The American technology firm UST Global plans to set up a development center in Israel that will train thousands of software people in cyber security, according to a video that Economy Minister Naftali Bennett posted to his Facebook page. Bennett, who was in Washington to participate in the Saban Forum, met over the weekend with UST Global CEO Sajan Pillai, who appears in the video with him and confirms UST’s decision to launch its activity in Israel during the first quarter of next year.
According to Bennett, UST plans to train residents of outlying towns as well as the ultra-Orthodox to produce cyber-security software in as little as 90 days, and to train some 10,000 people over time. UST will apparently be setting up its center in the south of the country. If UST indeed meets this goal, it will become one of the largest high-tech employers in Israel.
“Today, most companies in the world view cyber defense as one of their top problems,” Pillai explains in the video. “Israel, as a country, has the best brand in intelligence and cyber defense, bar none. “Number two, 40 percent of all cyber defense companies today, innovative companies, are located in Israel,” Pillai continues. A third reason, he said, “is the ability of the government leadership to act quickly.”
UST, a private firm based in San Francisco, employs some 18,000 people all over the world. Company executives visited Israel in August. The firm provides information technology and business process outsourcing services for multinational corporations in the fields of health, retailing, finance, insurance, transportation, logistics and media.
