A very interesting approach

I'm intrigued by a report that Israel is tapping the best brains among its teenagers and inviting them to explore novel ways to deal with problems.

The Israeli government, in its search for innovation, has started plucking top 18 year olds out of standard military service and put them to work solving key problems in the government, military and industry.

The idea is to introduce radically new ideas and concepts of operations that can be applied to rapidly changing threats and technological innovation.

The program, called Talpiot, finds these brilliant youngsters with the same screening process that the nation uses to identify it elite corps of fighter pilots. In this case, it is designed by the government to institutionalize creativity across the spectrum of military, political, industrial and intelligence organizations.

. . .

The basis of the concept is to avoid the danger of inertia in successful organizations even though Israel is already renowned for producing young, able leaders.

. . .

Every year, from 30 to 100 of the nation’s best 18-19 year old students with top academic scores and networking skills are offered training as front line analysts of Israel’s most pressing military problems. Instead of three years of conventional military service they are given a free hand to research and investigate issues that are critical to the state of Israel.

“Talpiot” roughly translates as a small group of mountains. It is designed to find and challenge the creativity of brilliant kids during their time of national service. The program originated with the Air Force and is now several years old.

The Air Force, the Navy, the industrial community, Mossad and the other intelligence agencies, wants to take them. They compete for them, even though the agencies know they don’t come with a quick fix in their pocket. But they know that the people selected for Talpiot are Ivy League-quality. This is a resource that can be used to solve new problems, and that way the solutions aren’t confined to experience.

The youngsters are instructed to operate on the edges of anarchy or at least insubordination.

There's more at the link.

Whoever thought up this program is to be commended, I think. Really bright minds - and if they're taking only the top fraction of one per cent of the annual military intake, that's really bright by anyone's standards! - might well find novel approaches and solutions that defy more rigid thinking by those who've become set in their ways.

I wonder if a similar program could be developed here in the USA? The problem would be, of course, that special interest groups would clamor for their members to be included, irrespective of the level of their intelligence. Race, ethnic origin, religion, politics and a bunch of other factors would rear their ugly heads. Still, if a way could be found to get around such issues, such a program might prove very useful here too.

(Of course, given what I've seen of a great many American teens, their breakthrough 'contribution' might be to hack Grand Theft Auto to play it on the supercomputers at Lawrence Livermore . . . )



Peter