Tirana Cyber Summit Translates Israel Partnership into Industrial Cooperation

Prime Minister Edi Rama, four cabinet ministers, the central bank governor, forty Israeli companies, and leading Israeli cybersecurity experts convened in Tirana for the first Israel-Albania Cyber Summit, structured around practical deliverables rather than declarations.

by Aurel Cara (Tirana)

The first Israel-Albania Cyber Summit, held Tuesday at the MAK Albania Hotel, brought forty Israeli technology firms into direct contact with the Albanian government’s full economic security architecture: the prime minister, the ministers of interior, defense, energy and infrastructure, and finance, the governor of the Bank of Albania, and the head of the National Cybersecurity Authority. After ministerial framing in the morning, each Israeli company received a ten minute slot to present capabilities, followed by two hours of one on one matchmaking with Albanian institutional and corporate counterparts.

The event was organized by Improvate, the Israeli international partnerships platform led by Ronit Hasin Hochman and Irina Nevzlin, which builds commercial channels between Israeli technology firms and partner governments. The closing speaker was Yigal Unna, who served as Director General of the Israel National Cyber Directorate from 2018 to 2022, the years that bracketed Albania’s most consequential cyber crisis and the Israeli response to it. Israel’s Ambassador to Tirana, Galit Peleg, hosted the welcome reception at her residence the previous evening.