IDF starts YouTube course to boost high-school tech skills

The Israeli army’s communication corps has for the first time posted a series of YouTube videos to help high school students become better prepared to their pre-army interviews and tests as they apply for placement in its technology units.

The move is part of the IDF’s quest for talented new recruits to fill its growing tech and cyber units in light of the increased need for these skills.

In the videos, set up in November with the Education Ministry, a young soldier teaches viewers the basics of computer programming — from a description of the C++ software language to how to write, dry run and debug code and logic.

“In the past five years we have worked closely with the Education Ministry and the high-tech community to give Israel a further technological push,” said an officer of the army’s telecommunication corps C4I, who requested anonymity for security reasons. “These courses, which we released just a few weeks ago, increase the ability of the students to come better prepared and pass the tests to get accepted to the units. And they help us tap into better prepared students and save us training time.”

Around 3,000 students a year apply to be tested for the computer sciences or cyberdefense units, said the officer. Out of these, 15 percent are selected each year for one of the military’s elite tech courses, and these number are on their way up.

As the Israeli army strives to create a “one network army” with more collaboration between its various military arms, the IDF is emphasizing technology and trying to recruit the best talent from the nation’s high schools for its tech units.

Among these, cyberwarfare is gaining prominence, as increased networking also makes the army more vulnerable to hacker attacks. Since 2010 the IDF’s cyber department has grown from a unit into a division and is set to become a cyber command in 2017, with more personnel and a bigger budget, said the officer.

“We are seeing a dramatic increase in cyber manpower and recruits due to the larger number of positions that were created by the army,” he said. “Since 2010 we have added hundreds or even thousands of positions to cyber.”

The details of the new command’s budget and the number of personnel it will include could not be disclosed.

“Cyber is becoming more and more important in modern life and also in the military,” the officer said. “And whereas in most areas you know how to protect your borders with different levels of defense, in cyberwarfare you tread in the unknown; you don’t know what the next threat will look like.”

Thinking without a box

But even as the army’s demand for talented students with the highest levels of high school degrees in mathematics, computer sciences and English is growing, the number of qualified students the schools are churning out is in decline. Israel’s chief scientist at the Ministry of Economy and Industry has warned that Israel could face a shortfall of more than 10,000 engineers and programmers in the coming decade, as students shy away from studying the sciences in school and university. The number of science graduates fell from 13 percent in 2004 to 8.7% in 2014. In the fields of computer science, math and statistics, the number of graduates has dropped from 3,000 in 2004 to 2,250 in 2014, a June report said.

So the army is increasing its efforts to do its bit on the matter, helping the system push high school students in the right direction of the highest levels of math, English and computer science. “Without the proper skills the students won’t be able to pass our exams and join our tech units,” the officer said. “We have to work with schools, mainly in the periphery. If Israel wants to maintain its status as a ‘startup nation’ the country must provide proper education for tech skills.”

A typical cyber candidate, he said, is someone who has passed the highest levels of math, English and possibly computer sciences in school, and is 18-19 years old. One third of the recruits stem from the Tel Aviv area, and one third of them are women – “we are making a huge effort to bring in women,” he said.

The natural skills needed are “the ability to think not just outside the box but to live in a world in which no box exists,” said Maj. Dana Shachar, who has been charged with setting up the IDF cyberdefense academy that will open in January 2017 in the central region of Israel. “They need to have an open mind, be creative, work under pressure and approach problems in ways others wouldn’t have thought about.”

The academy will host all the army’s cyber-research and activity under one roof, said Shachar.