The Rise And Rise Of S.U.It.S

Q: Please tell us more about yourself and decided to become an Urban Disruptor by starting S.U.iT.S, and how is S.U.iT.S involved in driving the sustainability agenda across external stakeholders including your clients as well as how S.U.iT.S connects the dots with the sustainability agenda

A: I, 2002 I enrolled to the architecture school at the Technion institute of technology in Haifa Israel, starting three days after returning from a 6-month cross-country backpacking tour through east and southern Africa. Seeing and feeling first-hand the co-existence balancing act between nature and communities and how far the global north is from this state of mind. 

I set my course on constantly seeking my right path to have an impact on the world- through sustainability and green building. However, sadly, I have found out that working one project at a time has little impact on the common good, so I joined some great friends to create, in 2017, the Israeli green building Council- a multi-sector NGO promoting green building at a national level (ilgbc.org:

And in 2011, as 'smart cities' were taking their first steps globally, led by IBM and Cisco I was asked to form the initial response from the government to the idea of such cities. Unfortunately, at the time, the concept was very heavily dependent on vendors with too few inputs from planners, regulators, or civic officials.

In 2012 I decided to leave the comfortable governmental job, and go back to the private sector, to promote a more sustainable approach for smart cities. Initially, I spent a full year researching the concept, and flew to Barcelona, to present my ideas about Smart Cities to the participants of the Smart City Expo.

After a successful three-day workshop that I led during the event, I understood that I can't stay as a spectator and founded SUITS, (Smarter Urban iT & Strategies: which as its name expresses- a smarter urban environment can only come from a joint effort between data and ICT & better policies and strategies.

At the time, but in a way- also today, most smart city initiatives are tech-led and have less impact on formal municipal processes.

So, I decided that the only way forward was to dive into urban regulations and disrupt them to enable sustainable innovation instead of trying to act as if regulations and rules do not exist. Since 2013, SUiTS have worked with cities, governmental offices, and global organizations to answer to real urban challenges by using data, innovation, and reorganized civic regulations.

For example, since I opened my consultancy, we have tried to advise city leaders about the ways to implement innovative solutions to their urban issues. 

I was invited to develop an innovative sustainable energy policy for a new neighborhood in a medium-sized city in Israel (Hadera:. As I started collecting data, I understood that a low energy neighborhood cannot go without a comprehensive innovation structure - embracing new solutions

to answer to real challenges and stresses- i.e. challenges sewage systems, mobility bottlenecks, impossible groundwater infiltration potential due to high aquifer, and unique land ownership.

So, together with a visionary city architect, we set up to create a new master planning structure that enables a sustainable - indicator based implementation of green-blue infrastructure to reduce potable water use in public space to zero, to reduce grid-based energy to 50%, and to reduce the use of private cars to less than 50% from day one. 

To get this plan going, we had to convince 5 governmental offices, landowners, and skeptic planners.

Since then, we have been engaged in similar projects throughout Israel, including unique factors and solutions for unique challenges including the first masterplan to include autonomous shared vehicles, a first agro-business park, and a large scheme for inclusive and age-friendly industry all with specific targets and innovation-based ideas to bring us closer to zero energy and water-built environments.

Q: Have the new agreements signed at COP26 affected S.U.iT.S both in terms of the current projects your company is involved in as well as the new projects you will be taking on?

A: Since my early days. In architectural school, as a planner, as a regulator, and known as an urban innovation consultant, I have always taken this path towards pushing for a more sustainable planet and built environment. However, prior to COP26m Israeli has announced plans to reduce carbon emissions to Net Zero by 2050, with a focus on rolling out green infrastructure and developing carbon capture and storage technology, Israeli prime minister Bennett, declared that Israel will transition from a start-up nation into a green nation and intended to call on entrepreneurs in the start-up industry to begin investing in green energy technologies. 

In all of our smart plans and projects since 2015, we have been designing for climate change mitigation through enabling co-ownership and co-creation by and with the communities, offering new regulatory frameworks to enable trial and validation of new technologies and solutions for two main reasons: The first- we can only validate new technologies if they will be tested where they will be used. And second, climate change will be reduced only if people will change their behaviours, only if they wish to alter their habits- and therefore, their feedback is crucial.

We are already doing that, but the Israeli government's commitment has made our work easier, press releases and distributed knowledge is changing public opinion and our clients- are happier to commit to higher sustainability standards because they understand that it is also good business, governmental offices are more open to innovation even if they it means that regulatory frameworks have to change, and communities are more open to data sharing that is crucial to a sustainable future than they were before.

Q: Where do you see Israel and the rest of the Middle East in terms of its need for sustainable cities and how does S.U.iT.S provide disruptive technology, processes & data to meet those needs?

A: The Middle East is warming at twice the global average. And with longer and stronger heat spells, many cities in the Middle East may literally become uninhabitable before the end of the century.

Climate change has suddenly become more visible, and in Israel, we are having substantial fires, substantial floods every winter and at the same time, the demand for energy is growing constantly. 

There is a real understanding that data is a key to understanding the needs, capacities, and potential. Many clients have started realising this symbiotic relationship. 

For example, one of our clients asked us to assist in developing a new industrial park, which has a creek passing through the land, previously the idea was to engineer it and "make it go away" but the past events and floods made my work easier, and the agreed-to resurface the creek to enable nature-based solutions, which will also enhance the brand and quality onsite. 

This is the core of our work- this is the most disruptive action cities can make, since technology is changing fast, and citizens know as much as most of us what is needed but lack the tools to act- unless cities and governments decide to share.

Q: Please tell us more about your team and the new "smart city" models, created by S.U.iT.S that is focused on creating opportunities for midsize and secondary cities. 

A: Smart Cities has always been a big and rich city game. The result is that regulation and planning mechanisms are designed for the small and unresourceful cities on one side or the big and influential actors that have the regulators but also the multinational stakeholders on their side. However, most of the global demographic growth is in cities smaller than 500,000 residents, and they are expected to double or triple themselves over the next 15-20 years, especially in the developing world, with over 40% of the world’s GDP generated from such cities. 

So, to cater for this demographic growth, these cities and region have an opportunity to be a focus of new planning & governance schemes & models- utilizing data technology and innovation. This calls for a resource-effective model that will allow smaller cities to be leaders, promoting their local opportunities while reshaping policies and regulations to allow these changes. 

We developed such a model for a small city in the south of Israel with one of the highest percent of the low socio-economic communities, which is going to triple its population in the next decade. We focused on creating inclusive opportunities by improving mobility- including a new model of 24hr autonomous shared mobility, a "necklace" of reskilling centers, a series of community-based shared office spaces, and a unique innovation quarter connecting the existing residents with the new through physical and digital connectivity.

These ideas brought us to initiate the MidCity.Lab, a new Think-Tank & applied research initiative focused on secondary cities and the built environment of the developing world. Our first field lab (nicked as "the SUB": is scheduled to open in 2022 combining and connecting two Local authorities, Sakhnin (an Arab town: & Misgav (a Jewish rural regional authority of 35 villages:, at the heart of the Galil region, within an area of 180 sqKm that act as one built environment combining urban and rural, Jewish and Arab, modern & traditional. 

We believe that the Lab & Subs (after the Sakhnin Sub we plan to open one more in Israel, and at least two more- in Eastern Africa and Southern Europe: will influence global sustainability through scaling the experience developed within these communities and towns.

Q: And finally, please tell us about your favorite city and book of all time and why?

 A: Jerusalem is my best city. Probably one of the most complex cities in the world with a history spanning many ages and cultures. 

I love reading and constantly have 3 books next to my bed one fiction, one professional, and one philosophical-traditional. Currently, I am reading an amazing book- probably one of my best- To the End of the Land, a 2008 novel by Israeli writer David Grossman depicting the emotional strains that family members of soldier's experience when their loved ones are deployed into combat, depicting the story of Ora, a mother of a soldier in combat that decided to run away to nature to make sure that the officials that may call on her to tell her of a possible tragedy will not get any message of such to her and therefore, to "save" her son. Grossman began writing the novel in May 2003 when his oldest son Yonatan was serving in the Israeli Defense Forces and the book was largely complete by August 2006 when his younger son Uri was killed in the Second Lebanon War.