Formerly known as Google X, Google is launching a new landing pad in Tel Aviv, Israel to work on, as they say, huge problems with breakthrough technology and radical solutions. The idea started in their California offices in 2010, and aims to improve lives by “moonshots,” or very out-there ideas and technologies that are meant to “make the world a radically better place.”
Run as a subsidiary of Google’s parent company, Alphabet, the Moonshot Lab – Israel will be the first research and development firm established outside of California. The international initiative will be led by Dr. Adi Aron Gilat, who currently works as the Director of Strategy X. The Israeli geophysicist will move back to Israel for the role, and recruit local entrepreneurs, scientists, and inventors to build the next round of Moonshots.
In a Facebook announcement of her transition, Gilat states that “Something that has always struck me as an Israeli living in Silicon Valley is how similar the cultural DNA of X is to the professional culture I grew up in. Israeli scientists and entrepreneurs are renowned for being scrappy, having a sense of urgency, and being laser-focused on the problem they’re trying to solve — like how to grow food in a water-starved country or find ways to see our bodies from the inside out.”
