A public-private partnership centered on the Synergy7 Tech Labs Hub has transformed Israel's Negev desert into a thriving center for cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, and defense technology, demonstrating how strategic collaboration between industry, academia, and private philanthropy can drive regional economic development without heavy government spending.
In 2023, together with Dell, Elbit, Ben-Gurion University and Soroka Medical Center, Merage won an Israel Innovation Authority tender to create the Synergy7 Tech Labs Hub. What was once a huge bare brown lot next to Ben-Gurion University is now the Gav-Yam Negev Advanced Technologies Park, where Synergy7 has its offices. The new high-rise park has become a center of cutting-edge cybersecurity development, artificial intelligence and defense.
Private Sector Leadership in Regional Development
The Merage Foundation Israel, a private philanthropy founded by David and Laura Merage in 1998, has dedicated much of its resources to Negev development, fostering projects and start-ups in climate technologies and R&D-based innovations in robotics and cyber security to attract companies to the South. The southern Negev region constitutes 60% of Israel's land but has less than 10% of its population.
Merage Foundation CEO Nicole Hod Stroh said: "We knew from day one of the creation of this state that we needed to thrive in desert environments. And we have all this know-how that we should commercialize." She said: "If we transform the Negev into a global hub of desert innovation, agrotourism, and tourism, it will become an attractive magnet for young people who will want to move and work in the Negev. We really see it as a national existential opportunity."
The Synergy7 consortium serves as a "venture studio," according to CEO Harel Ram, an infrastructure that attracts and supports companies and start-ups in biotech, robotics and cybersecurity that want to do business in the South. Ram said: "It's very, very hard to establish a viable company. Does it answer a need? Does it offer something that will interest venture capitalists? It requires a lot of resources, which is what we are trying to provide. Synergy7 is now working with 300 companies, each in various stages of development, helping with business plans and presentations. All during these very difficult times."
Market-Driven Innovation Model
Strategic partners in these developments include the Israel Innovation Authority; Ben-Gurion University of the Negev; Elbit Systems; Dell Technologies; Soroka Medical Center; and Mor Research Applications. The city and the Negev desert around it have since emerged as Israel's national cyber center, fostering collaboration among academia, multinational companies and the IDF. Israel's South has long been the source of pioneering arid lands technologies, and in recent years the number of internationally recognized innovative desert-related projects has also risen sharply.
In the brief period between the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Gaza, hundreds of foreign delegations from all over the world visited Beersheba, curious about a remote region where there has been economic growth. Ram said visitors most often mentioned cybersecurity, homeland security and medical issues, and he realized that the region had something to offer in all of these areas: "In a word, crisis management."
To accelerate technologies that enable sustainable living in arid climates, the Israel Innovation Authority established the DeserTech and Climate Innovation Center three years ago. Backed by Merage and five other major organizations, the center targets initiatives and new start-ups that have not yet found a market. DeserTech director Sivan Cohen Shachari said: "We help them find resources, make connections, and – vitally – exchange knowledge with industry players."
Commercializing Desert Expertise
Hod Stroh said: "We realized that there's a lot of know-how in desert agriculture, water management, and renewable energy, but we weren't very good at commercializing and monetizing that expertise," and said the foundation has provided platforms in several sectors connecting researchers and developers to potential investors.
In the last three years, DeserTech has shepherded more than 40 initiatives and expects another 20 projects in the near future. One example is a Russian immigrant entrepreneur who converted protein-rich waste from dates to produce high-quality fish food. There are R&D agricultural projects throughout the Negev, each focusing on different needs in each micro-climate.
Cohen Shachari said: "No one in the world knew how to do this, but the researchers brought the solutions to local farmers, who succeeded and then gained a competitive advantage." She added: "Farmers in Morocco or Azerbaijan also want to know how to do this. That knowledge can be shared, but it has a price tag."
Laguna Innovation is one project addressing the global problem of treating wastewater in off-grid communities. Laguna co-founder and CEO Clive Lipchin said: "In most of the developing world, access to this kind of infrastructure is impossible, so sewage disposal becomes a real challenge, as does sanitation and hygiene, creating environmental and public health hazards." The company used its system in the Negev's unrecognized Bedouin villages and is now marketing it in Israel and abroad. Cohen Shachari called Laguna Innovation "our role model of a system that was developed, tested, and validated in the Negev, a company that was established here."
The Merage Foundation has also set up a platform to develop wine tourism via the Negev Wine Consortium, made up of 30 wineries and vineyards. The foundation's stated goal is to "promote sustainable and inclusive prosperity to the Negev region by strengthening the main drivers of economic growth and revitalizing city centers." In the competitive hi-tech environment, this includes entrepreneurship with a special focus on healthcare and biotech, indoor robotics and cybersecurity.
Merage executive director Hod Stroh said: "The foundation's paramount question has always been 'What problem can we solve?' The world is hungry for solutions, and that opens more opportunities for meaningful intervention. It's not just about funding someone but about leveraging a project, serving as a catalyst. This philosophy is behind all the projects the foundation supports."
Why This Matters:
The Synergy7 Tech Labs Hub exemplifies how private philanthropy and market-driven partnerships can achieve regional development goals more efficiently than government-led initiatives alone. By focusing on commercializing existing expertise in defense technology, cybersecurity, and desert innovation, the consortium has created a sustainable economic model that attracts private investment and multinational corporations to an underpopulated region. The hub's work with 300 companies demonstrates the power of venture studio infrastructure in supporting entrepreneurship without requiring extensive public subsidies. Most significantly, the Negev's transformation into a defense and cybersecurity center addresses critical national security needs while generating economic growth, proving that strategic private-sector collaboration can solve both market and security challenges simultaneously in ways that benefit regional populations and national interests.