Israeli defence expert on the ‘echoes between 7 October and Yom Kippur War’
Leading technology exec says lessons learned were not learned 51 years after the 1973 war
Jenni Frazer is a freelance journalist
One of the most powerful women in Israel’s defence industry says that there are “echoes” of the 1973 Yom Kippur War in the technology failures of 7 October 2023.
Dr Irit Idan, a graduate of the northern Israeli powerhouse university, the Technion, was in London on a speaking tour under the auspices of Technion UK.
For many years she was executive vice-president for research and development at RAFAEL, one of Israel’s largest and best-known defence companies. Today she is chief executive of her own company, Idan Technology Insights Limited, and advises both investors and companies in Israel and Europe on the development of strategies and business roadmaps. She specialises in emerging technologies and how they transform companies.
But — cheerleader for technology though she is — Dr Idan is a firm believer in the human component in maximising tech effectiveness. She says: “I never believe in technology as a sole solution. Even AI needs to have a man in the loop. What happened on 7 October a year ago — you just need to compare it with what is happening now in the north, in Lebanon.
“By having a man in the loop who makes the right decisions and having technology assisting him… lessons have been learned. There are echoes between 7 October and the Yom Kippur War. For me there are echoes between those two events — and those echoes are about human beings, not about technology. Can an army just focus on technology? The answer is a definite no. It’s always the quality of the man who is running the tech. They have to be working together in order to get the optimised solution.”
Despite using “man” in her language, Dr Idan is a fervent backer of encouraging young women “to be involved in emerging technologies. Not just defence, any type. I truly believe that when a company has both men and women in its management, those companies function much better. It’s not just my belief, there is research about it. Men and women have different capabilities, but when they work together, they can match a real need. That’s not just true of running a company, but for me, even when it comes to running a country. I would hope to see more female ministers in government in every country in the world — and definitely in the field of defence”.
Dr Idan is upbeat about the applications of defence technology for other uses in areas such as agriculture or medicine. But she is “extremely worried”, she says, about the current brain drain of young men and women from Israel, not just in technology but particularly in the health field.
“I don’t want to sound too pessimistic, and I am worried about it: but there is some optimism in the situation as well, because of the rise of antisemitism around the world, which means we do see brilliant people coming back to Israel. I would be happy if we could keep all our brains in Israel — and I think the government needs to take care of that.”
She made it clear that — as a Technion graduate — the affiliation had “changed my life completely. From the moment I stepped onto the campus as a young woman just out of army service, studying physics and then doing my master’s. My supervisor, Professor Giora Shaviv, became my second father. And then I moved to RAFAEL and I kept a close contact with Technion”. Dr Idan says that 70 percent of RAFAEL staffers are Technion graduates.
On a personal level — “my husband is a Technion professor and my two children are graduates. So we are a Technion family. From every aspect, it shaped both my professional and my personal life, and for that I am extremely grateful.”
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