Just before he graduated from the Haifa Technion Institute of Technology, the institute's signal-processing lab coordinator told Gal Ashour that there was "one special place in Haifa that is rather difficult to be accepted to," on the edge of technology and marked by excellence.
"At that point, I knew that IBM's Haifa Research Lab would be my first choice," says Ashour, who came to HRL in 1992. Since then, he's worked on projects including a virtual-reality flight simulator running on an IBM super computer (Power Visualization System), the industry's first real-time MIDI synthesizer (WaveCube) and one of the first USB-enabled speakers on the market.
"I couldn't see myself anywhere else," Ashour says.
Celebrating its 30th anniversary in May 2002, the lab has grown from just three researchers in 1972 to more than 350 today, along with 150 other staff and students. Just months before the anniversary, it moved with IBM's Haifa Development Lab into a new pair of buildings that one researcher likes to compare visually to the starship Enterprise from television's Star Trek.
Located atop Mount Carmel on the University of Haifa campus, the lab looks out over the city and Haifa Bay in one direction, and a large national park with hiking in another.
Inside HRL, researchers look to how they can change the world of technology.
"Knowing that big enterprises like banks and governments are using our software around the world, 24 hours a day, for major systems they need to work with - it gives you a good feeling," says Amiram Hayardeny, who came to HRL in 1997 and now manages the advanced copy functions team.
Hayardeny's team is responsible for developing automated copy functions crucial to the data management and disaster recovery capabilities of IBM'sEnterprise Storage Server (also known as Shark).
"I have the feeling here that I can make a difference, and influence the area I am working in," Hayardeny says. "It's exciting, and intellectually rewarding."
The lab has strong ties to the local universities. Some of its researchers teach and lecture along with their regular work. The lab has also engaged the ExtremeBlue internship program, and regularly hires students to work part time.
"I've brought other people to work here, and the main reason I give them is that the work is interesting," says Sharon Keidar-Barner, who started working part-time at HRL in 1997, while finishing her undergraduate degree in computer science. Now she's a full time researcher specializing in developing tools and algorithms for formal verification. "This is a research organization, not a completely commercial organization. So you you have the opportunity to explore in other directions."
Yoelle Maarek, manager of HRL's knowledge management department, says "pragmatic creativity" is strongly encouraged in a lab whose focus for many groups leans more toward mid-term than long-term research.
"Our duty is to innovate and deliver," says Maarek, adding that HRL researchers appreciate the mix. Part of that, she says, relates to some of the history celebrated in May.
When Maarek left Watson Research Lab in New York to join HRL in 1993, she says, it was primarily a software lab. "When it became a research lab, people here took it as a gift. But we understood we also have to deliver products to have impact on the company. We're very satisfied with that."
Among HRL's groundbreaking achievements are iSCSI, a transport protocol for small computer system interface that operates on top of standard Internet protocol; Juru, a full-text search engine written entirely in Java; and development of the first technology to recognize large-vocabulary, continuous speech in Hebrew. The May anniversary celebration includes a lab-wide technology expo featuring more than 30 research projects.
For Maarek, Haifa Research Lab's achievements represent the fun, innovation and impact on IBM that she sees as the top priorities in working there.
"When I hire people, I want them to fit in with the team spirit -- they need to enjoy themselves tremendously when they work," she says. "We can educate new hires to be better technically, but it takes special kind of passion to work here."
Researchers describe sharing ideas over lunch in the HRL cafeteria and during hillside strolls. In some groups, they rotate responsibilities for bringing food to elaborate working breakfasts.
"I've worked at other companies before," says Amiram Hayardeny. "Here, it's a different league of people. These people are really smart, and they come up with really good ideas. It feels like, well, it's a privilege."
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