From Rehabilitation to Empowerment: The Initiative Giving Soldiers a New Future in Cyber and Data

This initiative was born out of a deep desire to build a professional future, restore confidence, and rebuild a sense of self-efficacy for soldiers undergoing rehabilitation. Bank Hapoalim stepped up to lead and host “Poalim Cyber Academy,” a unique project hosted at the bank’s facilities that provides comprehensive training in cybersecurity and information security.

The training is delivered entirely on a volunteer basis, twice a week, since April 2026. It equips participants with a strong technical foundation, covering everything from networking fundamentals, hardware, and firewalls to core information security and data access.

To truly understand the impact of this project, you have to look at the people driving it from within. Moshe Firuz, a member of the Monitoring and Information Security team at Bank Hapoalim and a combat veteran dealing with PTSD himself, spearheaded this effort out of a deep personal understanding of the rehabilitation journey and the need for practical skills.

The mentorship in the course is personal and hands-on. Moshe, alongside Itay Makis and fellow team members from the bank, tutor the participants with a ratio of one instructor to two or three students. If someone needs extra help catching up, the team meets with them one-on-one, even on Fridays, doing whatever it takes to reinforce their confidence and sense of capability.

What the Participants Are Saying:

“Mastering this incredible tool through the Splunk Academy workshop is crucial for me so that I can land a job afterward. That is my main goal for this course.”

“Through this initiative and these workshops, my goal is to become a digital cyber warrior.”

Another participant, who was navigating a complex rehabilitation process and struggled on days when getting out of bed felt nearly impossible, shared that simply showing up to class and knowing people were there to support him gave him a reason to move forward. For him, working with computer logs and commands became an active part of his healing process.

When Bank Hapoalim sought to expand the participants’ toolkit beyond traditional information security, we knew right away that we wanted to step up. The ability to investigate data and extract actionable insights is one of the most in-demand skills today, which is why we volunteered to deliver two practical workshops under the umbrella of Splunk Academy:

Workshop 1: Splunk 4 Rookies

A practical introduction to the Splunk platform. This workshop demystifies the system, removes the intimidation around complex terminology, and teaches participants how to collect raw data and turn it into actionable insights.

Workshop 2: Splunk Dashboard Studio

The stage where data turns into a visual narrative. In this workshop, participants learn to build advanced dashboards that communicate insights clearly. It is a practical skill that gives candidates a major competitive edge in job interviews across the cyber and data domains.

Mastering a platform like Splunk, which is widely deployed across enterprise organizations, provides participants with immediate, real-world value. It opens doors to diverse career paths, extending beyond security operations into infrastructure, threat research, and project management.

The vision behind this initiative extends far beyond classroom learning; it focuses on the day after. The program includes professional site visits within Bank Hapoalim’s security departments to show how enterprise information security operates in real time. Additionally, the bank offers structured hiring pipelines with a genuine commitment to recruit suitable graduates into the organization following their training.

This initiative proves that true rehabilitation happens when people are given genuine opportunity, professional tools, and an environment that believes in them. At Peax Data, we are honored to contribute our expertise to Bank Hapoalim’s incredible initiative and help these veterans step back onto the frontlines, this time as digital cyber warriors.