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Comment and Opinion

Foreign Affairs: How Israeli conscription drives innovation, by Elisabeth Braw

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Ofer Familier, a 35-year-old Israeli, works as business development director of Vayyar Imaging, a successful start-up that makes radar-based imaging sensors for breast cancer. At first glance, this work seems to stand apart from his former duties in the Israeli air force intelligence corps, where he completed his three-year mandatory military service. But in a larger sense, Familier’s stint in the military has been crucial to his entrepreneurship—as it has for that of many others. Two years ago, Nadav Zafrir, the head of the Israel Defense Forces’ signals intelligence department, left to launch a start-up tracking cybercrime. It swiftly raised $18 million in venture capital funding. There are hundreds more stories like theirs.

The IDF’s conscription system has brought great benefits to Israel’s economy. The armed forces meticulously place talented conscripts in technological, combat, and intelligence units. The skills that the conscripts acquire are a significant benefit to them in the civilian labor market after they leave. As Familier told me, “Technical intelligence units in the IDF are like Harvard. You form networks and end up doing business together.” And, he added, “as an 18-year-old conscript in the IDF, you’re given a lot of responsibility about life-and-death decisions, you make command and management decisions, you decide whether to continue an operation.”

Read the full article in Foreign Affairs.