More than 600 Google employees are urging the company to cut ties with the Israeli technology conference. Photo: Zhang Yi/Getty Images
NEW YORK – More than 600 Google employees have signed a letter asking the companies they work for to cancel sponsorship of Mind the Tech, an annual conference promoting Israel’s technology industry that took place in New York this week.
“Please cancel Mind the Tech, issue an apology, and stand with Google employees and users who are deeply concerned about the loss of life in Gaza. We want Google to do better,” the letter, seen by WIRED, said.
Mind the Tech lasts two days, starting last Monday with a series of discussions focused on the technology industry, and concluding on Tuesday.
The conference aims to highlight the resilience of Israel’s technology industry, especially in the face of Israel’s economic downturn following the Hamas militant attack on October 7.
Around 1,200 Israelis were killed, but Israel’s military campaign in Gaza actually killed 30,000 Palestinians as of March 4 2024.
Google Engineer Shouts to Show Protest
On Monday, remarks at a conference by Barak Regev, managing director of Google Israel, were interrupted by a Google Cloud software engineer who shouted that his work should not be used for surveillance and genocide.
He was joined by activists from the anti-Zionist groups Israel Shoresh and Jewish Voices for Peace.
“I don’t see any way to continue my engineering work without doing this,” the Google engineer later told Hell Gate, speaking anonymously.
“I consider this part of my job, and I hope other engineers at Google Cloud see this, and make them aware,”. Both activists were forced to leave the event.
Google Gold Sponsor of Israel Tech Event
Google is the “gold” sponsor of Mind the Tech, according to the event’s official website. Although, it is not clear what financial commitments are included in it.
Zelda Montes, a software engineer at YouTube who attended Monday’s protest outside the conference, told WIRED that worker solidarity is especially important in the context of “Israeli AI technology being used in surveillance and genocide against the Palestinian people.”
