Rafael to Inaugurate Be’er Sheva R&D Center Tuesday

If Apple can establish an extension in Japan, Israeli defense contractor Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd. can definitely reach Be’er Sheva in southern Israel, Ran Gozali, an executive vice president and head of research and development at Rafael, said in a phone interview with Calcalist Sunday.

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The interview was held ahead of the inauguration ceremony of Rafael’s new research and development center in Be’er Sheva, set for Tuesday. The center, first announced in 2017, will initially employ 30 people, with plans to grow as much as 10 times larger within two to three years. Participants in the ceremony will include Rafael CEO Yoav Har-Even, its chairman Uzi Landau, Be’er Sheva’s mayor Ruvik Danilovich, director general of the Israel National Cyber Directorate Yigal Unna, and president of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) Daniel Chamovitz.

Rafael executive vice president Ran Gozali. Photo: Raphael

In January, in preparation for the launch of the new center, Rafael signed a strategic partnership with Be’er Sheva’s BGU to collaborate on research in the fields of cybersecurity, smart mobility, robotics, and artificial intelligence. “We are launching a startup, but one that has a 7,500-people strong company behind it and will work together with BGU as well as civilian industry companies,” Gozali said Sunday.

Most of Rafael’s operations are based in northern Israel. In recent years, it began setting up outposts throughout the country in a search for new quality employees, the competition for which can be fierce in talent-crunched Israel, according to Gozali. In addition to the Be’er Sheva center, Rafael is also setting up a 150-people strong computer vision, signal interpretation, and big data development center in partnership with Tel Aviv University, and another center employing 350 people in collaboration with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Rafael is aware of the competition when it comes to attracting talent, Gozali said. “But people who join us get a chance to deal with national security challenges, this is not just some tech job,” he added.

The Be’er Sheva center will focus on ground and airborne autonomous systems as well as cybersecurity, Gozali said, adding that he believes that in the future human soldiers will work alongside robotic systems. Challenges for military-grade autonomous vehicles are different than those of the commercial industry, Gozali said. For the latter, safety is key, while “for us, the most important thing is performance in the air and on the ground, and the integration between them,” he explained.