The big exits and the record sums that Israeli startups are managing to raise have engendered a feeling of euphoria in the public at large and among Israel's decision makers. But the extraordinary successes that make headlines do not change the facts on the ground as reflected in the recently published report of the Israel Innovation Authority (the body that replaced the Office of the Chief Scientist of the Ministry of Economy & Industry and MATIMOP - The Israeli Industry Center for R&D). The report reveals that in 2015 Israel fell in the rankings in three out of four international measures of innovation. The lack of any fundamental attempt to solve to the problem naturally leads to a worsening of the situation and the projections. In 2013, we were warned that Israel was short of 7,000 engineers. Now, three years later, that number has jumped to 10,000.
When the projections become gloomier, it becomes important to ensure that out of the intensity of the desire to create quick short-term solutions mistakes are not made that cause worse harm to the Israeli technology industry in the long term. Before the government decides on magic solutions such as importing thousands of engineers, it should recall that solutions of this kind only treat the symptoms and not the cause of the problem. The main effort must be directed towards cultivating local human capital, which it is our power to produce.
Alongside welcome measures such as boosting mathematics studies in high schools, what is required is to formulate a strategic plan in higher education in Israel for raising the number students studying engineering subjects and for halting the decline in the number of computer science, mathematics and statistics graduates, which fell by 25% in the period 2004 to 2014.
First of all, just as the State of Israel defines certain areas as "national priority areas", it should treat engineering and computer science as national priority disciplines. The immediate and main consequence should be preferential budgeting, changing the existing situation in which all degree subjects are subsidized equally and giving substantial preference to engineering and computing subjects in order to give students an incentive to enroll for them.
Secondly, before the country and the industry look to India or China for workers in technology, they should discern the human capital that exists in Israel in whole sections of the population that find it hard to integrate into engineering and high tech. Women, for example, represent 50% of Israel's student population, but only 30% of the graduates in engineering and computer science subjects are women.
Another group of potential high-tech workers is the haredi (ultra-Orthodox Jewish) population, which is trying more and more to enter higher education and employment. Unfortunately, many haredim encounter difficulty in entering the workforce. Such difficulties arise from, among other things, prejudices among companies and employers who think that a haredi worker lacks sufficient training or will find it hard to integrate in a secular environment, and refrain from employing them.
The high-tech industry needs to shed such stereotypes and not let them mask the exceptional talents, determination and creativity of many haredi workers. At the same time, the government should continue to implement the five-year plan for integrating the haredi community in higher education. Whether and how the plan should be renewed are matters currently under review. The government should strengthen the programs and institutions that integrate haredim while guiding them towards engineering and computer science.
Time is not on our side, and with every day and every year that go by the problem becomes deeper and the projections for our high-tech industry become gloomier. The time has come to change that.
The writer is vice president of the Jerusalem College of Technology.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on August 29, 2016
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