Understanding the innovation cluster in Israel: lessons for India

Abstract

According to Engel (2015), “Clusters of Innovation (COI) are global economic “hot spots” where new technologies germinate at an astounding rate and where pools of capital, expertise, and talent foster the development of new industries and new ways of doing business. They are vibrant, effervescent ecosystems composed of startups, businesses that support the startup process, and mature enterprises, many of whom evolved rapidly from a startup. In these ecosystems, resources of people, capital, and knowhow are fluidly mobile and the pace of transactions is driven by a relentless pursuit of opportunity, staged financing, and short business model cycles” (page 37). An innovation cluster is different from an industry cluster (Engel & del Pacio, 2009) and the key differentiators are the enablers of entrepreneurship that facilitate startups and their interactions with different elements of the context.