The answer to all these, and an almost unbelievable number of other such questions, is Israel. Yes, believe it or not, the country known better for its prowess in war and agriculture -- remember the Jaffa orange and the fruits/vegetables supplied to Europe and the US -- has, in the space of five to 10 years, moved up to become one of the world's fastest growing high-tech centres.

Today, Israel boasts of the second-highest number of hi-tech start-up businesses in the world, just after the US. And, at around $ 800 million this year, attracts the fourth-largest amount of venture capitalin the world. If you take into account the fact that the top three are all in the US -- California, Massachusetts, and Texas -- this puts Israel at second place in the world for attracting venture capital. As the head of IBM's research laboratory in Haifa -- incidentally, this is the largest of IBM's four which are outside the US -- put it, `in Israel, money goes looking for ideas, and not the other way around.' That's hardly surprising, if you consider that Israel also has among the largest number of firms listed on the Nasdaq (the US version of our National Stock Exchange). Since, 1990, for example, its hi-tech firms have raised over $ 7 bn from foreign capital markets.

GEO Interactive Media Group

Barely four years old, Geo is playing a big role in actually making the web more interactive. A product of professionals from the communication field in the Israeli army, Geo's unique selling proposition is its ability to compress data which, in turn, allows very speedy transmission over the Internet.That, especially for multi-media operations which involve very large-sized files, is a god-send. Geo boasts of the ability to compress multi-media data up to 200 times more than the current compression techniques. So, if you needed to keep your computer occupied for several hours to download a 15-minute multi-media game, you're now ready to go in just a few seconds with Emblaze Video, or Emblaze WebCharger -- apart from compression, they also have `streaming' facilities which allows instant use of files even as they get downloaded in parts. Emblaze products, incidentally, don't need `plug-ins', and that saves downloading time on the net, as well. Geo had sales of $ 3 mn last year, and analysts are projecting incomes of $ 24 million this year.

Technomatix Technologies Ltd

You've heard about computer-aided designing and `virtual walkthroughs' that enable users to actually `see' a building/factory before it is actually constructed. Well, what Technomatix does is to develop a Digital Factory whichallows companies to simulate and optimise automated and manual manufacturing systems and actually debug them on the computer itself. So, not oly can production engineers actually design their factory layouts and machinery locations on computers, they can also see if robots or workers can actually reach the assembly areas. Since all production process data can be stored and re-used, this means that it now becomes possible to cut the time required for designing new production lines for new models.

Technomatix's Digital Factory is being used by most auto majors as well as aviation sector. Rover of the UK, for example, was able to solve 80 per cent of around 4,000 problems identified by it at the `virtual' stage itself. And, yes, before the actual cleaning up of the nuclear plant at Chernobyl was done, the designing of the robots and how they were to operate was done on a Digital Factory. Revenues have gone up from $ 13 million in 1991 to $ 59 mn last year.

Orckit Communications Ltd

Replacingtraditional copper telephone cables with fibre optics is an expensive business, but seems unavoidable especially if you want to increase the speed of transmission and data flow. Well, here's a more efficient alternative to increasing what is called `bandwidth', pioneered by this Israeli firm. Orckit is one of the few companies in the world which actually manufactures the chip for Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) -- this has been licensed to Fujitsu, from where most companies offering DSL services buy their chips. With its revenues jumping from nil in 1993, to $ 24.6 million last year, Orckit is the only company in the world which actually provides what is called VDSL technology. VDSL technology takes around three seconds to transmit a 10 Mbyte video file as opposed to 10 seconds for ADSL and 40 seconds for the traditional HDSL -- traditional dial-up modems on copper lines can take between 24 and 93 minutes for this.

Check Point

Is the second-largest company in the world developing software for theInternet -- while NetScape is the largest in terms of revenue, it has lower earnings as compared to Check Point. Check Point's revenues touched $83 mn last year, from a mere $9.5 in 1995 -- the company was set up in 1993.