Eyal Waldman | |
|---|---|
 Waldman in 2015 | |
| Nationality | Israeli |
| Occupations |
|
| Known for | Co-founding Mellanox Technologies, activism for the two-state solution |
| Awards | Israel Prize (2024) |
Eyal Waldman is an Israeli businessman, philanthropist, and peace activist. In 1999, he co-founded chip maker Mellanox Technologies, which was sold to Nvidia for US$6.9 billion in 2019. Waldman received the Israel Prize, Israel's highest civilian honor, in 2024.
Waldman served as an infantry officer in the Golani Brigade in the Israel Defense Forces. [1] After the army, he studied for a degree in chemical engineering at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology before moving to computer science. After receiving a master's degree in electrical engineering, Waldman began working for Intel in 1989. After four years at Intel, Waldman was the vice president of engineering at startup Galileo from 1993 to 1999. [2]
In 1999, Waldman co-founded Israeli chip maker Mellanox Technologies with three friends from Intel in Yokne’am, later selling the company for US$6.8 billion to Nvidia in 2019. [3] [1] As part of the sale, Waldman received approximately US$250 million from his 3.6% stake in the company. According to CTech, Waldman is regarded as one of Israel's leading high tech entrepreneurs. [4]
After leaving Nvidia in April 2020, Waldman founded Waldo Holdings. [5]
Waldman supports the two state solution. After the 7 October attacks, he stated that, " I hope in two to four years we'll be able to do peace and build two states for the two people and be able to live together next to each other." [1]
Waldman is among a group of Israeli businessmen who are part of Breaking the Impasse, a forum of Israelis and Palestinians in favor of advancing a diplomatic solution to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. [6]
At Mellanox, Waldman hired 200 engineers, including 20 in the Gaza Strip and 80 in the West Bank town of Rawabi, in a belief that Israeli and Palestinians working together would lead to peace. [7] [2]
Waldman opened a design center in Gaza and donated US$360,000 to an oncology ward at a hospital in Gaza in 2020. He also created jobs for Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. [1] [7]
Waldman and fellow Israeli entrepreneur Izhar Shay launched project Next October in December 2023, pledging to help create 1,200 next startups in honor of the victims of the October 7 attacks, with each startup bearing the name of someone who was killed. Around 150 companies, including Meta, OurCrowd, and Pitango, were confirmed as partners. [8]
Waldman's youngest daughter Danielle Waldman and her boyfriend Noam Shai were two of the 364 people killed during the Re'im music festival massacre during the 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel. When Waldman received word that Danielle was missing, he flew back to Israel from Indonesia and tracked her location via her Apple Watch. Her body was found on 9 October. [1]
Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, sent a letter to employees in Israel offering support and condolences to Waldman on the killing of his daughter. [9]
In 2024, Waldman was announced as a recipient of the Israel Prize, the country's highest civilian honor. Education Minister Yoav Kisch had previously requested that the prize committee not award the honor to Waldman due to his criticism of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the 2023 Israeli judicial reform. [10]
Hamas, an acronym of its official name, Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiya, is a Palestinian Sunni Islamist political and military movement governing the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip since 2007.
The Israeli–Palestinian conflict is an ongoing military and political conflict about land and self-determination within the territory of the former Mandatory Palestine. Key aspects of the conflict include the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the status of Jerusalem, Israeli settlements, borders, security, water rights, the permit regime, Palestinian freedom of movement, and the Palestinian right of return.
Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu is an Israeli politician, serving as the prime minister of Israel since 2022, having previously held the office in 1996-99 and 2009-21. He is chairman of the Likud party. Netanyahu is the longest-serving prime minister in Israel's history, having served a total of over 16 years. He is the first prime minister to have been born in Israel after its establishment.
Mohammed Deif, born Mohammed al-Masri, is a Palestinian militant and the head of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Islamist organization Hamas.
Intermittent discussions are held by various parties and proposals put forward in an attempt to resolve the ongoing Israeli–Palestinian conflict through a peace process. Since the 1970s, there has been a parallel effort made to find terms upon which peace can be agreed to in both the Arab–Israeli conflict and in the Palestinian–Israeli conflict. Notably the Camp David Accords between Egypt and Israel, which included discussions on plans for "Palestinian autonomy", but did not include any Palestinian representatives. The autonomy plan would not be implemented, but its stipulations would to a large extent be represented in the Oslo Accords.
Unit 8200 is an Israeli Intelligence Corps unit of the Israel Defense Forces responsible for clandestine operation, collecting signal intelligence (SIGINT) and code decryption, counterintelligence, cyberwarfare, military intelligence, and surveillance. Military publications include references to Unit 8200 as the Central Collection Unit of the Intelligence Corps, and it is sometimes referred to as Israeli SIGINT National Unit (ISNU). It is subordinate to Aman, the military intelligence directorate.
Silicon Wadi is a region in Israel that serves as one of the global centres for advanced technology. It spans the Israeli coastal plain, and is cited as among the reasons why the country has become known as the world's "start-up nation". The highest concentrations of high-tech industry in the region can be found around Tel Aviv, including small clusters around the cities of Raʽanana, Petah Tikva, Herzliya, Netanya, Rehovot, and Ness Ziona. Additional clusters of high-tech industry can be found in Haifa and Caesarea. More recent high-tech establishments have been raised in cities such as Jerusalem and Beersheba, in towns such as Yokneam Illit, and in Airport City.
The People's Republic of China (PRC) and the State of Israel formally established diplomatic relations in 1992. While the Republic of China had de jure recognized Israeli sovereignty in 1949, it eventually lost the Chinese Civil War, bringing the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to power across mainland China. In 1950, Israel became the first country in the Middle East to recognize the PRC as the sole government of China, but the CCP did not reciprocate by establishing diplomatic ties due to Israel's alignment with the Western Bloc during the Cold War. This discontent persisted until the Cold War came to a close with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Israel–Singapore relations, also referred to as Israeli–Singaporean relations, refers to the bilateral relations between the State of Israel and the Republic of Singapore. Relations between the two countries have been extremely cordial and friendly for more than half a century, which are influenced by their similar geopolitical state of affairs, being relatively small states surrounded by larger neighbors hostile to their continued existence.
Israel–Jordan relations are the diplomatic, economic and cultural relations between Israel and Jordan. The two countries share a land border, with three border crossings: Yitzhak Rabin/Wadi Araba Crossing, Jordan River Crossing and the Allenby/King Hussein Bridge Crossing, that connects the West Bank with Jordan. The relationship between the two countries is regulated by the Israel–Jordan peace treaty in 1994, which formally ended the state of war that had existed between the two countries since the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, and also established diplomatic relations, besides other matters. Relations between the countries get strained from time to time, usually over tensions at the Al-Aqsa mosque. On 8 October 2020, Israel and Jordan reached an agreement to allow flights to cross over both countries’ airspace.
The bilateral relations between the State of Palestine and Russia have a complex history, deeply interwoven with Russian and Soviet relations with the Israeli enterprise, Palestinian nationalism, and Third World national liberation movements. Between 1956 and 1990, Soviet-Palestinian relations were part of the then ongoing Soviet-American confrontation.
Mellanox Technologies Ltd. was an Israeli-American multinational supplier of computer networking products based on InfiniBand and Ethernet technology. Mellanox offered adapters, switches, software, cables and silicon for markets including high-performance computing, data centers, cloud computing, computer data storage and financial services.
The 2013–2014 Israeli–Palestinian peace talks were part of the Israeli–Palestinian peace process. Direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians began on 29 July 2013 following an attempt by United States Secretary of State John Kerry to restart the peace process.
The two-state solution to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict proposes to resolve the conflict by establishing two nation states in former Mandatory Palestine. The implementation of a two-state solution would involve the establishment of an independent State of Palestine alongside the State of Israel.
Khaled Mashal is a Palestinian political leader who is the former head of the militant organization Hamas.
A series of attempts to resolve the hostility between Fatah and Hamas have been made since their 2006–2007 conflict and Hamas' subsequent takeover of the Gaza Strip.
Breaking the Impasse (BTI) is an advocacy group consisting of Israeli and Palestinian business leaders. BTI's aim is to urge the Israeli government and Palestinian Authority leadership to reach a peace agreement based on the two-state solution.
Yizhar Nitzan Shai, also spelled Izhar Shay, is an Israeli entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and politician. He served as a member of the Knesset for Blue and White between 2019 and 2021, and as Minister of Science & Technology from 2020 to 2021.
The Abraham Accords are bilateral agreements on Arab–Israeli normalization signed between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and between Israel and Bahrain on September 15, 2020. Mediated by the United States, the announcement of August 13, 2020, concerned Israel and the UAE before the subsequent announcement of an agreement between Israel and Bahrain on September 11, 2020. On September 15, 2020, the signing of the agreements was hosted by US president Trump on the Truman Balcony of the White House amid elaborate staging intended to evoke the signings of historic formal peace treaties in prior administrations.
Hailo Technologies is an Israeli AI technology company specializing in designing and manufacturing AI processors used in autonomous vehicles, security cameras, autonomous mobile robots, etc.