Visiting the Gav-Yam Negev Technology Park in Israel and new project ideas

Two representatives of тthe Cluster Sofia Knowledge City - Prof. Bogdan Ugarchinski - Deputy Chairman of the Management Board and Kiril Zhelyazkov - Member of the CB visited the Gav-Yam Negev Technology Park in Israel. The visit was in the framework of the delegation of the President of the Republic of Bulgaria in Israel between March 20 and 22, 2018.

They visited three of the most important areas of the park: a financial cybersecurity zone; a cybersecurity area in the energy, ecology, and water sectors; a cybersecurity area in other areas of Israel's functioning. 

These areas are under the National Cyber Security Directorate, which is directly subordinate to the Prime Minister of Israel. Here is Ben-Gurion University, who prepares staff for the Cybersecurity Directorate.The Gav-Yam Negev Technology Park is located in the heart of a new urban area and creates a strong connection between Ben-Gurion University in the Negev and the IDF Technology Campus. High technology and research companies and academic research organizations are concentrated in the park, making it a leading research and technology center in the world. The location of the park is accessible to everyone living in the surrounding neighborhoods, including tens of thousands of IDF students and professionals working in the technology campus. The park is focused on both business activities and entertainment opportunities, creating a unique and stimulating work environment.

As a result of this visit and following this good practice Prof. B. Ugurchinski proposed to the Managing Board the cluster to prepare and implement a cybersecurity project using the available assets, the scientific resources and scientists from the units of the Bulgarian Academy of Science (BAS). They can become the basis of a Directorate providing the cybersecurity of the country in different areas- finance, energy, transport, national security, ecology, defense, health care, etc. Potential units for such a directorate can be some of the specialized Institutes of BAS in the fields of information and communication sciences and technologies, energy resources and energy efficiency, climatic risks and natural resources, space research and technologies.

This project idea is based on the fact that these units, with the help of the members of the cluster, will be able to use the available resources of BAS efficiently and, after appropriate upgrading and complementing them, will work as units of the Cyber Security Directorate. Regarding the training of cybersecurity staff, the cluster presents a readiness, created by SULSIT, a member of the cluster through its discipline - 4.6 Informatics and Computer Science. The proposal includes working on the Cybersecurity Act and the redirection of funds from the 2018-2020 budget to these Cybersecurity Directorates, to which some of the institutes of BAS will work.

In general, the proposal presumes the Cluster Sofia Knowledge City and the State Agency for Electronic Governance to develop and present:

• project for development a Cyber Security Directorate to the Prime Minister;
• budget for reequipment of different cybersecurity units in BAS;
• action plan for deployment of the Cyber Security Directorate;
• draft proposals for the cybersecurity act.