The war on terrorism has become a lucrative market for technology firms offering cutting-edge security solutions to the federal government and Fairfax County is hoping to lure more of those companies to its already technology-rich Dulles Corridor.
The Fairfax County Economic Development Authority will kick off a three-day conference Tuesday night that hopes to connect security companies from Israel, a long-time leader in high-tech security solutions, with local defense contractors, venture capitalists and county officials.
About 17 Israeli security firms are expected at the conference at the Center for Innovative Technology in Herndon, where they will present their technology to investors and be courted by Fairfax County officials.
“Our strong technology business community and our proximity to the federal government makes us an attractive location for overseas firms generally, but the expertise that Israeli firms have with homeland security technologies is especially compatible with Fairfax County,” said Gerald Gordon, president and chief executive officer of the Fairfax County Economic Development Authority.
Fairfax County is already home to 20 Israeli companies, including four that opened or expanded their offices in the fall of 2006 and the EDA has a satellite office in Tel Aviv.
The federal government is expected to spend more than $5 billion on information technology security contracts in fiscal 2007, according to projections from INPUT, a Reston-based research firm that tracks technology spending by federal, state and local governments.
Prabhat Agarwal, manager of INPUT’s federal information security analysis program, said that in addition to wartime spending, the federal government will ramp up information technology spending in light of recent high-profile data breaches.
“That’s really beginning to impact how IT security is viewed within the federal government,” he said. “It’s gone from being a back-burner issue to high-level awareness.”
