Apple announced on Tuesday that it is expanding its engineering R&D hub in the city of Rawabi in the Palestinian Authority, which currently employs over 60 engineers.
“By creating more opportunities for Palestinian engineers, we saw a way to help address an important regional matter while advancing Apple’s core values,” said Johny Srouji, Senior Vice President of Hardware Technologies for Apple, and the company’s most senior Israeli executive. Apple didn’t say how many additional employees it will hire in Rawabi.
The Apple hub is run in partnership with Palestinian high tech company, ASAL Technologies, and works in cooperation with the tech giant’s R&D centers in Herzliya and Haifa, which currently employ 2,000 engineers. The teams in Israel are working to develop technology across Apple’s products, including innovations on silicon such as the M1 family of chips, and the depth sensing camera that is instrumental to Face ID.
Apple began on-boarding the first employees in Rawabi in August of 2018, starting initially with a small group of five engineers. In the past four years, this has grown to 60 engineers who work on a range of projects the company has called “critical.”
Based on the success of the partnership with ASAL, Apple will now scale up its investment with an expansion of its workforce within the Palestinian Authority in the years ahead.
“At Apple, we are committed to inclusion and diversity across our global workforce,” said Srouji. “We know that to sustain meaningful change, it must be good for business as well. Finding talent in the Palestinian Authority expands the pool of qualified engineers, which helps us meet the needs of our growing business.
“These talented individuals in Rawabi are working on a range of critical projects, and share the same passion and commitment to excellence that we see in our team across the world. We are going to continue to invest as our engineering hub in the region grows.”
Palestinian entrepreneur Bashar Masri, who is the driving force behind the city of Rawabi, added: “Our work with Apple is providing meaningful careers and high-paying salaries for more Palestinians every year. Rawabi is a hub for technology and innovation, and the city is thriving thanks in part to engineers like those at ASAL Technologies who call it home.”
