IDF treats Haitian girl
The Israel Defense Forces’s ongoing efforts to embrace the Internet continues. A few days before IDF representatives explained to 140Conf participants how the army used social media to update the public about its efforts in Haiti and to help save lives there, the army announced that it created and is using a website modeled after eBay for the purpose of selling and buying surplus equipment.
The new site, called The Arena, is the army’s new effort to keep better track of inventory while potentially saving itself millions of shekels on “duplicate and wasteful equipment”. It is also partially a response to the poor capabilities it had in moving around equipment and materials that soldiers needed during the Lebanon War in 2006.
According to Bloomberg, Brigadier-General Maran Prozenfer, financial adviser to the chief of staff, explained,
“Every unit in the Israel Defense Forces will be able to put up for sale any equipment that it doesn’t need, so that other units can see and bid on it.”
Prozenfer expects the new site to significantly reduce equipment costs, which according to him currently accounts for nearly 40 percent of the army’s NIS 50 billion shekel ($12.9 billion) annual budget.
Image via IDF Spokesperson Blog.
