The Florida-Israel Business Accelerator, based in Tampa, hosted its first Connection to Innovation event of 2021 on Thursday and, like other events in the series since the start of the pandemic, it was held virtually via Zoom. However, that allowed attendees to hear directly from Lega Rogovin, an expert in the growing field of digital health and life sciences who’s based in Israel.
Rogovin, along with retired U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Paul Sohl, the CEO of the Florida High Tech Corridor Council, was a featured speaker at the event. She is an analyst with Start-up Nation Central, an Israeli nonprofit that accumulates knowledge and generates in-depth insights about Israel’s innovation sector, and shares these with clients and partners.
With more startups, per capita, than any other country, Israel is widely known as the Startup Nation, and digital health and life sciences has been a huge part of the transformation of its economy. According to Rogovin, as of 2020, Israel’s digital health sector included 675 companies, 180 investors and four industry-specific business incubators. The country has been collecting and digitizing health care data about its population of nine million people for 25 years, she said.
