No Tech for Apartheid (NOTA), a coalition of tech workers urging major tech companies to terminate their contracts with the Israeli government, is nearing its target for a campaign encouraging students not to work with Google and Amazon. As reported by Wired, over 1,100 individuals identifying as STEM students and young workers have pledged to reject job offers from these companies, citing their role in “powering Israel’s Apartheid system and genocide against Palestinians.” According to its website, NOTA aims to collect 1,200 signatures for the campaign.
“As young people and students in STEM and beyond, we refuse to have any part in these horrific abuses. We’re joining the #NoTechForApartheid campaign to demand Amazon and Google immediately end Project Nimbus,” part of the pledge states. Google and Amazon secured a $1.2 billion contract under Project Nimbus to supply the Israeli government and military with cloud computing, machine learning, and artificial intelligence services. A Google spokesperson previously denied that the Nimbus contract involves “highly sensitive, classified or military workloads relevant to weapons or intelligence services.”
As two of the largest tech companies globally, Google and Amazon are also among the top employers of STEM graduates. Wired notes that the campaign’s supporters include undergraduate and graduate students from Stanford, UC Berkeley, the University of San Francisco, and San Francisco State University — institutions located in the same state as Google’s headquarters.
NOTA has previously organized actions protesting tech companies’ involvement with Israel, including sit-ins and office takeovers, which led to Google firing dozens of workers. In March, one of its organizers was fired from Google after disrupting an Israeli tech conference in New York, where he declared that he refuses to “build technology that powers genocide or surveillance.”
