Raytheon Wants To Help IDF Relocate To The South

Raytheon Wants To Help IDF Relocate To The South

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International giant companies see great business potential in the IDF’s relocation to the Negev at the south part of Israel and are already making plans to be a part of it. Some initiatives are already being put to work and some are being examined these very days.

IDF’s relocation to the Negev is one of the largest project in Israel’s history, if not the largest. The move is meant to enhance operational effectiveness as well as be a part of the national effort to strengthen the southern part of Israel. The relocation is highly complicated and complex, obviously. It is a vast project with a budget of tens of billions of dollars, which requires a high level of collaboration between the military, the government, local authorities and government companies.

The relocation is not just Israel’s business. Rather, some see it as a golden opportunity for foreign investment. Among the different companies seeking to take part in this large project is the American Raytheon. Michael J. Ruggles, who has been with Raytheon for 32 years, told I-HLS about the company’s interest. Ruggles himself started as a systems engineer for Hughes Aircraft company, then moved to program management, and today works as Capture Manager.

“The Israeli vision for the move to the south is extremely forward-looking, the technology is leading-edge. It takes a global company with the skills and experience of Raytheon to take on that type of requirements.” He says  the company is interested to integrate C4I systems in the project of moving the IDF to the south. “Raytheon has strong history in the data processing, the algorithms themselves, the technologies that are relevant and a lot of experience integrating some of the largest and most complex systems in the world.”

Raytheon is made up of several business units, one of which is the Intelligence, Information and Services or IIS. Most of the work done by this unit is with the US government and with the intelligence community. “We do a number of different markets, one of them is the cyber market,” said Ruggles and explained that the company has international cyber programs which are the biggest part of the international work in IIS. According to him, two thirds of all the data coming in from real-time video surveillance, photographs, classified data system that come from satellites or unmanned aerial vehicles are processed on a Raytheon system for the US government and the armed forces.

“We think that Israeli opportunities go hand in hand with our work for the US government and so they are very important to us. [Israel is] one of our closest allies, a country that strives for technical excellence so it’s a good match for us.”

Raytheon is not interested in working on this project by itself. “We are definitely looking for local partners. There’s nobody better at protecting Israel’s vital information than Israelis themselves. So it is equally vital that we get a partner that’s a good match to us technologically.” Ruggles said that Raytheon is looking for Israeli Startups in the cyber domain and didn’t forget to give us a pat on the back. “We have visited a number of companies here and the technology and cyber is exceptional and we look for how we can partner with those companies and use their technologies both in US government programs as well as international programs.”

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