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Israel building high-tech campus for Jerusalem’s Arabs

Israeli and international companies, offered the workspace for free, will be based in the complex and employ programmers from Arab neighborhoods in eastern Jerusalem.

By JNS

The EasTech high-tech campus was inaugurated on Saleh al-Din Street in eastern Jerusalem on Monday as part of the Israeli government’s effort to create jobs for Arab programmers and technology professionals.

Meir Porush, the minister of Jerusalem affairs and Jewish heritage, and Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion inaugurated the complex in East Jerusalem, budgeted for a total investment of 10 million shekels ($2.75 million).

The plans include the establishment of the high-tech campus within which 200,000 square meters (about 2 million square feet) of offices and work spaces will be built with a total investment of about 200 million shekels ($55 million).

Both Israeli and international hi-tech companies will be based in the complex and will employ programmers from the east of the city.

The place is offered to companies free of charge in order to encourage and develop the high-tech sector in the eastern part of the city and enable quality employment for young academics who have difficulty finding work in technology companies elsewhere.

Among the companies that have already started operating there are Ness, Natural Intelligence, Techlinic and Quantum Vision. Twenty local programmers have already started working in the complex as employees of these companies.

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Lion said, “The construction of the new complex is another step on the way to realizing a more significant historical and strategic plan in the east of the city, which brings great news to the economy in Jerusalem in general and the east of the city in particular, with an increase in the supply of employment in the high-tech field.

“The Jerusalem Municipality, which is leading the project, intends to recruit the leading companies in the field of high-tech and to realize the potential of the high-quality workforce in the east of the city,” the mayor said.