Israel opens new high-tech desert climate innovation center in Negev

Tel Aviv [Israel], April 11 (ANI/TPS): Israel's Ministry of Environmental Protection launched an innovation center for DeserTech in the field of the desert climate, which it said will bring new employment opportunities in the high-tech field to residents of the Negev, the southern part of the country. While constituting most of Israel's territory, the Negev is a desert and is sparsely populated.
The new center, located in Be'er Sheva, will focus on promoting employment in the Negev in knowledge-intensive professions and creating technological solutions in the fields of climate, agriculture and desert.
The center was established with the aim of "realizing the unique knowledge developed in the Negev, bringing start-up companies to sprout, meeting the global climate and desert challenges, developing the entrepreneurial ecosystem in the Negev, increasing and diversifying quality employment in the Negev with hundreds of new technological jobs."
The center was established in cooperation between five leading players in the Israeli ecosystem: the Mirage Israel Fund, the InNegev Incubator, the Israel Institute for Innovation, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and Group 19.
The Ministry pointed out that the period since the October 7 Hamas massacre saw "severe damage" to employment in the Negev, with abandoned fields and construction sites, lack of workers and fear of a "severe recession."
Recently, nine different innovation centers of this type have been established in Israel.
The Ministry of Environmental Protection said it set for itself the goal of promoting the development of "breakthrough technologies that meet the challenges of the climate and, in doing so, to position Israel as an international power in the field of dealing with the phenomenon of desertification." (ANI/TPS)