The University of Central Florida maintains an industry partnership with Elbit Systems, Israel's largest drone weapons manufacturer, through its Center for Research in Computer Vision. This collaboration involves funding for technologies like human activity recognition used in unmanned aerial vehicles deployed in Gaza. Student activists are pushing for divestment from such military ties amid broader protests against US support for Israel's actions.
The University of Central Florida (UCF) has established ties with Elbit Systems via its Center for Research in Computer Vision, which focuses on applications including national defense and intelligence. Elbit, known for producing the Hermes 450 and SkyStriker unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), has been linked to strikes on civilian areas in Gaza.
In 2020, researchers Dr. Mubarak Shah and Dr. Abhijit Mahalanobis secured a $200,000 grant from Elbit's US subsidiary for human activity recognition technology, with Mahalanobis receiving an additional $60,000 for object detection algorithms. The center also holds partnerships worth $635,000 with DRS, $550,000 with Lockheed Martin, and $350,000 with QinetiQ, all companies supplying equipment used in Gaza operations.
Shah leads projects on UAV tracking and AI target acquisition, including a $3 million IARPA-funded initiative for Walk-Through Rendering from Images of Varying Altitude (WRIVA) technology, aiding intelligence modeling from aerial images. Mahalanobis contributed to a 2009 Lockheed Martin patent on automatic target recognition.
Marcus Polzer, president of Students for a Democratic Society at UCF, highlighted these connections: “UCF has ties to a lot of different weapon manufacturers, especially Lockheed Martin. These companies kind of have a stranglehold on UCF to be honest.” He advocates redirecting STEM focus toward infrastructure over weapons: “We just don’t think they should be funneled into weapons manufacturing. We think they should be funneled into building our infrastructure instead of bombing others.”
Personnel overlaps include Jeff Crystal, Elbit's US technical director, advising UCF's College of Optics and Photonics. Several UCF alumni now work in AI and surveillance roles at Elbit and Palantir.
Similar collaborations exist elsewhere, such as the University of Michigan's UAV research funded by Israel's Ministry of Defense. Last spring, MIT ended its Elbit ties following BDS Boston's campaign, which now targets Capital One's $90 million loan to the company.
