Smart Specialization

Smart Specialization – The Process that is Transforming the Negev

Israel’s Negev is thousands of kilometers away from North London, but Dr. Dan Kaufman of Sapir Academic College exemplifies the historic epigram on one of England’s most controversial statues. To paraphrase a quote beneath Karl Marx’s imposing bust, “Change the world, don’t describe it.”  Admittedly, reading Marx is not on the top of Kaufman’s ambitious “to do” list. But he is making academia a tool for real world social transformation. Kaufman is the academic director of HIE Sapir – the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship.  This ground breaking program offers the essential tools and methodologies necessary to develop new business initiatives, triggering economic growth and regional development. At the Center’s XLab, a multipurpose open space with individual workspaces and fully equipped rooms, aspiring entrepreneurs interact, explore, and inspire.

Kaufman has a sophisticated understanding of what drives innovation and regional economic growth.   He and fellow researchers Mor Shilon, Dafna Schwartz and Alessandro Rosiello won the  ACSP (Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning) 2021 Best Paper in Planning and Entrepreneurship sponsored by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. The award winning research paper 'Smart Specialization: A Spontaneous Four-Step Process in the Mixed Arab-Jewish Region of Haifa and Nazareth', describes the process of “smart specialization,” a spontaneous progression that has driven a remarkable wave of high tech economic development in the Arab-Jewish region of Haifa and Nazareth.  By sharing of knowledge from Haifa’s world class, high-tech ecosystem, Arab entrepreneurs together with Jewish partners learned to exploit existing regional advantages to develop new capabilities that have transformed the Arab city of Nazareth into an emerging hub for high tech innovation.   Smart specialization, says Kaufman, is emerging in the Western Negev too.  This exceptionally diverse region, including agricultural communities, Jewish development towns and Rahat -- the world’s largest Bedouin city, boasts a rich portfolio of economic activity, such as cutting edge agri-tech, booming commerce, and even a boutique culinary scene.  Rahat, says Kaufman, is on the cusp of hi-tech industrial growth – much like Nazareth was 15 years ago.  And the academic nerve center of it all is Sapir Academic College.

Kaufman believes that Sapir plays a critical role in opening the door for Bedouin students to the diversity of academic opportunities, including the high-tech professions where they are still woefully underrepresented. He argues that a process of entrepreneurial discovery – the spontaneous instances of Jewish Arab collaboration that mark the start of more sweeping changes – is already under way.  The Western Negev, says Kaufman, has the potential for accelerated economic growth. This potential resides in the drive and ambition of aspiring, young entrepreneurs, the very people who seek to change the world, not just describe it. That’s where Sapir comes in.