As the Israel-Gaza war continues, there has been an outpouring of support for Palestine from the tech industry, particularly from affected startups.
In the coming weeks, an initiative backed by the Bank of Palestine will deploy more than $2 million in raised funds to support 20 leading Palestinian startups affected by the crisis.
The tech industry contributed about $500 million to the Palestinian economy in 2021, accounting for nearly 3% of the gross domestic product of the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, according to a World Bank report.
In its latest report on the Palestinian economy, the World Bank said nearly 500,000 jobs have been lost since the war began in October, more than 200,000 of them in the Gaza Strip and 148,000 because commuters from the West Bank can no longer get jobs in Israel.
The agency said a further 144,000 jobs had been lost in the West Bank “due to the escalation of violence and its impact on supply chains, productive capacity and breadwinners' access to work.”
Educational programmes such as the Talent Acceleration Platform (TAP), a Dutch-Palestinian joint venture that provides skilling and job placement, have been heavily affected but are still working to help where they can.
TAP co-founder Ja'far Schnaar said programs in software development, digital marketing and business development were hit.
“All the people who were working with external companies in Gaza are no longer working with these companies, and all the people who were part of our programs are no longer participating,” Schunnar told The National from the West Bank.
Three weeks ago, “things seemed to be calming down a bit” and he began engaging with Gazans again, but then violence erupted again, forcing him to put his plans on hold, he said.
TAP has created 150 jobs for Palestinians, partnered with HopeHub, an NGO that provides co-working spaces for freelancers in Gaza so they can work and access Tap Education, and also provides support to those who have left Gaza for Egypt.
The group also launched a campaign called “The Future of Palestine,” which aims to connect 1,000 Palestinian youth with 1,000 global experts from companies like Google, Meta, Microsoft, LinkedIn and Accenture to help provide career coaching, mentorship and even job opportunities.
life line
The Palestinian tech economy has always been able to thrive more than other sectors due to its ability to circumvent many of the physical restrictions on the movement of people and goods.
Ryan Sturgill, principal at Cross Boundary and an investment adviser to the Bank of Palestine, said technology has become “a lifeline for a lot of people.”
“I think since October this has become even more important, especially for people in the West Bank,” Sturgill said.
“Due to the violence occurring across the West Bank, many businesses, both physical and digital, are unable to bring their employees to work, communicate, or interact effectively.”
Ryan Sturgill leads the Bank of Palestine's “Safe Palestine” initiative, which aims to raise $5 million for bridge equity investments in the most promising Palestinian startups. Photo: TNW
He said he was in contact with several internet companies to restore hotspot Wi-Fi to Gaza camps, where infrastructure has been destroyed.
He said the violence had increased the attention of regional and global investors to Palestinian technology start-ups.
“They are [Palestinian start-ups] “These are quality companies targeting large regional and global markets,” Sturgill said.
He is leading the Bank of Palestine's “Safe Palestine” initiative, which aims to raise $5 million in bridge equity investments in the “most promising” startups that are already showing significant traction.
The fund, which launched in February, has closed its first round of funding with just under $2.5 million and plans to distribute its first batch of capital to 20 startups soon.
“We're looking at emerging companies that are at a tipping point in some ways,” Sturgill said.
“They're at the seed stage, like Series A, and they have traction, they have real customers, they're generating revenue, but they also have the most to lose potentially by not being able to extend that runway and continue with product development and so on.”
These companies are digital, scalable product and service oriented startups in sectors such as logistics, B2C booking apps, construction tech, legal tech, fintech and health tech.
Funding details will be announced soon, but Sturgill said the money came from “major technology companies” in Silicon Valley and the Middle East, as well as public companies, private companies and venture capital firms.
Rallying support
But the U.S. tech industry is deeply divided on its support for Palestine.
The U.S.-Israel Business Alliance said last year that Silicon Valley is now home to 35 global unicorns (privately held companies valued at more than $1 billion) founded in Israel.
New York-based Paul Bigger, co-founder and former CEO of CircleCI, a software company valued at $1.7 billion in 2021, wrote a blog post in December accusing the tech industry of being complicit in “genocide” in Gaza.
The “No Sleep” blog post went viral, and Bigger began receiving contact from people talking about projects in Palestine. He soon launched Tech for Palestine, a community of tech industry professionals that has grown to 5,000 members since its launch in January.
“The way it works is that people get involved and we connect them to projects and help them start projects that help Palestine in some way,” Bigger told The National.
“Often, this is a boycott tool that helps people boycott different parts of society. For example, some people focus on boycotting specific companies, others focus on boycotting general consumer applications, and still others boycott via mobile apps, Chrome extensions, and web apps.”
Students from King's College, Cambridge, camped in solidarity with the Palestinian people in Cambridge, England, on May 9. EPA
Adil Abutallah, a US-based developer of the app Boycat, was one of the participants in Tech for Palestine and said the group helped him launch his product.
The app, which was released in January, allows users to scan a product's barcode to find out if it's a pro-Palestinian product; if not, the app offers alternative pro-Palestinian products.
Abutala said the app has more than 100,000 monthly active users and estimates that repurposing revenue could be worth millions of dollars.
“We calculate that the amount diverted to one-off purchases is around $10 million, excluding ongoing purchases,” Abutallah told The National.
“So if you buy Starbucks or Coca-Cola three times a week, that counts as one visit because it doesn't take into account the ongoing effects.”
The free app does not make any revenue and all donations go towards raising funds for humanitarian aid.
The next stage of development is to localize the app and offer alternative products in Europe, Africa, Asia and the Middle East. He also plans to create a store within the app that will exclusively sell pro-Palestinian products.
Fact Check
One of Tech for Palestine's most successful projects to date has been the “October 7th Fact Check,” which Bigger says was nearly complete by the time he joined the community.
“This tool has been incredibly effective and continues to be developed,” Bigger said.
“This research has helped to debunk many of the myths surrounding October 7th. [and] Israel is using this to create consent for aggression and further genocide.”
News Code, a website that compares news articles to expose media bias, was also fully formed by the time I joined Tech for Palestine.
Nima Akram, who lives in London, said she created the website after noticing “two different narratives being told, mainly from Western sources, which prioritized the Israeli side and reported whatever Israel said as fact.”
“And I think Al Jazeera, Middle East Eye and The National are also reporting from both sides, or maybe they're focusing on the humanitarian outcomes and how it's affecting the lives of innocent people.”
He said he's a data scientist by trade and wanted to use his skills to create a website that evaluates both sides of a story and highlights contradictions.
Newscord uses the AI ​​technology that runs Chat GPT (GPT 3.5 from Open AI) to compare articles with facts, summaries of information, and key discrepancies.
“I'm not saying this is true, that's a lie, I'm saying there's a big difference here,” he said.
“We hope that users will look at it from different perspectives and draw their own conclusions.”
Updated: June 9, 2024, 4:00 AM
