gap year in israel

Israel may not be known for having the best foreign relations and reputation around the world. However, there are certainly many countries that genuinely look up to Israel and appreciate the huge amount that the country has contributed to the world.

If you choose to take part in the Aardvark International program you will learn a lot about how other countries see Israel and their relationship to the country. On one of your trips you will visit China, a country that Israel has helped in many ways.

Due to China’s huge population feeding everyone can be a real struggle and the Chinese have started to make use of innovative Israeli technology to help them overcome various different hurdles. For instance, Israel has developed technology to help increase milk production from cows and this is now widely used in China.
Fairly recently Beijing was host to a huge China-Israel Technology, Innovation and Investment Summit. The event was designed to strengthen relationships between Israeli and Chinese businesses and focused on companies in the fields of smart cities, medical devices, agricultural technology, clean technology, internet, mobile and more.
Furthermore, China is currently undergoing somewhat of a robot revolution. They are making more use of machines in factories to try and reduce the cost of production on a number of goods. Thanks to the newly established Sino-Israeli Robotics Institute there is a huge amount of Israeli technology going into these robots. The institute is the centrepiece of a new $2 billion industrial park being created in the Guangzhou region of China. This is hugely beneficial to both countries; Israel has state of the art robotics research and development but little opportunity to make use of the technology. Thanks to this park the Israeli developed technology will be put to use with further research being carried out to continue improving and innovating.

The two countries also have very strong economic cooperation. More than 1000 Israeli start-up companies have set up operations in China. China is increasingly creating partnerships with Israeli universities such as the Tel Aviv University and Tsinghua University’s $300 million joint research centre, a $130 million donation to the Technion and a program devoted to teaching the Israeli business culture at Peking University.

In short China recognises Israel as an impressive start-up nation that is constantly developing useful new technologies and leading the way in many fields of research. It is thanks to this that relations between two countries are so good and a there is every reason to believe that this will continue for the foreseeable future.