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The Academic Reserve: Israel's Fast Track to High-Tech Success
Abstract
Why is Israel world-renowned as the ‘start-up nation’ and a leading source of technological innovation? While existing scholarship focuses on the importance of skill development during Israel Defense Forces (IDF) service, we argue that the key role of the Academic Reserve has been overlooked. Established in the 1950s as part of David Ben-Gurion’s vision for a scientifically and technologically advanced defense force, the Academic Reserve is a special program in which the IDF sends selected high school graduates to earn academic degrees before they complete an extended term of military service. After finishing their service, most participants go on to contribute to Israel’s successful high-tech industry. By focusing on the role of the Academic Reserve, we provide a broader understanding of Israel’s ongoing technological success.
... A second significant factor is the knowledge spillover from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) into the civilian sector (Honig, Lerner, & Raban, 2006) [56]. The skills developed during military service, mainly through serving in the elite technological units and by participating in academic reserve tracks, enable a seamless transition to the private sector (Baram & Ben-Israel, 2019) [57]. This spillover effect contributes to the whole Israeli startup ecosystem but is most clearly demonstrated in the Israeli cybersecurity sector, which includes some world-leading companies such as Check Point and Cyber Ark. ...
This study sheds light on the prevalence, focus, and key structural dimensions of the Impact Tech Startup—a new organizational category of enterprise whose technologically innovative products or services are aimed at creating social or environmental impact. After tracing the Impact Tech Startup’s conceptual roots and the features it shares with startups and social enterprises, we examine the context of Israel as a particularly supportive environment for startup entrepreneurship. We then present the initial findings from our empirical study conducted in Israel, in which we examined 1657 startups, developed a machine learning algorithm to identify which of these can be classified as an Impact Tech Startup, and clustered the results within the framework of the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Our findings indicate that approximately one third of Israel’s startups can be classified as an Impact Tech Startup. Of these, almost a third are producing products or services relevant to Sustainable Development Goal 3 (Good Health and Well-being). Furthermore, we find that the technologies deployed by ITSs can help optimize decisions by professionals and, in doing so, substantially contribute to tackling social and environmental challenges. This study aimed to give the Impact Tech Startup an initial “face” and to invite further, more detailed studies in the future.
... Thus, the conclusion is that the adoption of the digital tools that are available to the practice is only in its formative basic stage. These finding are especially prominent and even disappointing with the context of Israel, which is known as a start-up and for its high-tech work force and technological innovation (Baram & Ben-Israel, 2019;Doron, 2011). It is expected that alongside the development of digital communication in Israel we will find quick adoption of these technologies, including the adoption of digital skills by PR agencies. ...
This paper focuses on the disruptions in the digital age through the lens of public relations experts from the private sector. In order to understand whether the PR profession is undergoing a major or just a minor change, this study focuses on expert attitudes toward the disruptions and the perceived change of their identity, strategy, and structure of PR. The analysis of semi-structured in-depth interviews yielded six themes: changes that are shaping the industry, changes in organizational identity, occupational definitions and roles, structural aspects, the difference between PR communication strategy and digital PR-strategy, new methods, tools, and measurement models and finally predictions for the future. Three main conclusions arise from these themes: PR agency self-identity is in a process of change from media-relations to strategic consultants; the main source of the change is perceived as media disruption rather than digital disruption (although they are interrelated); and the future in PR is predicted as the all-in-one marketing communications agency, which might develop into a new, hybrid, profession.
... 115 An example that encompasses both benefits is helping young high-school students from the periphery to improve their science and mathematics skills so as to be accepted into special programs that train soldiers for technological and engineering roles. 116 However, in the case of Covid-19, the IDF displayed a willingness to take part from the beginning. ...
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) were deployed extensively relative to other democracies’ militaries to combat the coronavirus during 2020–1. Ostensibly, the military's engagements are instrumental in addressing the pandemic due to its resources and hierarchical discipline, and especially in light of its centrality in Israel. However, problems remain concerning this deployment, the most prominent and relevant to the case of Israel being the high legitimacy that the Israeli public afforded this policy, especially given the alternative options available to the government. Motivated by this conundrum, I present a circular argument: securitisation legitimised the deployment of the military and in turn, this deployment, constitutive of the discourse of securitisation, further legitimised securitisation. Consequently, Israel could legitimately adopt an enemy-oriented approach to deal with the crisis, an approach that ‘enemises’ the population.
... Conversely, CliniCrowd's founders possessed immense social, cultural, financial, and symbolic capital within Israel's comparatively militarized society (Levy 2020). In Israel, the defence and high-tech start-up elites are often considered amongst society's brightest and most innovative, trained from youth to assume responsibility, think creatively, collaborate, and take risk (Honig et al. 2006;Baram and Ben-Israel 2019;Swed and Butler 2015;Katz and Bohbot 2017;Gewirtz 2016). This demonstrates Hess's (2016, pp. 18, 26, 53) observation that challenging "counterpublics" need not, necessarily, occupy positions of structural inequality and marginality, as traditional social movement theories tend to expect. ...
This paper describes CliniCrowd, a patient-designed, entrepreneurial, crowd-sourced citizen-science approach to evaluating mannitol—essentially, an orphan drug—as a Parkinson’s disease treatment. As such, CliniCrowd addresses ‘undone science’, and our paper contributes to the sociological literature thereon. Based on 38 qualitative interviews, fieldwork, and content analyses (2017–2020), we trace CliniCrowd’s background and rationale. We: discuss undone science and its wider contexts; present earlier iterations of citizen-science and treatment activism; examine CliniCrowd’s application of crowd-sourced citizen-science to address undone science around ‘orphan drug’ treatment for Parkinson’s disease; explore how CliniCrowd has evolved, and re-framed its work, since its founding; ponder its future; and consider whether their approach can guide future citizen-science treatment research. Our paper contributes to the existing literature in four ways. First, we focus on medical treatment issues, an under-studied area of undone science. Second, we highlight orphan drugs as both major source of, and fruitful area for research on, undone science. Third, we describe CliniCrowd’s pragmatic, entrepreneurial—rather than the more common activist—citizen-science approach to addressing undone treatment science. Finally, from our data on CliniCrowd we distil a preliminary model for future treatment activism around undone science.
... 142 As is the case in SFBA and Washington clusters, Israel, too, exhibits a culture of collaboration between and amongst citizens, private firms, government and non-government agencies, military, and academic institutions. 143 Mandatory military conscription in Israel also shapes the work ethic of its populace and, further, trains a large percentage of the labor force in marketable skills; such as goal-oriented strategic thinking. Military service provides network connections and social capital which aid in entrepreneurial success after military service is completed. ...
This report offers a multi-disciplinary perspective on the cybersecurity industry. Conceptualizing cybersecurity industry clusters as ecosystems, we focus on three distinct mega-clusters: the San Francisco Bay Area, metropolitan Washington, D.C., and Israel. Benefits of clustering include: access to a pool of specialized labor, knowledge spillover, access to capital, and inter-organizational linkages. Research suggests that clusters’ economics should be linked to their social dimensions and the configuration of the built environment. In addition, based on the empirical analysis, we suggest using a nuanced taxonomy of cybersecurity clusters using a spectrum of intensities: mega-, mesa- and micro-clusters, sub-clusters, and hot zones.
The Big3 clusters were catalyzed during the 1990s cybersecurity genesis – even before cybersecurity was recognizable as a distinct sub-industry within high-tech – and certainly well before the term “cybersecurity” was coined. All three cybersecurity clusters emerged as specialized clusters embedded within a larger high-tech ecosystem. At the same time, government was a key actor in facilitating the high-tech and defense ecosystems in each of these three regions. Cluster concentration remains high: the Big3 mega-clusters, hegemonic since their founding, together serve as headquarters for 53% of the largest and most influential global cybersecurity firms.
Cybersecurity industry dynamics. The industry can be viewed as a manifestation of two far-reaching relationship interplays: industry clustering processes and place (meaning, the industry’s socio-spatial context). Regarding the first: there is some evidence of rapid industry consolidation — especially within the Big3 clusters (393 firms merged or acquired through 2018). However, the industry still remains quite fragmented because of the continued entry of new players and the breakup of some giant firms (e.g., Symantec). The second interplay is between place and social context, human capital, and institutions. Via comprehensive mapping, we show that cybersecurity clusters are situated in large, diverse urban regions, within complex, multi-modal transportation networks, with proximate universities, and layered on household income sectors.
Lessons for smaller clusters globally. Cybersecurity clusters (and sub-clusters) grow where one of two conditions exists: an anchor organization (such as the National Security Agency outside Washington) and/or where there is already a strong high-tech culture (as in Silicon Valley). Nurturing a new cybersecurity cluster is a long-term strategy, one that requires many years of patience (as in the Be’er Sheva sub-cluster in Israel). Local governments have been nurturing cybersecurity clusters specifically for about a decade with tax benefits, partnerships, and advocacy programs. However, these policies do not take place in a vacuum; rather, they are part of the ongoing competition between regions and cities. Thus, purposeful cluster growth requires more than a bundle of policies; it needs a cohesive strategic plan that structures a set of policies for nurturing the industrial ecosystem. Only with a holistic vision, which considers the social, economic and spatial context, can a cybersecurity cluster evolve and grow.
Finally, we identify three cybersecurity industry/cluster challenges for the future. First is the persistent cybersecurity workforce shortage—apparent in both countries covered in this report. The second challenge is the resiliency of these high-tech clusters as the hegemony of global cities is expected to diminish post-COVID-19, with the workforce migrating out of expensive and unhealthy urban areas. The third challenge is the durability of the cybersecurity industry itself. Are there too many cybersecurity firms? Will a new generation of technologies reconfigure these firms?
In sum, cyber industry cannot be understood in isolation, but only as part of a larger context. Although this industry has some unique features, cybersecurity clusters are not autonomous, and their emergence is connected to a wider technological infrastructure, and to a particular political urban and regional context.
... Israel, which has highly developed digital technological capabilities [14] and is known as the "start-up nation" and a leading source of technological innovation worldwide [2], has used both voluntary and mandatory digital technologies to track, control and regulate population behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic. ...
Background
In a bid to reduce infection rates by COVID-19 the authorities in some countries, in collaboration with medical regulators and experts, have employed digital technologies to control and regulate citizens’ behavior. Public opinion and the public’s compliance with these technologies come into play here. The objective of the present study was to examine attitudes expressed in the public discourse toward the use of digital technologies to control people’s behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic, as reflected in the media.
Methods
Qualitative analysis was performed on posts and comments submitted in response to 12 articles that appeared on the four leading Israeli news sites, on three significant occasions: first, upon the announcement of the use of surveillance technologies by the Israeli security agency (ISA); second, upon the announcement of the launch of the Health Ministry’s app that tracks contacts with COVID-19 patients; and third, following reports of petitions lodged with Israel’s supreme court challenging the use of surveillance technologies. The analysis was performed using ATLAS-Ti software for systematic analysis.
Results
A total of 2551 posts and comments referring to these 12 articles were found, 714 of which were relevant to the purpose of the study. The analysis revealed disagreement between those who supported the measures taken and opponents. Supporters regarded contact tracing by means of digital technologies as essential to the effort to protect people during the pandemic, and believed that employing the ISA’s capabilities was the correct way to combat the epidemic. Opponents of the measures rejected the use of tracking technologies, regarding this step as a move toward dictatorship and a violation of fundamental civil rights. Some proposed alternative measures that would obviate the use of such tracking.
Conclusions
The primary task of medical practice is to heal illness and alleviate suffering. The debate surrounding the employment of digital technologies during the COVID-19 pandemic highlights the complexity of the close connection between social control and care in times of pandemic. The context of this pandemic has highlighted the interrelatedness of advanced digital surveillance technologies, medical care, and social control exercised by authorities and medical regulators and experts, which raises issues of transparency, trust and mistrust among the public. These issues become all the more relevant when the number of patients grows rapidly, the authorities need to deal with the extended ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the country has entered a second lockdown, and the public must be persuaded to comply with highly restrictive regulations. Recommendations to policy makers, practical implications, and suggestions for future research are discussed.
... IDF lawyers, doctors, engineers, and statisticians have always been graduates of civilian academies, to which "lateral transfers" are altogether an entrenched practice. As early as the 1950s, Ben-Gurion encouraged the establishment of the "academic reserve," an arrangement whereby the IDF financed the university studies of exceptionally talented high school pupils in return for their commitment to extended terms of professional military service (Baram & Ben-Israel, 2019). Another early program granted senior ranks paid leave in order to study toward a degree at one of Israel's institutions of higher education (Enoch & Yogev, 1989). ...
This article modifies the framework for the analysis of civil–military “gaps” proposed in Armed Forces & Society (Vol. 38, 2012) by Rahbek-Clemmensen, Archer, Barr, Belkin, Guerro, Hall, and Swain, who depicted a continuum of four binary fissures (“gap dimensions”) dividing two hypothetically homogeneous communities: civilians versus military personnel. Extrapolating from Israel’s experience, this article instead visualizes a more dynamic and fissured landscape, inhabited by several heterogeneous clusters of population groups, each comprising impromptu coalitions drawn from both the armed forces and civilian society. That environment, we argue, although certainly influenced by the traditional penetrability of Israel’s civil–military boundaries, more directly reflects current technological and cultural processes, which are transforming encounters between civilians and military personnel in other countries too. We therefore suggest replacing the predominantly dichotomous taxonomies that generally characterize studies of civil–military relations in contemporary democratic societies with the fractured format observed in the Israeli case.
Advanced commercial technologies offer new opportunities for defense applications that could greatly affect military power and metrics of military advantage. This is relevant when it comes to civilian-based technological innovations found in the emerging 'fourth industrial revolution,' such as artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, 'big data,' and quantum computing. Militaries and governments around the world are increasingly focused on how and where advanced commercial technologies, innovations, and breakthroughs could potentially create new capacities for military power, advantage, and leverage. This process of exploiting civilian-based advanced technologies is referred to as 'military–civil fusion' (MCF). This book addresses MCF not only from a conceptual and practical sense but also comparatively as it explores how four different countries – the United States, China, India, and Israel – are attempting to use MCF to support national military-technological innovation. It will interest scholars, researchers, and advanced students of military, security, and technology studies, as well as analysts and policymakers in military and defense organizations.
This chapter lays out the contours of the high-tech industry in Israel, perusing key research in social science on the topic and highlighting its significance as an economic, political, and cultural phenomenon. It aims to demystify the Israeli high-tech success story as epitomizing the free capitalist market, private entrepreneurship, or the ingenuity of Israelis. Instead, it aims to highlight the institutional and social conditions which facilitate, direct, and support this success.
Under-representation of minority groups in the academy reflects inequality and lack of social mobilization. The Druze in Israel are a small minority, but they have a unique place in society because they have been serving in the IDF almost since its formation. The IDF maintains an academic reserve track, where young men and women complete their studies and then serve an extra number of years as professionals. Through in-depth interviews with 30 Druze participants and graduates, this study examines the effects of the academic reserve track on Druze young men, seeking to learn its impact on their future.
This section lists literature and reviews of books relevant to Palestine and the Arab-Israeli conflict. Entries are classified under the following headings: Palestine in Global and Comparative Perspectives; Palestine and the Palestinians; Literature and the Arts; Middle East and the Arab World; Israel and Zionism; and Recent Theses and Dissertations.
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