"I came from a broken home, today I open doors for others in high-tech"
"I came from a broken home, today I open doors for others in high-tech"
Eynav Haim Sayag went from being a teenager in a slum to a cyber expert at Elbit and the technological unit of another security body. In an interview with Calcalist a month after she was appointed CEO of the Place-IL project to reduce gaps in high-tech, she talks about the vision to change the face of high-tech
Eynav Haim Sayag, 47, a development manager at Elbit, who worked for a decade in the elite technologies unit of a defense body, was appointed last month to the position of CEO of Place-IL, a project designed to help inexperienced ("junior") programmers from the periphery or from underrepresented populations - integrate in the high-tech industry.
Sayag came from a "broken" family, to parents born in Iraq who did not finish high school. She experienced as a child the bankruptcy of her father who owned a slaughterhouse and poultry business in the Carmel market, and since then served as a messenger until he turned 70, and worked five jobs to help with the household economy. She now helps others who, like her, need an opportunity to break through.
You mentioned a broken home. Why?
"We were a relatively well-to-do family with roots in Neve Monosson. A stunning and charming settlement. My parents were born in Iraq, we are 6 siblings (I am the fifth and my little brother is the sixth). We had a Mercedes, a villa, a self-employed father, he owned a slaughterhouse and poultry farm in Carmel, a wholesaler who sold to all the restaurants. Because of the intifada, and the theft of money from his business - the economic situation began to deteriorate. I was 10 years old when the collapse began. I had a chance to experience the basis of a normal life, of parents who love me, when the disintegration started - I held on to this model, unlike my little brother who did not yet have a foundation. He didn't have any stability."
What does breakup mean?
"My father went bankrupt, we lost the house. And from the age of 10, the family began to move between rented houses. At first to another house in Neve Monosson, then to a small town. When her father lost more money - they moved to live with their grandmother in Or Yehuda, in a very difficult and problematic neighborhood called Sprinzak. There we are already destitute, after confiscation of even their washing machine and television, living in a neighborhood with drugs, a prostitute in the building, someone who committed suicide near us, a neighborhood where our car was burned, my brother was abused. A really tough neighborhood. And across the road - is Neve Monosson, where our previous lives were. None of the residents of Neve Monosson knew what was going on with me."
What do you do to survive?
"My mother, who raised six children - started working as a waitress, and my father started delivering poultry to all the restaurants, but not as the owner but as a messenger, he did it until he was 70 years old. He worked from 2am until 5am, then I’d return and take the car from him. The family was breaking up, dad needed help, and everyone was moving away. I'm afraid that my parents would kill themselves, and worried about my younger brother. Oh the feeling of humiliation, there are no more holidays and birthdays, no one comes to our house, we have become a broken home."
What were you doing during this time?
"I have a picture of myself walking in the Sprinzak neighborhood and thinking how do I get some kind of control over life, how do I get out of it. I said to myself: You're not pretty enough for someone to take care of you, but you're smart and no one can take that away. I was calculated. I knew that I couldn’t count on someone being charmed by my beauty and getting me out of the situation I'm in, and from the age of 11 I decided to become a geek spent all my spare time in the library, summarizing encyclopedias, studying, deciding that I would know everything.
"There was a year when I worked five jobs to get to the university: a waitress at events, a seller at bookstores, a private tutor, and a waitress at two cafes. I worked whatever I could to pay the water bills at home. In high school I studied biology, chemistry, math and English. The dream was to go to university. There was no ambition not to be successful, only to be normal. I knew I was smart, I had good grades, that the university was my calling. I had very strong friendships in Scouts that was the base."
Where did you enlist?
"In the army, I was a control and surveillance officer in the Southern Command General's office. I managed to get to Hebrew University to study computer science and economics, and that already put me on some sort of track. I worked very hard and lived in a dormitory. One day I received an excited call from the university that an anonymous donor wanted to give me ten thousand shekels. They got to know my story because I wrote about the situation at home in an application for a scholarship. They knew I was working while studying. I only brought food from home, I didn't miss a ride to school so I could save on bus fare, there were times when I didn't even have money for feminine hygiene products. I remember saying to the university: I remember telling the university: I will cash this check, I will make sure that in the future there will be people like me who will get a chance."
How did you survive in school?
"While studying, I worked as a waitress, gave private lessons, and worked as a secretary at an insurance company, until I got a development student position at the Gal Or company, which is developing a very strong flight reservation system. This was my first job in the industry thanks to the opportunity Avi Katz, its owner, gave me. I solved unusual problems, and I found that I'm good at it. I wanted to go to Elbit as a software developer. They explained to me that there was a project, at another security body, that needed me for three weeks, and in the end I stayed there for a good few years, almost a decade. It really connected with me because I can work 20 hours a day, when I'm focused on a goal - I'm not interested in anything else."
What happened after almost a decade in that position?
"I returned to Elbit to the field of cyber defense, which began to emerge following offensive operations that began to be carried out in the world, and there I met Idan Tendler. He founded the cyber business unit at Elbit. I was in the engineering unit. We began to build systems and sell them internationally. I recruited a team and managed system development in the field of simulation and cyber training. We produced and sold a system that is sold in foreign countries, at the IDF School of Computer and Cyber Defense. Even then Idan said that there was no representation for Arabs and ultra-Orthodox in high-tech. Idan and I each then went and joined startups. I studied for a master's degree at the Technion in systems engineering. I went on to manage a civil aviation defense program in the national cyber system (including leading cooperation with Boeing in the field of protecting its aircraft at the most intimate level) and now Idan and I met again at Place-IL".
Tendler and Haim Sayag, who worked side by side at Elbit, are meeting again, this time when he is the chairman and founder of the association that helps populations that are underrepresented in the industry to find work in high-tech. About 90 high-tech companies have joined together to cooperate with the project, which is financially supported by Google as a founding partner and by donors such as foundations Insight, Viola, Crown, Bustan, Elron and also with contributions from Bank Hapoalim, Federations of North America, Nadir Yizrael the CEO of Armis, PWC, Steph Fund (Wertheimer), Gigi Levy and Michael Eisenberg.
"Idan is a person of vision, I am a person of action. I thought in terms of taking care of more girls like me. That more women, who came from a home without education - would open the door for them. Because I came from a broken home, I worked hard but every time along the way I received a tremendous opportunity. It's not a technological position, I put aside my ambitions in entrepreneurship, and moved to an activity that produces a runway every time someone like Cheli from Ofakim gets accepted to Riskifed or Palo Alto, Aramis, Check Point is a small story in the world, but it's a crazy story, it's the takeoff on the fighter plane.”
What are you actually doing?
"We take everyone, from an evacuee from Nir Oz or from Nativ Haasara, to someone who makes furniture from Shfar’am, for a program for juniors (programmers who have not yet worked in high-tech) and secure an internship for them. Workplaces that want to deliver cannot build on juniors, they want to absorb experienced people. When you have just entered the market - it takes time to see results from you. So we invest in closing this gap, in a preparation and support program for being absorbed into the industry, which includes an "internship" on the part of the high-tech company, which we pay to employers together with the innovation authority. Even if it is decided not to hire them in the end - for them the internship is a huge leap. 90 percent of the people that Place places in an internship find a job afterwards."
Why is this critical?
"Because we show the employer the opportunity that is in their employment, and they leave with experience. There is a network of 94 companies that cooperate with us. For many, high-tech is unattainable, there is a barrier. For my family in Afula, high-tech is for the Tel Avivites and the privileged. When I say that the association wants to bring high-tech to Afula, they don't believe me. It is important that there not be another world an hour's drive from the center. High-tech also needs this diversity. In the last year, hundreds of people passed through our program, we hope to reach thousands next year."
So, women are not an issue?
"They are 30 percent of high-tech, so today they are not defined as underrepresented. But half of Place's interns are women. A woman from Kfar Saba will not be considered underrepresented and the association will take care of her, we work according to a key of underrepresentation. Disabled, ultra-Orthodox, Ethiopians, periphery. The naive side in me says that hi-tech wants to change, but he needs help with that."
What have you seen in your career?
"Not only did I not have a female manager, I did not work with Ethiopians, nor with Arabs. The numbers in high-tech are still not good. It requires a push, it will not happen by itself. I am talking about people who apply to Place-IL, because no one comes back to them for a job interview. They have lines of experience to put on their resumes. We have learned to filter candidates through other glasses than what has worked so far in Hi-Tech. This year the goal is to establish a branch in Sderot for some companies that do not want to open a branch in Sderot, but they are fine with a team leader who will come to work with a team that sits here. We'll start with one team in Sderot, continue in the north and try to grow little by little."
