Ahmad Ziad Abasi, a third year visually impaired student in Technion’s Faculty of Electrical Engineering, was awarded the 2013 Google Scholarship for Students with Disabilities. Next week, he will receive the special award, in the amount of 7,000 EUR, at the Google Office in Zurich along with 16 other recipients from all across Europe. The recipients of this scholarship were chosen from amongst dozens of candidates, for their demonstrated excellence in computer science and their ability to lead technological processes. Abasi is the only Israeli student receiving this award, this year.

Associate Professor Yossi Gil from Technion’s Faculty of Computer Science was Ahmad’s professor in his second year course in programming languages, and it was he who recommended him for this scholarship. “I usually don’t write recommendation letters for students who have not yet completed their studies,” wrote Professor Gil in his recommendation letter to Google, “Moreover, I don’t ordinarily recommend students from other faculties. However, after having been Ahmad’s teacher and mentor last year, I recommend him for this scholarship wholeheartedly. People with disabilities tend to rely on society for support. Ahmad’s case is completely the opposite – not only is he exceptionally smart and learns like all regular students, he also contributes to others by giving private tutoring lessons to fellow students in his class in mathematics, physics and computer science.”

Ahmad Abasi, an outstanding student who speaks four languages (Arabic, Hebrew, English and French), has had low vision since birth. He was born in the United States to a Muslim family. A few short months after he was born, he was diagnosed with a hereditary eye disease called Nystagmus, characterized by involuntary eye movement and sensitivity to light. “This is an impairment that tends to be found in males,” explains his mother Haolh, “Many of our extended family members share this visual impairment, only in Ahmad it is the most severe – he is almost completely blind.”

When Ahmad was four years old, his family returned to Israel. His parents refused to send him to a special needs school, and he attended regular and even demanding schools, among them, the Catholic school known as the Carmelite School run by nuns. When he was preparing for an exam his mother would sit long hours with him and write his materials in large letters. The school made concessions by allowing Ahmad take his exams in the Principal’s office, and preparing for him enlarged print ups of test papers.

Ahmad graduated from high school with honors, and in the spring of 2012 he began studying computer engineering at Technion’s Faculty of Electrical Engineering (a joint study track with the Faculty of Computer Science). Since he began his studies at Technion, he has received straight A’s in numerous courses.

“All of the questions and concerns that troubled us since he was born resurfaced with greater intensity when Ahmad was accepted to Technion,” said his father, Professor Ziad Abasi, a faculty member of the Ruth and Bruce Rappaport Faculty of Medicine at the Rambam Health Care Campus. “We were worried that this prestigious and demanding institution would take its toll on him. In the first few days we went with him from his dorm room to the faculty building, and we escorted him into the lecture halls as if we were first year students ourselves There were moments of crisis, tears and even feelings of helplessness. Sometimes I secretly followed him to make sure he would get to the lecture hall on his own. I’d sit in the hall without his knowledge, waiting to see how he would manage. I also spoke with the faculty assistants, tutors and lecturers to give him a chance to discover his extraordinary scientific and spiritual abilities. But I never asked them for any special concessions.”

“My parents always protected me,” says Ahamad, “But also fought for my right to be able to do everything, for example to attend a regular school. They didn’t keep me confined, but rather gave me the freedom to choose my own future and write my own destiny. Technion’s Center for the Advancement of Students assisted me during exam periods by providing me with enlarged copies of the tests and letting me sit in a separate room. They also helped me by settling me into a dorm with an elevator, and by pairing me up with a roommate who assists me wholeheartedly. The way from the dormitories to the faculty I walked for the first time with my father, just as I always do, and today I can do it on my own, from memory and from the colors I recognize (I can see color).”

“I am very excited about receiving this scholarship,” he added. He thanks everyone who had a hand in helping him attain it. “This is a once in a lifetime opportunity and is exceptionally special because of the world renowned Google name and its added value to the high-tech industry.”

At Ahmad’s request, Professor Gil will accompany him to the award ceremony in Zurich. “This scholarship is important as it recognizes Ahmad’s exceptional abilities,” said Professor Gil, “But it is more important for me to help him fit into a workplace and programming. The disadvantages brought on by Ahmad’s eyesight are evident, but his mathematical abilities are extraordinary, his social skills are excellent, and his mastery of languages and innovative thinking are skills that cannot be learned. There are not many engineers like him. I haven’t a doubt that if I was leading a high-tech company, I would do everything in my power to recruit him.”

In the photo: Ahmad Ababsi. Photographed by: Technion’s Spokespersons’ Office

Following the initiative of Prof. Peretz Lavie, the  President of the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Prof. Haick Hossam of the Department of Chemical Engineering – has designed, developed, and will deliver a massive open online course (MOOC) on Nanotechnology and Nanosensors. The course will be given both in English Language, and, for the first time in the world, in Arabic Language.

The MOOC on Nanotechnology and Nanosensors addresses a wide range of students in the world and its development team is diverse and unique. Assistant Prof. Miri Barak, from the Department of Education in Science and Technology, is the pedagogical designer and advisor, Mrs. Meital Segev-Bar is the teaching assistant, and Dr. Raed Shoroush and Mrs. Abeer Watted provide support to the Arabic version of the course.

In the past two years, there is a growing trend among elite higher education institutes towards the development and delivery of state-of-the-art MOOC. MOOC is a web-based course designed to support a large number of participants. MOOCs are a recent development in the area of online distance education, providing free and accessible high-quality education to the masses. Contrary to traditional courses, MOOCs allow open and free registration to any non-credit participants, without any limitation on age or academic record. Thus, might include thousands or even hundreds of thousands of students from all around the world.

Nanotechnology and Nanosensors is a course for people who are interested in learning about novel sensing tools that makes use of nanotechnology (a technology that relies in the regime between one to hundred nanometers, viz. billionths of the meter) to screen, detect, and monitor various events in either our personal or professional life. The students discover the fascinating world of nanoland that bumps up against the basic building blocks of matter. As such, the students discover how holding the nanoland with various sensing devices together could lay the groundwork for infinite innovative applications in every part of our daily life, starting from in-vivo and ex-vivo diagnosis and treatments of diseases, continuing with quality control of goods and environmental aspects, and ending with monitoring security issues. In this endeavor, the students learn how to fabricate such new tools, how to characterize them, how to control them, and how to integrate them in the various applications.

The Nanotechnology and Nanosensors MOOC includes ten classes of 3-to-4 short lecture videos. Because anyone with an Internet connection can enroll to the course, the teaching team can’t possibly respond to students individually. Therefore, the course is designed in such a way that minimizes the involvement of the teaching staff. The course includes three types of assignments: weekly quizzes, forum activities and a final project. The weekly quizzes, which are automatically graded, provide students with an opportunity to review the learning materials throughout the week. The forum activity includes three parts: answering an open-ended question, providing feedback to peers, and ranking their contribution. The forum activity is graded according to the average votes, posts, and views of each participant. In the final project, students are asked to work in groups, writing a report that focuses on the utilization of nanotechnology and nanosensors to imitate a specific sense that relates to human senses:vision, hearing, taste, smell, or touch. The students are required to discuss the multidisciplinary design, providing ideasfor characterization, and fabrication of an artificial sense.The project is graded by peers, according to a ridged grading rubric developed by the instructors.

Prof. Haick told: “It is a privilege for me to provide a course that would be available for free to every person in the world. The current MOOC initiation, supported by the Technion as well as the course’s team, will contribute to an efficient dissemination of unique knowledge to a wide spectrum of people in both the developed and developing countries, without admission bureaucracies.”

Assistant Prof. Miri Barak says that the development of MOOCs improve academic teaching by encouraging the design of high quality learning materials, including unique graphics and visualization. Because students come from different countries and diverse cultures there was a need to adapt the learning materials, targeting a wide range of participants. In addition, because students cannot ask questions during the lecture, there was a need to troubleshoot difficulties in advance, providing more thorough and comprehensive explanations.

The MOOC course is available for free to anybody who is interested in extending his knowledge. The registration to the course could be done through: www.coursera.org/technion

The MOOC course delivered by Prof. Haick is supported by the Center for promotion of Teaching at the Technion, headed by Dr. Abigail Barzilai.

البروفيسور حسام حايك يطور مساق أكاديمي مفتوح على الانترنت الأول من نوعه في العالم

في أعقاب مبادرة البروفيسور بيرتس لافي، رئيس معهد العلوم التطبيقيه – التخنيون، قام البروفيسور حسام حايك، قسم الهندسة الكيميائية والنانوتكنولوجيا ، بتصميم وتطوير مساق تعليمي مكثّف، سيقوم بتمريره عن بعد على شبكة الإنترنت (Massive Open Online Course; MOOC)). يتناول المساق موضوع “التقانة والمستشعرات النانوية” (Nanotechnology and Nanosensors). وسيتمّ التعليم فيه باللغة الإنجليزية، وأيضًا، ولأول مرة في العالم، باللغة العربية.

يتوجّه المساق في موضوع “التقانة والمستشعرات النانوية” إلى فئة عريضة من الطلاب في العالم، ويعتبر طاقمه المتطوّر فريدا، ومتنوعا: الأستاذة المساعدة ميري باراك من قسم التربية في العلوم والتكنولوجيا هي المصممة التعليمية والمستشارة. السيدة ميتال سيجف – بار معلمة مساعدة. د. رائد شوراوش والسيدة عبير وتد يقدمان الدعم للترجمة العربية للمساق.

ثمّة توجّه متزايد في العامين الفائتين، لدى نخبة مؤسّسات التعليم العالي، إلى تطوير وتوزيع (MOOC) المحتلن. لقد صُمّم مساق (MOOC) الذي يعتمد على شبكة الإنترنت ليدعم عددًا كبيرًا من المشاركين. إن مساقات (MOOC) هي تطور حديث في مجال التعليم المتزامن عن بعد ، يتيح للجماهير  الواسعة تعليمًا مجانيا سهل المنال وذا جودة عالية. وعلى خلاف التعليم التقليدي فإن مساقات (MOOC) توفر تسجيلا مجانيا مفتوحا للمشاركين غير المعتمدين، دون أي تقييدات في الجيل أو السجل الأكاديمي. هكذا، يمكن للمساق أن يستوعب آلافًا بل مئات آلاف الطلاب من كل أنحاء العالم.

إن مساق “التقانة والمستشعرات النانوية” معدّ لأشخاص يهتمّون بالتعلم عن الأدوات الحسيّة الحديثة التي تستخدم تقنية النانو (Nanotechnology) (وهي تقنية تستند إلى نظام بين 1-100 نانوميتر، أي بلايين من المتر) لعرض أحداث مختلفة تتعلق بحياتنا الخاصة والمهنية على حد سواء؛ ومراقبتها والتحقق منها. سيكتشف الطلاب عالم النانو المثير الذي يُظهر المكوّنات الأساسية للأشياء، كما وسيكتشفون، كذلك، كيف أن دمج عالم النانو مع أدوات حسيّة متنوعة قد يضع حجر الأساس لتطبيقات مستحدثة جديدة ولانهائية في كل جانب من جوانب حياتنا اليومية، ابتداء من فحوصات التشخيص الداخلية والخارجية وعلاجات الأمراض، مرورًا باختبارات جودة البضائع ومظاهر البيئة، وانتهاء برصد ومراقبة القضايا الأمنية. بهذا الجهد والجِدّ يتعلم الطلاب كيف يبتدعون مثل هذه الأدوات الجديدة، يصفونها، يتحكمون بها وكيف يدمجونها في التطبيقات المختلفة.

مساق “التقانة والمستشعرات النانوية”  يتضمن عشرة دروس يحتوي كل منها على 3-4 محاضرات فيديو قصيرة. وبما أن كل شخص لديه اتصال بالإنترنت يستطيع أن يتسجل لهذا المساق؛ لذلك لا يتمكّن أفراد طاقم التعليم من الإجابة عن أسئلة الطلاب بشكل فرداني. وعليه، فقد صُمّم المساق بطريقة تقلّص تدخل طاقم التدريس إلى أقصى حدّ. يحتوي المساق على ثلاثة أنواع من المهام: اختبارات أسبوعية، منتدى فعاليات ومشروع نهائي. إن الاختبارات الأسبوعية، والتي توضع لها علامة بشكل أوتوماتيكي، تزود الطالب بفرصة مراجعة مواد التعليم خلال الأسبوع. منتدى الفعاليات والنشاطات يحتوي على ثلاثة أجزاء: الإجابة عن سؤال مفتوح، تزويد تغذية مرتدة للزملاء، وتدريج مساهماتهم.

تدرج علامة منتدى الفعاليات تبعا لمعدلات التصويت، الإجابات على المنتدى ونسبة المشاهدات من كل مشترك. يطلب من الطلاب في الوظيفة النهائية أن يعملوا في فرق، وأن يكتبوا تقريرًا يركّز على استفادتهم من “التقانة والمستشعرات النانوية”  في محاكاة حاسة معينة من حواس الإنسان: الرؤية، السمع، الذوق، الشم واللمس. يطلب من الطلاب أن يناقشوا التصميم متعدد المواضيع، وأن يطرحوا أفكارًا لتمييز وتصنيع  حاسة صناعية. سيتم تقييم المشروع من قبل الزملاء في المساق، وذلك حسب مقياس تدريج مرن تم تطويره من قبل المعلمين.

يقول البروفيسور حايك: “إنه مما يشرفني أن أقدم مساقًا، سيكون متاحًا بالمجّان لكل شخص في العالم. إن افتتاح مساق ( MOOC) مدعوما من التخنيون ومن فريق المساق لسوف يسهم في نشر فعّال لهذا النوع الفريد من المعرفة ضمن قطاع عريض من الناس في كل من الدول النامية والدول المتطورة على حد سواء وبدون القيود البيروقراطية في القبول”.

تقول الأستاذة المساعدة ميري باراك بأن تطوير مساقات  (MOOC) تحسّن التعليم الأكاديمي بتشجيع تصميم مواد تعلّم ذات مستوى عال تتضمن فنّ الرسم البياني والتصوّر التخييلي.

ونظرًا لأنّ الطلاب من دول مختلفة وثقافات متعددة، فقد برزت الحاجة إلى تبنّي مواد تعليمية يمكنها استهداف نطاق عريض ومتنوع من المساهمين. بالإضافة إلى  ذلك ولأن الطلاب لا يمكنهم أن يسألوا أسئلة أثناء المحاضرة، كانت هنالك حاجة إلى تشخيص المشاكل سلفًا، مع التقدم بتفسيرات شاملة ومفصّلة.

إن مساق  (MOOC) متاح مجانًا لكل شخص يهتم بتوسيع معارفه، ويمكن التسجل للمساق باللغة الإنجليزية من خلال الموقع: www.coursera.org/technion ; التسجل للمساق باللغة العربية يتم من خلال الموقع:

 www.coursera.org/course/nanosar

يقوم مركز تعزيز التدريس في التخنيون، برئاسة د. أبيجيل بارزيلاي بدعم مساق  (MOOC) الذي نفذه البروفيسور حايك.

البروفيسور حسام حايك

The gift agreement was signed in the presence of Haifa city Mayor and the Mayor of the city of Handan, China, the Technion President and the Donor (Zhao Hanqing)

According to the agreement, the scholarships will support excellent Chinese students accepted to study at Technion, upon having met the university’s strict entrance criteria. In its initial phase, the students chosen to receive these scholarships will be those pursuing advanced degrees (Masters and Ph.D.s). They will receive an annual scholarship and financial support in the amount of $35,000 (each), to cover all of their expenses during the year.  Initially, the fund will support five students each year, and this number is expected to gradually grow until it reaches 25 students within five years time. An Executive Council will be appointed to oversee the Fund’s operations, comprised of six individuals of which three will be from Technion and three from the Foundation. This agreement is for 20 years.

Technion’s President, Professor Peretz Lavie, thanked Chinese businessman Zhao Hanqing for this generous gift and said, “This is a historic agreement that will enable Chinese students to study and do research at Technion. The Technion played a fundamental role in the development of Israel, and I am certain that Chinese students studying here at Technion will learn valuable tools and skills that will help them in advancing the development of their country.”

The Mayor of Haifa, Mr. Yona Yahav, welcomed the agreement, and said, “Haifa is home to the greatest numbers of Nobel Laureates in Israel. Shanghai is our twin city and we are excited to expand our cooperation with the city of Handan. We are building a life sciences park in the city center, which will transform Haifa into Israel’s number one university city.”

The Mayor of Handan, Mr. Hui Jian, said, “This agreement is the beginning of a greater cooperation between the cities of Haifa and Handan, and between China and Israel. Handan is a city with a population of ten million people, and we are intending to undergo an industrial transformation that will move the city’s industry base from energy, mining and textiles, to high-technology industries centered on computing and biomedicine. We view the Chinese students that will study here at Technion as the future leaders of this process.

Mr. Zhao Hanqing thanked the Technion for its cooperation and said that it is not surprising that Technion is considered among the best technological universities in the world. He added that he is confident that the excellent Chinese students that will arrive to the Technion following this agreement, will apply the vast knowledge base they would absorb during their studies here, to advance the economic development of his country.

Professor Boaz Golany, Technion Vice President for External Relations & Resource Development said that he is confident that the Chinese students who will come to study at Technion will strengthen the ties of cooperation between the two countries.

Last week, Mme. Gao Yanping, Chinese Ambassador to Israel, was hosted at the Technion. She spoke about the growing technological cooperation between China and Israel and large potential for academic cooperation between the Technion and China. “The enrollment period for the summer term at Chinese universities have recently come to a close. Out of nine million candidates, seven million were accepted,” she said with pride. “Technion is a world-class technological institution,” she added. “If I would be able to turn back time, I would have liked to have been a student here.”

Photo: Signing the agreement (from right to left) – Professor Arnon Bentur, Technion Executive Vice President & Director General, Mr. Zhao Hanqing, Technion President Professor Peretz Lavie, Mr. Hui Jian, Mayor of Handan, China, and Mr. Yona Yahav, Mayor of Haifa. Photographed by: Yoav Bachar, Technion Spokesperson’s Office

The Technion and Tel Aviv University (TAU) have become members of Coursera’s network of educational partners, and will soon offer free online courses to anyone in the world. These two universities will join 80 universities and other educational institutions, including fellow Israeli institution and current partner Hebrew University of Jerusalem, to promote learning without limits.

As of today, the Technion and TAU will develop an initial offering of four courses, which span the subjects of engineering, archaeology, biology and cultural studies.

The Technion’s first course will be offered in English and Arabic:

• Nanotechnology and Nanosensors, taught by Professor Hossam Haick of the Wolfson Department of Chemical Engineering

Initial course offerings from TAU will be offered in English, including:

• The Rise and Fall of Jerusalem – Judah Under Babylonian Rule, taught by Professor Oded Lipschits, Ph.D., Director, Sonia and Marco Nadler Institute of Archaeology in the Jacob M. Alkow Department of Archaeology and Near Eastern Cultures
• What A Plant Knows (and other things you didn’t know about plants), taught by Professor Daniel Chamovitz, Ph.D., Director, Manna Center for Plant Biosciences in the Department of Molecular Biology and Ecology of Plants

• The Emergence of the Modern Middle East, taught by Professor Asher Susser, Ph.D., Senior Research Fellow in the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies

“We are excited about joining the Coursera initiative, which will not only give us the opportunities to contribute to society, it will also pave the way to improve our on-campus teaching,” commented Professor Danny Lewin, Assistant to the Senior Vice President for the Promotion of Teaching at the Technion.

Prof. Raanan Rein, Tel Aviv University’s Vice President, welcomed the agreement with Coursera, saying “This initiative reflects Tel Aviv University’s ongoing commitment to innovation in teaching and greater global outreach”.

“It is an honor for me to be working with two of the best universities in my birth country, to provide students access to great education, free of cost,” said Coursera co-founder Daphne Koller. “Tel Aviv and the Technion will now be able to reach students in Israel and around the world, spreading their knowledge and expertise to thousands more people than ever before possible.”

“The founders of “Waze” and others like them – they are the cultural heroes of our day.” This is what Jonathan Medved said at his recent lecture at the Technion. Medved is the CEO of OurCrowd Ltd., a company that raises investment capital for technology start-ups. He was the guest speaker for the Yizhak Modai Annual Lecture on Technology and Economics delivered at the closing plenary of the 2013 Board of Governors (BOG) Meeting. “They accuse Israeli start-ups that they are quick to sell off their companies too fast, for too cheap and for low profit. This is not accurate at all, and Waze is an excellent example – a company that decided to keep its development operations here in Israel – and it represents many other companies that have done the same,” he added.

Medved said that Google will become a major player in Israel and he expects that following its acquisition of Waze, the company will continue to acquire new Israeli technologies. “Just as it is difficult to eat only one potato chip from an opened bag of chips, it is very hard to stop once you’ve bought your first Israeli company without being tempted to buy more Israeli start-ups in the future. This is why we are seeing multinational companies that after having acquired one Israeli company continue to look for more opportunities in Israel.”

Medved pointed out that the Israeli economy has grown over the past two decades at a rate that is significantly higher than OECD member countries, and that Israel is considered a safe place for investment according to the global rankings, in spite of the political situation.

“Israel is leading in job creation,” he said, “and we are in a good position in comparison with China, Brazil, and especially the United States. Every year, investment in Israel reaches about two billion dollars in the establishment of start-up companies, and most of this capital (more than 70%) is coming from abroad, from places like the Silicon Valley. This is a welcome new trend that reflects global confidence in the Israeli economy.”

Medved said that over the past decade, Israeli companies were acquired at a rate of one a week. “Start-up companies have made a tremendous contribution to the Israeli economy,” he said, “however, there are national problems that plague the economic situation in Israel. Shrinking social gaps is a highly important national mission, and Technion has a central role to play in integrating vulnerable populations such as the ultra-orthodox Jewish population, Arabs and others, into Israeli society.” In spite of this, he emphasized the importance of addressing this issue without hindering the momentum of entrepreneurship and growth. “If we examine more closely which of the OECD member countries managed to reduce social inequalities in recent years, we will discover that they are Greece, Spain and France. This is why we must be very careful.”

Above (From right to left): Technion President, Professor Peretz Lavie, Jonathan Medved, and past Technion President, Professor Yitzhak Apleloig. Photographed by: Yoav Bachar, Technion Spokesperson’s Office

The 2013 annual Board of Governors (BOG) Meeting of the Technion has come to a close. The events began on Saturday night at the President’s Reception in honor of the BOG hosted by Professor Peretz Lavie and his wife Lina at the “Bikta Bayaar” event hall located in Beit Oren, a kibbutz in the Carmel Mountain. Guests included senior Israeli economic and industry leaders including Microsoft Israel CEO Danny Yamin, who is the Chairman of the Technion Council, as well as high-tech entrepreneur and Technion graduate Yossi Vardi.

On Monday morning, there was a special Nobel Laureate Tree Planting Ceremony that invited Professors Danny Shechtman and Alvin Roth to plant trees along the Nobel Prize Laureates Avenue in the Lorry Lokey garden at the Technion. Professor Schechtman from the Technion’s Faculty of Materials Science and Engineering was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2011 for his discovery of quasicrystals, and Professor Roth received the 2012 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for the theory of stable allocations and the practice of market design.

“I was five years old when I planted my first tree,” said Professor Schechtman . “It was in the Bar Ilan Garden in Ramat Itzhak. The tree is still there. Since then, planting trees always accompanies me with a sense of creativity and joy of making our country greener.”

Professor Roth said that although he didn’t physically plant a tree in his childhood, he remembers donating to the Jewish National Fund -JNF (in Hebrew “Keren Kayemet”) for a tree to be planted in his name in Israel. “Since then, I’ve been searching for this tree on my visits to Israel,” he said. Technion President Professor Peretz Lavie, responded by saying that from now on he will always be able to find his tree here at the Technion, along the Nobel Prize Laureates Avenue.

On Monday evening, the Honorary Doctorate Conferment Ceremony took place at the Churchill Auditorium. The recipients of honorary doctorates were Professor Alvin Roth, for his important contributions to the field of game theory and experimental economics and their application to the design of new economic institutions, Ilan Biran, former Chairman of RAFAEL Armament Development Authority Ltd., Elisha Yanay, former President and General Manager of Motorola Israel and founder of his own company that deals with high-technology, communications and homeland security, Steven Emerson, who has generously supported Birthright Israel and is actively involved with “Stand With Us” (STU) – providing training and support to 40 pro-Israel North American college leaders in their efforts to educate fellow students about Israel and to dispel anti-Israel slurs, Yoram Alster, Alfred Bär, Melvyn Bloom, Daniel Rose, and Professor Jason Speyer.

Students at the Technion have developed software that enables the visually impaired to use smartphones by vocally announcing the key the user is pressing. Dialing, texting and setting the smartphone alarm clock are daily operations that most people perform very easily. The world of the visually impaired is completely different since they are unable to use touchscreen phones and so most of these operations are unavailable to them.

A group of students from the Technion’s Faculty of Computer Science spent 6 months developing Vision, a software program that enables the visually impaired to use smartphones. The development team included Amir Mizrachi, Amir Blumenthal, Amit Yaffe, Meital Messing, Olivia Hoffman, Yaron Oster, and Roman Gurevitz. The unique application was developed as part of the “Yearly Programming Project” course, under the supervision of Prof. Yossi Gil and Sabih Egbaria.

The application, which can be installed on any (android) smartphone, is designed to enable the user to use the phone’s regular functions by informing the user, in a clear voice, which key he or she is pressing. Using the application, users may dial a number, know who is calling them, get the time, read text messages, and even know where they are located. The application also enables the user to set the alarm clock, know about missed calls, find contacts, and even send a distress signal to a family member in case of need. The application was developed by the students as a public service and can be downloaded free of charge.

“As part of the course, we were given the freedom to choose a project to focus on. After much deliberation, we decided to develop something for the common good rather than for commercial purposes,” says Amit Yaffe, a 4^th year student at the Faculty of Computer Science and co-developer of the application. “I was personally familiar with the subject and I knew that it’s an area that could use some help and that they would be happy for some innovation. During the development we enlisted the help of the Association for the Blind, and specifically of Mr. Adi Nathan, a member of the Association, who accompanied us and contributed to the project significantly. Specifically, Mr. Nathan closely examined the software and raised problems and ideas that greatly enhanced the development. Our application is unique in the market in that it is free. Most applications that are currently available for the visually impaired are very expensive and most of them are not available in Hebrew. During the development process we received help from Aharon, a company that develops speech engines in Hebrew, Samsung, who contributed a smartphone, and Agilo, an American company that contributed development management software.”

Prof. Yossi Gil who supervised the students summarized their work: “The uniqueness of the application the students developed is that it is designed for any android cell phone, it is available free of charge, and it requires no changes to the phone itself.”

Photo: The students presenting the new smartphone application. Standing (from right): Amir Mizrachi, Roman Gurevitz, Amir Blumenthal, Olivia Hoffman, and Meital Messing. Sitting (from right): Amit Yaffe and Yaron Oster. Photograph by the Technion Spokesman

Student delegation from MIT’s School of Management visits the Technion

During their visit to Israel, the students learned about the country’s economy and culture. The visit included a tour of the Old City of Jerusalem and visits to Yad VaShem Holocaust Memorial Museum, Massada, the Dead Sea, the Golan Height and the Kinneret, Ramon Air Force Base, and the Technion.

At the Technion, the students met Prof. Peretz Lavie, president of the Technion who welcomed them to Israel and said: “The Technion has changed the face of the country. In its one hundred years of activity, the Technion’s 70,000 graduates have contributed, headed and led major companies in the Israeli economy, and have helped the Israeli economy grow. An old adage says that ‘Necessity is the mother of invention’, and that is the essence of the Technion’s contribution to Israel. Its graduates have contributed to the building of the nation and have led the technological revolution”

“The foundations of the Israeli high-tech industry were laid at the Technion in the 1960s”, says Prof. Boaz Golani, the Tehnion’s Vice President for External Relations and Resource Development, “Advanced research centers were established here, and though engaged in areas that seemed then to be imaginary,  became, over the years, the spearhead of the Israeli high-tech industry.”

MIT president, Prof. Rafael Reif, thanked the Techinion’s president for his hospitality to the students and said: “Each year, dozens of students take place in our trip to Israel, and I hope this will foster and encourage MIT graduates’ business ties with Israel”.

Photo: Technion’s President Prof. Peretz Lavie with the MIT students. Photograph by Sithzu Photographers, Technion Spokesperson