w3c/w3ce.html

4. Innovative actions / initiatives

Experiment with intelligent credit card: The IsraCard company began an experiment using intelligent credit cards in the Kfar Saba-Raanana area. In two month a joint experiment of all credit card companies (IsraCard, CAL and Alpha-Card) in the Netania area. These experiments are being carried out in view of plans to replace creidt cards based on a magnetic band by credit cards with an intelligent chip. 10,000 participants are expected to take part in the experiment by IsraCard