More than 600 Google workers and counting have signed a letter addressed to Google marketing leadership demanding that it drop its sponsorship of Mind the Tech, an annual conference that promotes the Israeli tech industry. That’s what’s happening in New York this week. “Please stop Mind the Tech, issue an apology, and stand with Googlers and customers who are dismayed at the tremendous loss of life in Gaza; we need Google to do better,” reads the letter, which WIRED was seen by
The two-day event began on Monday with a series of industry-focused lectures, and concluded with an evening gala on Tuesday. It aims to highlight the resilience of the Israeli tech industry, particularly in the face of Israel’s economic downturn following the October 7 attacks by Hamas militants. Some 1,200 Israelis were killed in the attacks; As of March 4, 30,000 Palestinians have been killed in response to Israel’s military campaign on Gaza.
On Monday, comments at the conference by the managing director of Google Israel, Barak Regev, were broken by the Google cloud software engineer that his work should not be used in the service of surveillance and racism. He was joined by an organizer with anti-Zionist Israeli groups Rebellion and Jewish Voices for Peace in disrupting the event.
“I don’t see any way forward to continue my engineering work without doing this,” a Google engineer later told Hellgate, anonymously. “I think it’s a part of my engineering work, and I hope other engineers in the cloud see me doing it, and I hope it motivates them.” Both workers were immediately kicked out of the event. So was the Hellgate correspondent who also wrote this article; The organizers of the event did not explain why they removed the member of the press.
Google was Mind the Tech’s “gold” sponsor, according to the conference’s website, though it’s unclear what the financial commitment might be. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Other speakers on Monday included New York Mayor Eric Adams, Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion, and former NSA Director Michael Rogers.
Zelda Montes, a software engineer at YouTube who participated in a protest outside the conference on Monday, told WIRED that workers’ solidarity is particularly important regarding “Israeli AI technologies used in the surveillance and genocide of the Palestinian people.” is the.
“While our ‘leadership’ continues to fail us, I hope that we as Googlers feel more empowered to turn to each other and ask ourselves what we can do more.” That we collectively stand against the tyranny of technology,” said Montes.
The internal letter against Google’s involvement in Mind the Tech was first shared within Google on February 29. It was written by several organizers of No Tech for Apartheid, a campaign group calling for the termination of Project Nimbus—Israel’s $1.2 billion cloud computing contract. The government announced deals with Google and Amazon in 2021—and other questionable deals.
No Tech for Apartheid alleges that the terms of the Nimbus agreement could allow US companies’ cloud technologies, including artificial intelligence tools, to be used for military purposes. Documents obtained by The Intercept indicate that Project Nimbus devices may be used for surveillance, an essential aspect of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories.