Wendy Singer, the outgoing executive director of tech-focused organisation Start-Up Nation Central (SNC), warned that while Israel’s tech ecosystem is strong and vibrant, areas of vulnerability could pose challenges to the industry and possibly the wider Israeli economy.

Singer added that it is a blue ocean to explore that the celebrated tech industry faces a chronic shortage of talent, and more resources are needed to assist with skill development that could help fulfil this need.

To bridge the shortage, SNC’s annual reports on the Israeli tech ecosystem have repeatedly called for more programmes that would tap into underrepresented populations, such as ultra-Orthodox and Arab communities, as well as women.

The SNC CEO ‘Eugene Kandel‘ warned that the large scale integration of women, Arabs and the ultra-Orthodox population in high-tech, the primary growth engine of the Israeli economy, will be without fuel, and the negative impact will far increase the tech industry’s relative size in the economy.

As per the Singer during an interview, Israelis have grit and chutzpah and strength and a problem-solving gene, but there are areas of vulnerability that, if we are not careful, this thing is not guaranteed.

The Singer is nearing the end of her nine-year assignment as a top executive in the organisation, which was founded in late 2012 as a gateway to the Israeli tech sector and the “connective tissue” between the industry and global markets seeking innovative solutions.

Singer, a former long-time director of AIPAC’s Jerusalem offices, left the lobbying organisation after a 23-year career to join SNC, a nongovernmental, nonprofit, philanthropic endeavour founded in 2012 by Paul Singer (no relation), a billionaire American hedge fund manager and the founder of investment firm Elliott Management (which has invested in Twitter and Softbank, among many others), and Terry Kassel, also of Elliott Management.

SNC was founded just a few years later. “There’s a need for a much brighter spotlight on some issues and more depth,” said Singer of the idea behind the institute.