Beer-Sheva Goes Cyber
August 3, 2015
Israel21C — Once a desolate and financially plagued metropolis, this desert city’s resurgence as a center of modernity, culture, academia, and high-tech is impossible to overlook.
David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, would be pleased to know that everyone – from the Advanced Technologies Park (ATP) entrepreneurs to Ben-Gurion University professors to the businesspeople at the CyberSpark industry-government-academia initiative to real-estate agents to government leaders – is referring back to his proclamation that “the future of Israel lies in the Negev.”
Ben-Gurion’s “future” is today’s present.
The cranes looming high above the University and the city enthusiastically declare the transformation of Beer-Sheva into the innovation center it is growing to be.
“All the big multinationals and the big investment firms are coming here because of the notion of the Beer-Sheva miracle – the economic development from desert location to high-tech park,” Jerusalem Venture Partners (JVP) Managing Partner Gadi Tirosh says, “and for the concentration in firms dealing with cyber.”
BGU is the first Israeli university to offer graduate study tracks in cyber security, a joint initiative with the Departments of Information Systems Engineering and Computer Science. The program was developed in cooperation with IDF and civic experts to meet the needs of the military and civil defense sectors.
Distinct from many other high-tech business parks in Israel, Beer-Sheva’s ecosystem combines national, army, academic, business, and entrepreneurial interests in close vicinity to one another and with the same ambitious goals.
“From a first look, Beer-Sheva may look like it’s outside the regular Israeli tech scene. But once you come here and you’re exposed to the things that are going on inside the ecosystem here in Beer-Sheva, it’s really amazing,” says Yoni Shohet, founder and CEO of SCADAfence – a startup that develops cybersecurity solutions for the critical infrastructure and manufacturing industries, with offices in the ATP.
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