Guest Post: Jerusalem 2020
By Beth Zuckerman
“Jerusalem Is the New Kid on The Block”
Jerusalem’s long association as the city full of ancient history and religious diversity has meant that it is sometimes associated more with biblical history than anything else. However, recently it appears that that is already beginning to change as the city starts to grow and become a real technological hub. Already Jerusalem is rising with its legendary craft beer and tech incubators; the city of Jerusalem is full of surprises.
Why Jerusalem?
Nir Barkat, the mayor of Jerusalem, is in his own right a venture capitalist and has recently engaged entrepreneurs to develop digital tools, enterprises and initiatives, with an eye towards Jerusalem 2020. This plan as described by Barkat aims to “enable innovation to sprout everywhere.” Led by global experts in urban development, this strategic plan will revolutionize
Jerusalem’s infrastructure, economy, culture, and landscape over the new few
years, ensuring that Israel’s capital city is worthy of 3,000 years of yearning.
Uncovering The Goldmine
Jerusalem stands out from the crowd of other global tech hubs, not only by virtue of its remarkable success stories, but also on account of its innumerable complexities as a city. The so-called Silicon Wadi in the Tel Aviv area seems like a tepid, homogeneous soup compared to the notoriously intricate conglomerate of Jerusalemite society, made up of subcultures not only vastly different from, but often also fundamentally at odds with one another.
Increasingly, many in the industry have come to view the challenge of integrating Jerusalem’s diverse communities not as an obstacle to be overcome but rather as a goldmine still undug.
Ultimately, it is a fervent pursuit of bettering Jerusalem and a firm belief in the capacity of individuals to shape reality that drives Jerusalem’s tireless push for a richer tech ecosystem in this city.
“At the end of the day, entrepreneurs are agents of change,” Barkat emphasized. “There is passion in the DNA of Jerusalemites that I have never encountered anywhere else, and that energy has to be harnessed to impact the livelihood of this remarkable city.”
Jerusalem 2020
At the forefront of Jerusalem 2020 lies the belief that the country’s political and spiritual capital should also be its center of business and entrepreneurship. Jerusalem 2020 will build an extensive hi-tech district at the entrance to the city for the growing number of cutting-edge tech and startup companies, an industrial park in Givat Ram, and a state-of-the-art national fertility and biomed research center. These advancements will not only increase Jerusalem’s global influence, but also create countless employment and investment opportunities, attracting the world’s most motivated and creative minds.
One of the central goals of the plan is to make Jerusalem as physically connected to the rest of the country as it is spiritually, with the construction of the most advanced transportation network in the country. In addition to the high -speed train from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem currently under construction, the city’s internal light rail network will be expanded to connect the centers of tourism, business, culture, and commerce around the city – including, of course, a stop in the Old City. This plan will make Jerusalem the most accessible city in Israel.
What Changed?
In 2012, Tel Aviv was the hotbed for start-ups, with entrepreneurs rushing to the city and investor’s seeking to find their fortunes there.
But, things started to change in 2015; When Time magazine picked Jerusalem as the world’s top emerging technological hub, the city’s hi-tech scene seemed to have suddenly secured international attention overnight. Currently there are 600 tech companies in Jerusalem and the number is growing at a fast rate.
Yes, Tel Aviv is famous for its startups, but Jerusalem is harboring a powerful secret; it is the world’s top emerging technology hub and the future of Jerusalem as a global center of creativity rests entirely in the hands of its residents.
