Originally Posted by
yoni
I haven't seen it, but was part of an Israel post Yom Kippur war.
Two Colonels in the reserve that were professors, if I remember correctly at Hebrew University( see foot note) came to the understanding that we would never have more troops than our enemies. So we needed better troops and extremely better equipment. It took a while, but the system bought into the idea. As a result one of the most "elite" and secretive units was created.
IDF tracks kids progress through school, and selects kids for pilot training, to go through selection for the two most elite commando units which are like Dev Group and CAG. But now they would start looking for the nerds, to build a stronger Israel.
A friend of mine may he rest in peace, Covid got him has a son that went through the program. The IDF sent him to school through PhD and put him to work. My own son was very briefly a candidate, but the determined the truth of the lad. Smart as hell, but intellectually lazy.
Start Up nation is 100% because of this unit.
Regarding Hebrew University it has a program for non Israeli kids to go there, HU is ranked in the top 100 universities in the world. Depending on the topic it ranks from 1 all the way down to 93 in the world. Here is the kicker the price tag is very low. It used to be like $4000 for the year, what is a a school like Harvard going for today?