Amnon Shashua. Photo: Arielinson via Wikimedia Commons.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has appointed the founder of one of Israel’s most successful tech companies to advise him on the economic impact of the coronavirus crisis.

Amnon Shashua is a professor of computer science at Hebrew University who founded Mobileye in 1999. The company develops technologies for autonomous vehicles and was acquired by Intel in 2017 for $15 billion, the largest deal of its kind in Israeli history.

According to Israeli news site N12, Shashua has been appointed economic affairs adviser to Netanyahu and has been engaged in extensive discussions on the state of the Israeli economy as it faces a near-total shutdown of businesses, services, schools and travel.

One of Shashua’s tasks is to participate in drawing up a plan to deal with the reduction of the labor force due to the fact that many workers are being told not to leave their homes. While many are able to work remotely, the majority cannot.

Shashua was heavily involved in a decision to place many workers on unpaid leave and mandate major reductions in attendance at places of work.