Be'er Sheva

Innovation District

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Spanning an area of 650 acres, Be’er Sheva’s Innovation District is a rapidly growing and constantly evolving community. A Research, Hi-tech, governmental and residential community based on integrative collaboration between Be’er-Sheva Municipality, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Soroka University Medical Center and the Israeli Government and home to the Advance Technologies Park Gav Yam Negev, the IDF’s Digital ICT Campus Israel’s National Cyber Directorate along with multinational and world-leading technological companies. Based on the strengths of Be'er-Sheva and the district's leading institutions and partners, we specialize in 3 distinct areas: Digital Health, Desert Technologies and Cyber Security.

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Mission &
Vision

The Be’er Sheva Innovation District aspires to create a dynamic and inclusive innovation community, based on the vast pool of talent in the growing innovation ecosystem and the amenities supporting it.

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Enhance employment and education opportunities for the city and regional residents

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Strengthen connections between communities and researchers

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Create a dynamic and inclusive innovation community

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Increase the level of walkability and connectivity within the district

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Create quality public spaces, and to support quality urban renewal

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Be’er Sheva

In the past five years, Be’er Sheva has grown rapidly in high tech and innovation, making it an attractive destination for R&D centers of multinational companies and the IDF’s advanced technological units. In recent years the number of high-tech companies in Be’er Sheva doubled to 100. In an area of only 26km2, The Innovation District hosts:

Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

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employees

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full-time faculty members

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students

Soroka University Medical Center

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employees

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doctors

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of digital information in Soroka's databases

Gav-Yam Negev advanced technologies park

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companies in the park

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employees

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built square meter (with expectation to reach 250,000)

The IDF Digital
C4 Campus

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military personnel with training in computer engineering and cyber.

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campus area (dunham)

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built square meter

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Research & Development

The three specializations of the Be’er Sheva Innovation District will anchor three “cluster magnets” concentrated nodes of development where cluster-specific actors connect to strengthen these growing fields of research and innovation. These anchors aim to tackle some of the most vexing and costly challenges of our time: climate change, the inability to solve intractable health problems, and growing threats in cybersecurity.

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"Combining our clinical knowledge, access to vast healthcare digital data and advanced academic engineering capabilities, we will generate innovative solutions and new healthcare services models"

Victor Novack

MD PhD, Head Research Authority and Innovation, Soroka medical center

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Digital Health

A rapidly evolving field that combines health with digital technologies. This broad field includes products ranging from wearable health sensors, AI Big Data decision support solutions to personal medicine and remote healthcare. Soroka University Medical Center with Clalit Health Services, has the largest digital data pool in the world, providing health services to approximately 67% of the Negev and Southern region. The combination of a single hospital providing services to such a large population with a large amount of medical data, gives Soroka, and it’s Collaborators the advantage and possibility to produce, computerize and create value efficiently out of health data. Companies that will establish collaboration with the hospital and locate themselves in the Innovation District can get access to physicians, opportunities to observe procedures in a clinical field and to leverage health data on (population of almost a million) from cradle to grave, and the ability to test and validate solutions using the centralized health system.

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“This place will serve as an international hub for climate change and we would like to help make that happen”

Galit Cohen

Senior Deputy Director-General, Planning and Policy, Ministry of Environmental Protection

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Desert Technologies

Desert technologies are an amalgamation of specializations that use desert areas and conditions to conceive of innovations (knowledge, processes, and technologies) in food, water, and energy. Our warming planet elevates the role and importance of desert technologies on a massive scale. According to the UN, by 2025, 1.8 billion people will experience “absolute water scarcity” with two-thirds of the world living in water-scarce conditions. The escalating effects of climate change, population growth, and the fact that most land reserves are in drylands mean that our reliance on areas with arid conditions as sources of food, water, and energy will only increase. This global phenomenon will require out-of-the-box solutions, including new technologies. Located on the edge of the Negev desert, Be’er Sheva and the broader region’s arid ecosystem are a natural laboratory for studying the effects of climate change. Over time, BGU has amassed over 70 researchers in sustainable agriculture, water, and energy at research institutes. The BGU researchers in robotics and remote sensing are driving new applications in AgTech. At the same time, Soroka, in partnership with BGU, has established the Negev Environmental Health Research Institute (NEHRI) to study the effects of climate change on human health. A new hub on desert tech in the Innovation District will be designed to capture the synergies among the different actors, and create a Hotspot where research challenges are solved through multi-disciplinary teams and much more.

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“This place could serve as an international hub for climate change and we would like to help make that happen”

Galit Cohen

Senior Deputy Director-General, Planning and Policy, Ministry of Environmental Protection

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Cyber Security

Be’er Sheva is a rising hot spot for cybersecurity. Government Decision No. 546 especially contributed to this by injecting funding into this professional field and by the national initiative of relocating the IDF’s elite technological units to Be’er Sheva and surrounding areas. Continued support by the government, led by INCD, has been extensive, including an incentive for all cyber-related non-government organizations to locate in Be’er Sheva. It also includes the relocation of Israel’s national CERT to Be’er Sheva’s Advanced Technologies Park; innovation labs for cyber in transportation, FinTech, and energy. Today, at the Advanced Technologies Park there are over 2,500 engineers and companies such as Dell-EMC, Oracle, RAFAEL, JVP Cyber Labs, IBM, AllScripts-dbmotion, The Cyber @ BGU research center, including Innovation Labs of Deutsche Telekom, The Center for Computational Criminology in cooperation with the government of Israel and more. Over 160 researchers, students, and technical staff conduct their research within these and other research centers. The relocation of approximately 6,000 IDF soldiers into the Innovation District in 2023 will add a critical mass of trained soldiers.

What Are
Innovation Districts?

Innovation districts are an emerging geography phenomenon arising in cities around the world in response to broader economic, demographic, and cultural trends.
They embody a changing time—a time when collaboration across actors is a growing imperative; when advanced technologies underpin innovative growth; and when the quality of the physical landscape creates new competitive advantages.
Innovation Districts are characterized as a limited area located within the city centers where leading research institutions, advanced industry, small and large companies and intermediaries - venture capital funds, incubators and accelerators, etc. sit and collaborate. Innovation Districts have distinct urban characteristics of a mix of uses (research, industry, residential, public and leisure spaces), active public spaces and activities through day and night.

Innovation districts are an emerging geography phenomenon arising in cities around the world in response to broader economic, demographic, and cultural trends.
They embody a changing time—a time when collaboration across actors is a growing imperative; when advanced technologies underpin innovative growth; and when the quality of the physical landscape creates new competitive advantages.
Innovation Districts are characterized as a limited area located within the city centers where leading research institutions, advanced industry, small and large companies and intermediaries - venture capital funds, incubators and accelerators, etc. sit and collaborate. Innovation Districts have distinct urban characteristics of a mix of uses (research, industry, residential, public and leisure spaces), active public spaces and activities through day and night.

Partners

News

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IDF Moves South: New Cyber School opened in Negev Desert

Moving the IDF’s Cyber Training School southward is a top-priority national mission to strengthen the Negev and improve the IDF’s operational capabilities. This move will enable collaborations between the IDF and Ben-Gurion University, the Israeli Education System, and Negev-based hightech companies.

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For the first time in Israel: An innovation district will be built in Beer Sheva

Ben Gurion University, the Soroka Medical Center, Beer Sheva City Hall, and in the future, an IDF teleprocessing campus are expected to create a collaborative ecosystem in Negev’s capital.

Beersheva_to_shift_city_center_to_new_innovation_district_image

Beersheva to shift city center to new innovation district

The area will include the university, and the hospital with Ben Gurion Boulevard becoming the Rothschild Boulevard of Beersheva.

“Moving_South”:_IDF_Opens_New_Cyber_School_in_Negev_Desert_image

“Moving South”: IDF Opens New Cyber School in Negev Desert

The IDF Cyber Training School has been reopened in its new location with much fanare, marking the first sign of the move the miliatry cyber units southward.

IDF_Moves_South:_New_Cyber_School_opened_in_Negev_Desert_image

IDF Moves South: New Cyber School opened in Negev Desert

Moving the IDF’s Cyber Training School southward is a top-priority national mission to strengthen the Negev and improve the IDF’s operational capabilities. This move will enable collaborations between the IDF and Ben-Gurion University, the Israeli Education System, and Negev-based hightech companies.

Moving the IDF’s Cyber Training School southward is a top-priority national mission to strengthen the Negev and improve the IDF’s operational capabilities.

For_the_first_time_in_Israel:_An_innovation_district_will_be_built_in_Beer_Sheva_image

For the first time in Israel: An innovation district will be built in Beer Sheva

Ben Gurion University, the Soroka Medical Center, Beer Sheva City Hall, and in the future, an IDF teleprocessing campus are expected to create a collaborative ecosystem in Negev’s capital.

Ben Gurion University, the Soroka Medical Center, Beer Sheva City Hall, and in the future, an IDF teleprocessing campus are expected to create a collaborative ecosystem in Negev’s capital.

Beersheva_to_shift_city_center_to_new_innovation_district_image

Beersheva to shift city center to new innovation district

The area will include the university, and the hospital with Ben Gurion Boulevard becoming the Rothschild Boulevard of Beersheva.

The area will include the university, and the hospital with Ben Gurion Boulevard becoming the Rothschild Boulevard of Beersheva.

“Moving_South”:_IDF_Opens_New_Cyber_School_in_Negev_Desert_image

“Moving South”: IDF Opens New Cyber School in Negev Desert

The IDF Cyber Training School has been reopened in its new location with much fanare, marking the first sign of the move the miliatry cyber units southward.

The IDF Cyber Training School has been reopened in its new location with much fanare, marking the first sign of the move the miliatry cyber units southward.

Events

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יום ראשון, נובמבר 27th

Learning From Drylands

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Midreshet Ben-Gurion

5 days of scientific and policy sessions, workshops, and tours focusing on topics such as: Earth Observation, Ecology, Economics, Ecosystem Services, Education, Energy, Food, Health, Society and Water

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