Month: June 2017

Technion President at the opening plenary of the 2017 Board of Governors events:

“Technion is becoming increasingly global and intensifying its presence around the world; the task that we now face is to increase the number of ultra-Orthodox students at Technion”

“Technion is becoming increasingly global,” said Technion President Prof. Peretz Lavie at the opening session of the 2017 Technion Board of Governors meeting. “Today, the world of research requires cooperation between fields and universities. In order to maintain Technion’s position at the forefront of scientific research, we must be a part of the globalization of higher education. This has been one of my main tasks since I became President of Technion eight years ago.”

In recent years, Technion has indeed been working on many fronts towards this purpose, and the two flagships are its extensions in New York and China, which will be inaugurated this year: the permanent campus of the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute (JTCI) for applied engineering-scientific research will be inaugurated in the heart of Manhattan in September 2017, and Guangdong Technion Israel Institute of Technology (GTIIT), near the city of Shantou in China, will be inaugurated in December 2017. Technion is also strengthening its international reputation through strategic cooperation with leading universities around the world. The International School at Technion, which welcomes students from a variety of countries, has significantly expanded its activities and grown from 39 students in 2009 to 700 in 2016.

Prof. Lavie said that these international projects place Technion at the forefront of global research and constitute an important milestone in its progress towards achieving the Technion vision: “Becoming one of the world’s ten leading scientific-technological research universities in the development of human capital, leadership, and knowledge, which works to advance the State of Israel and humanity.” He also noted the success of the MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) masterminded by Prof. Hossam Haick of the Wolfson Faculty of Chemical Engineering at the Technion: an online course  in Arabic and English, which has already brought Technion to around 118,000 men and women from 87 countries, 23 of them in the Middle East.

Prof. Lavie emphasized another important challenge pertaining to the demographic changes in the State of Israel. “Israeli society is changing before our eyes. According to projections, by 2059 the ultra-Orthodox will make up 27% of Israel’s population, and this requires us to increase the number of ultra-Orthodox students in academia in order to help them integrate into the work force. In recent years, Technion has been working to increase the number of Arab students, whose percentage in the student body is now similar to the percentage of Arabs in Israel’s population, and we are now working to increase the number of ultra-Orthodox students at Technion. This is being done through special pre-academic programs and close support during their years of study.”

Technion representatives and friends from around the world arrived for this morning’s meeting of the Board of Governors and will participate in events until  Wednesday. Lawrence (Larry) Jackier, Chairman of the Board of Governors, said, “Technion is at the forefront of the globalization of higher education, enabling the dissemination of its successes in science, technology, and medicine. We must continue this effort to expand Technion’s global exposure and positive impact. This is also the bridge that will enable the younger generation of diaspora Jews to reestablish contact with the State of Israel.”

“Only through the Technion model will we be able to catch up with the Western world in the fields of science and technology”

This statement was made yesterday at the Technion by Mr Hu Chunhua, Secretary of the Guangdong Provincial Party and one of China’s top leaders.

Mr Hu Chunhua, secretary of the Guangdong Provincial Party and one of China’s top leaders, visited the Technion yesterday at the head of a delegation of senior Chinese academics and government officials. The visit is a milestone in the establishment of GTIIT, the Guangdong Technion Israel Institute of Technology, which will be inaugurated this coming December in the city of Shantou. Other senior officials who took part in the visit were Party Secretary of Shantou, Mr Chen Liangxian and China’s Ambassador to Israel, Mr Zhan Yongxin.

“We are pleased and excited to be here at the Technion, after you visited us in Guangdong in December 2015 to lay the foundation stone for GTIIT,” said Secretary Hu Chunhua. “Guangdong is the leading province in China in terms of gross domestic product (GDP), but in the fields of science and technology we have not yet caught up with the Western world. We have no doubt that only by adopting a model like that of the Technion will we be able to succeed, and this is the idea that led to the establishment of GTIIT. We thank Technion President Prof. Lavie and the team leading the establishment of GTIIT, which does everything with dedication and talent.”

Technion President Prof. Peretz Lavie congratulated Party Secretary Hu Chunhua on his visit to the Technion and said that “The GTIIT Institute, which was only a dream two years ago, will be inaugurated this year. Only China can realize such a large project in such a short time, and we at the Technion feel that we are your true partners. Together with the team leading this important cooperation on behalf of the Technion, we are in the process of recruiting the Institute’s future faculty members, who are chosen according to the Technion’s criteria, so that the level of instruction at the new institute will not fall below that of the Technion.” At the end of his speech, paraphrasing Confucius’s famous saying, the Technion President said, “The Technion is your partner in a journey of a thousand miles, in which we have already taken much more than a single step.”

Deputy Mayor and Acting Mayor of Haifa, Hedva Almog, said: “The establishment of GTIIT is part of a series of cooperations between Israel and Guangdong Province and between Haifa and its twin city, Shantou.” She added that an innovation center will be built near GTIIT to help Israeli companies penetrate the Chinese market and cooperate with local companies.

The Council for Higher Education (CHE) was represented by Prof. Ido Perlman, a faculty member at the Technion’s Rappaport Faculty of Medicine and Deputy Chairman of the CHE. He said: “The Council for Higher Education is actively promoting the globalization of Israeli academia on behalf of international cooperation, and the success of the Technion and Guangdong Province in the establishment of GTIIT is a source of pride and a model for other universities in Israel.”

Hi-tech entrepreneur Dr. Yossi Vardi, who graduated from the Technion 50 years ago this month, said that “the secret of the Technion lies in the fact that it does not make do with scientific excellence alone, but also aspires to bridge the existing gap between basic science, technology and entrepreneurship. Thanks to this aspiration, the Technion has been a critical factor in the development of the Israeli hi-tech industry.”

The official ceremony held at the Senate Hall at the Technion was hosted by Prof. Boaz Golani, Technion Vice President for External Relations and Resource Development. At the end of the ceremony, Professors Moris Eisen, Alex Furman, and Eran Friedler presented the environmental studies that they have carried out in China: monitoring of ground-based mineral contamination, innovative membranes for water filtration, and runoff recycling in Guangdong Province. Environmental issues are drawing considerable public attention in China and will be one of the core subjects at the new technology institute under construction in China.

In addition, the Party Secretary toured the campus and visited the Center for Electronic Microscopy at the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. He received an explanation of the Titan microscope, which enables the observation of substances at the atomic level. Dr. Yaron Kauffmann demonstrated the microscope’s capabilities to the Party Secretary and the Technion President, and described the advanced studies carried out with it.

Assistant Professor Miri Barak of the Technion presents AugmentedWorld: an innovative location-based platform based on the wisdom of the crowd

Assistant Professor Barak, head of the Learning Technologies group at the Technion, is a leading expert in the fields of mobile learning, massive open online courses (MOOC) and cloud applications. In her research studies in collaboration with Prof. Richard Larson and Dr. Elizabeth Murray of MIT, she examines the cognitive and socio-cultural aspects of collaborative distance learning, motivation for learning, innovative thinking, and cognitive flexibility.

According to Assistant Professor Barak, the process of globalization and the accelerated technological development require a rethinking of teaching and learning processes in the 21st century.  

“In the past, only the lecturers had access to new information, but today it’s at the students’ fingertips – on their smartphones, tablets and laptops. Web and cloud technologies connect the students to a pipeline of infinite information and they can share knowledge with people from all over the world. Classroom lectures are perceived as anachronistic by the students, therefore, we must find new ways to promote meaningful learning.”  

In light of the new reality, Assistant Professor Barak is leading the development of AugmentedWorld – an open web platform based on geographic information system technology (GIS) and the wisdom of the crowd. The platform implements innovative design principles for online learning with an open and adaptive system that enables users to create contents and add layers of information through the use of text, images and videos. One important feature of the system is that it is the learners who formulate questions and answer research and multimedia questions in the various fields of science and engineering. Since the system was launched, more than 850 users from Israel, China, and the United States have registered, posting scientific questions, geographic information points and data that contributes to solving scientific questions.

In collaboration with Prof. Richard Larson of MIT, Assistant Professor Barak is promoting the development of a methodology for project-based learning using two complementary technologies: AugmentedWorld and BLOSSOMS. This joint project examines an integrative approach that combines technology-based learning and assessment, inside and outside the classroom. The project, which is funded by the MISTI program, is designed to promote scientific thinking and 21st century skills among learners of all ages from different parts of the world.

“The ramifications of accelerated technological development are widespread and deep,” says Assistant Professor Barak, “and one of them is the ‘generation gap’ between lecturers and college students.” Advanced technologies, which are now a vital resource for students, are very rarely used in the teaching process. Web technologies, satellite-based systems, mobile devices, social media, collaborative writing documents, computer simulations, and more – all of these have yet to fully realize their potential in academic instruction.”

Invitation to the Media

The Harvey Prize 2016: For the Discovery of Gravitational Waves and the Development of Optogenetics

Technion will award the prestigious prize to five world-renowned researchers in the fields of technology, science, and health

On Sunday, June 11, Technion will award the prestigious Harvey Prize to five world-renowned researchers. The prize is awarded annually to men and women who have made a significant contribution to humanity. The prize, named after the late Leo M. Harvey, is considered a Nobel predictor – about 20% of those who have won it were later awarded the Nobel Prize.

In the field of science and technology, the prize will be awarded to Professor Emeritus Rainer Weiss of MIT, and Professors Emeritus Ronald Drever* and Kip Stephen Thorne of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). The three scientists, who led the LIGO experiment, will receive the prize for the discovery of gravitational waves, which confirmed a central prediction of Einstein’s general theory of relativity and opened a new window to the universe.

In the field of human health, the prize will be awarded to Professor Karl Deisseroth of Stanford University and Professor Peter Hegemann of the Humboldt University of Berlin. They will receive the prize for the discovery of the opsin molecules involved in sensing light in microorganism cells and their digitalization in the development of optogenetics. This innovative and original approach has revolutionized the field of neurobiology and enables us to learn about the functioning of nerve cells and the connection between neural networks and animal behavior.

The Harvey Ceremony will take place at the Heller Cinema, Zielony Student Union Building, on Sunday, June 11, at 12:30 pm.

*awarded posthumously

For further details: Technion Spokesperson Doron Shaham – 050-310-9088

Sensing the nanoscale with visible light, and the fundamentals of disordered waves

A general rule in optics is that light is insensitive to features which are much smaller than the optical wavelength. In fact, the whole concept of “index of refraction” arises from the fact that light experiences a medium as a whole, not responding to the individual atoms. However, a new experiment at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology shows that even features that are more than 100 times smaller than the wavelength can still be sensed by light.

Published last Thursday in Science, the work – conducted by Hanan Herzig Sheinfux and Dr. Yaakov Lumer from the group of Distinguished Professor Mordechai (Moti) Segev from the Technion, in collaboration with Dr. Guy Ankonina and Prof. Guy Bartal (Technion), and Prof. Azriel Genack (City University of New York), examines a stack of nanometrically thin layers – each layer is on average 20,000 times thinner than a sheet of paper. The exact thickness of the layers is purposely random. Ordinarily, this nanometric disorder should bear no physical importance: light just experiences the average properties, as if this were a homogeneous medium. But, in this experiment, a 2nm (~6 atoms) thickness increase to one single layer somewhere inside the structure is enough to change the amount of light reflected at a specific angle of incidence. Furthermore, the combined effect of all the random variations in all the layers manifests an important physical phenomenon called Anderson localization, but in a regime where it was believed to have vanishingly small effects.

Wave localization was first discovered in 1958 by Philip W. Anderson, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for it in 1977.  Anderson localization is a notoriously difficult effect to demonstrate in the lab. In particular, when the random features of a sample are much smaller than the wavelength, Anderson localization has practically no effect. Indeed, the random arrangement of the atoms in a material such as glass is not observable with visible light: the glass looks completely homogeneous, even under the best optical microscope. But the localization effect seen in this recent experiment is surprisingly potent.

How is this possible? Imagine being pushed by a mosquito. Normally, mosquitos are too weak to push anything as heavy as a grown person. However, if you happen to be walking on a tightrope, even a relatively small shove can have a large effect – all the other forces are balanced and the effect of the mosquito is still effectively amplified (technically, a mosquito’s shove is so weak, that this amplification would likely be ineffective, but the principle remains). In a crude analogue, while nanometric disorder is very weak, this experiment was conducted near the threshold of total internal reflection – a point of fragile stability, analogous to standing on the tight-rope – and the influence of disorder was effectively amplified.

These findings are a proof-of-concept which may pave the way for major new applications in sensing. This approach may allow the use of optical methods to make measurements of nanometric defects in computer chips and photonic devices. Since such an optical approach is expected to be faster and less expensive than measurements using electrons or X-rays, these results have a significant potential impact for manufacturing technology and basic science.

Click here to the paper in Science