A dozen years after Avishay Braverman, then-president of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, announced a hi-tech campus in Beersheba that was mocked as bombastic and unlikely, the city and the Negev desert around it have become Israel's national cyber center, built through collaboration among academia, multinational companies and the IDF. What was once dismissed as a fantasy is now a polished machine for cybersecurity, artificial intelligence and defense, with the usual cast of institutions and corporate players crowding around the table.
Who Built the Hub
Strategic partners in these developments include the Israel Innovation Authority; Ben-Gurion University of the Negev; Elbit Systems; Dell Technologies; Soroka Medical Center; and Mor Research Applications. The Merage Foundation Israel, a private philanthropy founded by David and Laura Merage in 1998, has dedicated much of its resources to Negev development, fostering projects and start-ups in climate technologies and R&D-based innovations in robotics and cyber security to attract companies to the South.
The southern Negev region constitutes 60% of Israel's land but has less than 10% of its population. That imbalance sits in the background while institutions and investors frame the region as a frontier for development, commercialization and strategic growth. The language is all opportunity, but the structure is familiar: public authority, private capital and military power working in concert.
Merage Foundation CEO Nicole Hod Stroh said: "We knew from day one of the creation of this state that we needed to thrive in desert environments. And we have all this know-how that we should commercialize." She said: "If we transform the Negev into a global hub of desert innovation, agrotourism, and tourism, it will become an attractive magnet for young people who will want to move and work in the Negev. We really see it as a national existential opportunity." She also said: "We realized that there’s a lot of know-how in desert agriculture, water management, and renewable energy, but we weren’t very good at commercializing and monetizing that expertise," and said the foundation has provided platforms in several sectors connecting researchers and developers to potential investors.
What They Call Development
To accelerate technologies that enable sustainable living in arid climates, the Israel Innovation Authority established the DeserTech and Climate Innovation Center three years ago. Backed by Merage and five other major organizations, the center targets initiatives and new start-ups that have not yet found a market. DeserTech director Sivan Cohen Shachari said: "We help them find resources, make connections, and – vitally – exchange knowledge with industry players." She said: "The Negev is the metaphoric sandbox where these arid zones ideas can be tested, so we connect the projects to various sites, including agriculture. We help guide people with innovative ideas through all the processes." In the last three years, DeserTech has shepherded more than 40 initiatives and expects another 20 projects in the near future.
One example is a Russian immigrant entrepreneur who converted protein-rich waste from dates to produce high-quality fish food. There are R&D agricultural projects throughout the Negev, each focusing on different needs in each micro-climate. Cohen Shachari said: "No one in the world knew how to do this, but the researchers brought the solutions to local farmers, who succeeded and then gained a competitive advantage." She added: "Farmers in Morocco or Azerbaijan also want to know how to do this. That knowledge can be shared, but it has a price tag."
Laguna Innovation is one project addressing the global problem of treating wastewater in off-grid communities. Laguna co-founder and CEO Clive Lipchin said: "In most of the developing world, access to this kind of infrastructure is impossible, so sewage disposal becomes a real challenge, as does sanitation and hygiene, creating environmental and public health hazards." He said: "For these communities, the problem is not only [accessing] drinking water but also how to get recycled water for agriculture." The company used its system in the Negev's unrecognized Bedouin villages and is now marketing it in Israel and abroad. Cohen Shachari called Laguna Innovation "our role model of a system that was developed, tested, and validated in the Negev, a company that was established here."
The Venture Studio and the Price Tag
The Merage Foundation has also set up a platform to develop wine tourism via the Negev Wine Consortium, made up of 30 wineries and vineyards. The foundation's stated goal is to "promote sustainable and inclusive prosperity to the Negev region by strengthening the main drivers of economic growth and revitalizing city centers." In the competitive hi-tech environment, this includes entrepreneurship with a special focus on healthcare and biotech, indoor robotics and cybersecurity.
In 2023, together with Dell, Elbit, Ben-Gurion University and Soroka Medical Center, Merage won an Israel Innovation Authority tender to create the Synergy7 Tech Labs Hub. What was once a huge bare brown lot next to Ben-Gurion University is now the Gav-Yam Negev Advanced Technologies Park, where Synergy7 has its offices. The new high-rise park has become a center of cutting-edge cybersecurity development, artificial intelligence and defense.
The Synergy7 consortium serves as a "venture studio," according to CEO Harel Ram, an infrastructure that attracts and supports companies and start-ups in biotech, robotics and cybersecurity that want to do business in the South. In the brief period between the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Gaza, hundreds of foreign delegations from all over the world visited Beersheba, curious about a remote region where there has been economic growth. Ram said visitors most often mentioned cybersecurity, homeland security and medical issues, and he realized that the region had something to offer in all of these areas: "In a word, crisis management." He said: "It’s very, very hard to establish a viable company. Does it answer a need? Does it offer something that will interest venture capitalists? It requires a lot of resources, which is what we are trying to provide. Synergy7 is now working with 300 companies, each in various stages of development, helping with business plans and presentations. All during these very difficult times."
Merage executive director Hod Stroh said: "The foundation’s paramount question has always been ‘What problem can we solve?’ The world is hungry for solutions, and that opens more opportunities for meaningful intervention. It’s not just about funding someone but about leveraging a project, serving as a catalyst. This philosophy is behind all the projects the foundation supports."