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I want to share with you today a story about Israelis and Palestinian,
but it's not about war and it's not about conflict.
It's a story of the technology bridge that we're building between the two people.
So the story starts on an aeroplane in 2017,
I opened my eyes just as the pilot announced our descent onto Israel.
I could see the Aviv Skyline shining brightly in the distance and
can make out the logos of Facebook and
Google wicks in ways plastered on the facades of the high rises home.
But this time, I was going as part of a delegation from Washington there to
observe different policy trends and shifting dynamics.
Looking at my home through a fresh set of eyes,
I was amazed by the technology boom that my country was experiencing.
With over 7,000 startups, 400 multinationals, and 84 unicorns,
Israel was one of the most advanced technological ecosystems on the planet,
and had earned the nickname of Start-Up Nation.
But it wasn't all great, Start Up nation was in danger,
one of our speakers informed us.
She presented us with this report put together by the Israeli innovation
authority that stated that at any given moment,
there were over 15,000 job openings and technical startups and
tech companies, and that those companies are just struggling to fill them.
This was huge technology is by far Israel's greatest economic driver.
And now it was at a danger of hitting a glass ceiling because of a shortage and
engineers.
The next day, I went on my first visit to a Palestinian city.
As an Israeli citizen,
I'm not allowed to go into Palestinian cities without a special permit.
And I could feel the tension building in my body
as we made it into the unfamiliar territory.
Had a lot of preconceptions about what the city might look like,
how hostile it may feel.
Those are all shattered to soon as he made it into the beautiful city of Rawabi.
The heart of the Palestinians Tech sector that happens to
be just a little over an hour's drive from the home that I grew up in.
In Rawabi, we were greeted by a panel of engineers that told us that every year
3000 Palestinian software engineers graduated into the labor market,
but that over 90% of them were unable to find
jobs in the Steel Nathan Palestinian tech sector.
I looked at my colleagues, were they hearing this?
A shortage of 15,000 engineers in Israeli companies,
and an hour away thousands of Palestinians engineers looking for
jobs, could these pieces be connected?
I certainly thought that they could, in fact I was so convinced that I started
Tech Bridge, an organization that connected Israeli and Palestinian tech.
We worked with Israeli tech companies, with job openings and
we encourage them to fill those openings with Palestinian talent.
Some were wary, they were just convinced that employing
Palestinian engineers is not a good idea.
But most were simply excited,
they had no idea that there were Palestinian software engineers looking for
jobs, and we're excited by the opportunity to hire local talent.
We also worked with Palestinian software engineers straight out of college
creating a training program for them to hone in on those hard skills and gain
that a little bit of experience before landing that first job out of college.
Now Tech Brigde is just one of many incredible organizations working to
enhance cross border collaborations between the Israeli and
Palestinian tech ecosystems.
And today, we have nearly 1000 Palestinian software engineers working for
Israeli Startups, and Israeli branches of multinationals.
So, Mellanox for example, an Israeli company that was recently sold for
$7 billion, employs over 150 Palestinian software engineers,
30 of them working remotely out of Gaza.
Kratos and Israeli Startup in the freight industry actually
established an R&D center in Ramadan, a Palestinian city.
And we are already seeing X Kratos employees going and
starting their own ventures, fueling the Palestinian tech ecosystems and
creating new jobs, and hopefully this is just the beginning.
Now there's so much more that I would love to tell you about the challenges and
opportunities in this space.
But the next few minutes, I want to share with you what excites me most about it.
So first, I'm excited about Palestinian software engineers
working with Israeli tech companies,
because it's simply an obvious market solution to a market problem.
Has incredible positive externalities, but at its core,
it's business driven, which ensures its organic growth.
You have a demand for engineers on the Israeli side, and
you have a supply of engineers looking for jobs on the Palestinian side.
We've all learned in introductory microeconomics,
barring structural barriers, market forces will lead these two into equilibrium.
In other words, it just makes business sense to match Palestinian software
engineers looking for jobs with Israeli tech company.
The second reason that I'm excited about this space is because it's a rare instance
where tangible action does not benefit one side at the expense of the other side,
but rather creates a win-win situation benefiting both Israelis and Palestinians.
And increasing economic prosperity in the region as a whole.
So instead of dividing the pie like in so many other instances related to
Israel Palestinian relations, we're actually enlarging the pie.
And finally, the third reason that I'm excited about this space,
is that it's simply an opportunity for us to get to know each other.
As Israelis, many of us have never met a Palestinian.
And when we hear the word Palestinian, it's often connected with violence.
And many Palestinians have only seen Israeli soldiers would they
are taught to view as their enemies.
And suddenly you have Israelis and Palestinians working shoulder to shoulder,
it's an incredible opportunity for us to get to know each other to replace
Alien Nation with familiarity and to replace that faceless enemy with
a friendly face So, why am I telling you guys all of this?
Most of you are neither Israeli nor Palestinian, many of you are in tech and
I hope you find these market opportunities as exciting as I do.
But even if you don't, I'm going to take a bet here and
say that all of you have read about Palestinians and Israelis in the news, or
had a conversation about the Israeli Palestinian conflict in
the past year and thought to yourself, this is hopeless.
So, I wanted to share this story with you today to give you a fresh perspective,
a story of hope rather than one of despair.
So even if you have no connection to the region whatsoever, this is my ask of you.
The next time you read about Palestinians and Israelis in the news,
remember that there's also good news coming out of the region.
Flip to the business section of the newspaper and look for
the next Israeli Palestinian founded unicorn, and help bring a breath
of fresh air into the global conversation of a decade old conflict.
Thank you.
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