“/Image Credits: TechCrunch
Gaza, despite being one of the most economically challenged regions in the world, has ironically always been a tech hub — not only for Palestine and Palestinians, but for the world: international companies have, for many years, sought out a presence there to collaborate both with with talented tech freelancers, and the startups which gradually emerged from the region. For examples, according to sources who helped build those bridges, Nvidia, famed for it’s role in the new AI boom, has been working with at least 100 engineers from the region for years.
Since at least 2008 TechCrunch been covering technology companies out of Palestine, some serving their direct audience, some serving the tech world internationally. Silicon Valley had taken an increasing interest in Palestine as a tech hub, but like the ecosystem itself, it’s nascent: to date, those working in the region estimate that much as $10 million has been invested in the Palestinian tech ecosystem.
Notably, in 2017, Salesforce founder and CEO Marc Benioff joined Silicon Valley luminaries in backing the first ever coding academy to be created in Gaza.
Gaza Sky Geeks, an Alphabet-backed initiative based in Gaza that provides pre-seed investments, training and technology resources to Palestine’s Gazan population, has been a beacon of entrepreneurship in the region.
All of that is now, effectively, gone, like the buildings in Gaza itself.
Israel is currently retaliating militarily against the attacks on its people, on its soil, and the hostages subsequently taken by Hamas — the ruling organisation in Gaza that kidnapped at least 150 people and took them into Gaza during brutal attacks on Israel at the weekend that killed 1,300 people.
That strategy has seen it pummelling the ‘Gaza Strip’ with bombs to eradicate it of Hamas and to get its hostages back. Over 1,500 people in Palestine so far have been killed as a result. The tech industry in Israel — the country’s biggest export, and its biggest single contributor to GDP — is also taking a big knock (read about that here), but the impact on the smaller and more fragile ecosystem in Gaza has been, inevitably, significantly more serious. The physical, economic and societal destruction resulting from that leaves any future for the tech industry there in doubt.
Quite simply, there is no escaping the consequences of the war for anyone, let alone tech workers.
“What is happening to tech in Gaza is that Israel is crunching it. Obliterating it,” one source, inside the territory, told TechCrunch.
Israel has now amassed soldiers near the north of Gaza, ahead of an expected ground offensive into the densely populated enclave. About 1.1 million people living in northern areas have been told to leave in the next day. The UN has warned of “devastating humanitarian consequences” from these latest moves. A total blockade on the territory is being enforced with fuel, food and water running out. Israel says it won’t lift the restrictions unless Hamas frees all hostages.
Speaking to Ryan Sturgill, an American national and former head of the Gaza Sky Geeks accelerator run by sponsor Mercy Corps, and NGO aid organisation, the situation on the ground appears dire, after waves of shelling by the Israeli military.
“The area around the the Mercy Corps building, which housed Gaza Sky Geeks, has been levelled. The structure is standing but blown out. The front of it is sort of ripped off,” he said.
Gaza Sky Geeks (GSG) is the largest tech-hub in Palestine, providing a wide range of tech training at scale. In 2022, 5,000 coders and developers from across the West Bank and Gaza graduated from the programme.
Video evidence (pictured above) posted on Linkedin shows a blown-out building with the Mercy Corps sign.
“Who knows what’s going to happen. The offices are destroyed, the fibre lines are destroyed. The universities are destroyed. Three main universities in Gaza that produce all the computer science grads are levelled. I don’t even know if people will be ever be able to go back to Northern Gaza after what’s happening today.The educational institutions that are there are gone,” Sturgill added.
He had been helping Palestinian tech startups raise capital in the West Bank and Gaza since January.
“Until now, there had been a pretty significant growth. A lot of companies in Saudi Arabia have been setting up back offices [in Palestine] for development for all sorts of new companies and even apps that are that are now growing in the Gulf, because Saudi has been growing so quickly on the tech front. Nvidia, and other international companies, has outsourcing operations in Palestine. Apple has outsourcing operations, Microsoft has R&D, and they would even…
Read More: Palestine’s growing tech industry has been literally blown apart by the war