Dan Senor on budding UAE-Israel tech ties: “It’s like having a tailor-made ‘Silicon Valley’ in your own backyard”

Israel is recognized around the world as the ‘Startup Nation,’ a term coined by authors Dan Senor and Saul Singer in the seminal New York Times bestseller Start-Up Nation: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle. Shortly after the Abraham Accords were signed, Senor spoke with Eithne Treanor of Gulf News at the UAE-Israel Business Leaders’ Summit.

As investments in Israeli startups exceed $10 billion in 2020, Senor speaks about what has changed since he coauthored the book in 2009, namely on how Israel has evolved from ‘Startup Nation’ to ‘Scaleup Nation,’ about possible areas of synergy between the Israeli tech ecosystem and its Emirati counterpart, and about the region’s potential for collaborative innovation.

“The regional opportunity – given the size of the population, the amount of capital in the Middle East, and the problems that need to be solved – is like having a tailor-made `Silicon Valley’ in your own backyard,” Senor says. “And now, the broader Middle East has access to this `Silicon Valley.’”

To watch the full interview with Dan Senor: