Develop Digital-Based Industries
The State of Israel, the "Start-up Nation", promotes innovation, entrepreneurship and technological trends. The innovation industry in Israel has experienced decelerated growth in recent years, while other countries experienced significant growth.
To preserve Israel’s lead, the National Initiative will support the development of digital-based industries that serve as a growth engine for the Israeli economy and improve numerous areas of life.
In recent years the Israeli government undertook an extensive inter-sector endeavor to create an eco-system to support the cyber industry. This undertaking included a series of steps to establish Israel as a “cyber superpower”, among them investment in education, establishing research centers in universities and utilizing the experienced gained by professionals who served in the IDF intelligence and technology units, to grow this industry.
Similarly, great potential exists to create new national growth engines based on additional digital industries, for example, developing Fintech in Israel. This industry, which develops advanced digital solutions for the financial services field, is flourishing in recent years[49]. Regulatory involvement in this area, as well as an active domestic market and the unique advantages of the local ICT industry, can be leveraged with an emphasis on its existing expertise in fields relevant to the Fintech industry, such as cyber, Big Data, and the entrepreneurial and innovation culture that characterizes Israel – in order to transform Israel into a world leader in this field, to create new employment opportunities and to accelerate economic growth.
Thus, as part of the National Initiative, and in collaboration with the government, the private sector, academia, local government and the employment market, measures will be advanced that require inter-sector coordination in order to develop new national growth engines, by creating an ecosystem that supports additional digital industries such as health, finance, smart cities and IOT. These measures will include establishing national infrastructures and an enabling regulatory infrastructure - in the aim of positioning Israel as a global level “beta site” for innovative technologies, and as a world leader in additional ICT industry fields. These steps are expected to create jobs with high added value and accelerated economic growth.

(in cooperation with the Prime Minister’s Office, the Health Ministry, Labor and Economy Ministry, Finance Ministry, Innovation Authority and the Council for Higher Education of Israel (CHE) and the Planning and Budgeting Committee within the CHE)