Month: July 2022

On June 26, the Henry and Marilyn Taub Faculty of Computer Science held its Project Fair at the Technion, with the participation of dozens of undergraduate students. Diverse projects in various fields were presented under the following categories: Internet of Things (IoT), Android applications, software engineering, and computer communications.

Many of the projects at the fair – led by Itai Dabran and Tom Sofer of the Interdisciplinary Center for Smart Technologies (ICST) in computer science – utilize various technologies to benefit society; for example, a smart hospital bed that warns of the danger of falling off, a swimming prosthesis for amputees, a system for organizing clothes sold in second-hand stores, a robot that solves a Rubik’s cube based on voice commands, a home monitoring app for air pollution, and apps to support various non-profits.

Elinor Ginzburg, a student who volunteered for a time in the Neurosurgery Department at Rambam Health Care Campus, learned that brain surgery and related treatments often cause blurring and confusion. As a result, patients sometimes try to climb over the bed railings and fall off. Together with Leon Kosarev and Tomer Ron, Elinor developed a system that provides medical staff with advance warning of such dangerous attempts.

Students Noor Shbat and Nawal Sheikh have developed a system that analyzes the performance of Olympic surfers and provides data analysis to help them win. The system is built on sensors and computerized analysis of the information received and operates even in places with no cellular reception. It was developed in collaboration with the Wingate Institute and the Faculty of Biomedical Engineering.

Students Nadav Kiri, Ben Shani, and Noa Rosenthal developed a smart prosthesis that helps amputees swim, using sensors that detect the position of the arm and a neural network that learns the user’s behavior.

Dina Alexandrovich, Racheli Chepovetsky, and Maya Stein developed an app that helps run second-hand clothing stores. The app allows you to enter any incoming item into the system, manage inventory, and allow customers to easily find the clothes they want.

The Technion Social Hub, which specializes in research and education for technological involvement in the community, collaborated with the Interdisciplinary Center for Smart Technologies on five projects. They included “Paamonim,” a system for managing employees at the social non-profit; an app that helps collect electronic equipment for recycling; a communication board that helps people with cerebral palsy; a support system for the “Women’s Courtyard,” a multicultural space for at-risk girls and women; and an IoT system to support the disabled and visually impaired at the Migdal-Or factory. This system was also incorporated into one of the students’ final projects as part of “Seeds of Innovation” in the Faculty of Industry and Management.

For the full list of projects: click here

On May 23, 2022, the Technion awarded 212 Ph.D. degrees to its latest cohort of doctorates in a moving ceremony hosted on campus and attended by friends and family of the graduates. Professor Oded Rabinovitch, the Technion’s Senior Executive Vice President, opened the event with his remarks, followed by words from the Dean of the Graduate School Professor Dan Givoli. The ceremony was moderated by Professor Irad Yavneh of the Henry and Marilyn Taub Faculty of Computer Science and the Director of the Samuel Neaman Institute.

Technion Senior Executive Vice President Oded Rabinovich expressed words of thanks “to the families, parents, partners, friends and children, and to all those who without your support, these achievements would not have happened.” He went on to say that “the nature of innovative, deep, leading, and groundbreaking research is that it is difficult to identify the final chord. You probably know better than all of us that every research question that is answered, generates at least three or four new questions. None of these give a sense of completion or closure. On the contrary, the final chord of the doctoral dissertation is an opening chord to a world of professional research that invites curiosity and a striving for truth, realizing your ability to delve into a complex and complicated problem and break through it, and harnessing your ability to face the real challenges facing society. All of this turns that elusive doctoral graduation chord into the opening chord of a wonderful path, through which you as newcomers join the family of doctoral graduates at the Technion. We wish you luck!”

Dean of the Graduate School Prof. Dan Givoli continued with his congratulatory remarks, stating, “The two main components of the Technion’s success are faculty and doctoral students. All of you, doctoral students, were one of the cornerstones of the Technion during your studies here and we are proud of you for that – and proud of your future achievements.” Prof. Givoli noted some statistics related to the degree recipients, and wished them well, saying, “The 212 graduates were supervised by 276 advisors. The number of advisors is greater than the number of doctorates because much of the research is interdisciplinary and requires more than one advisor. The youngest graduate is 28 and the oldest is 76 – which shows that it is never too late to start studying for a doctorate. Good luck.”

40% of the graduates are women

This year’s group of doctoral graduates is particularly diverse in both their backgrounds and the range of research fields and specialties. Nearly 40% of the graduates are women, and nearly 45 of the graduates come from international backgrounds outside of Israel including locations such as the former Soviet Union, Ukraine and Russia (29), China (7), India (4), and the United States (4). 75 students took the Direct Ph.D. track. The Rappaport Faculty of Medicine leads with the highest number of doctoral graduates (33).

Natalie and Oren Rizansky, who completed their Ph.D. studies in Biology and Mechanical Engineering respectively, spoke at the ceremony on behalf of the graduates. “Studying for a PhD is a rollercoaster with highs and lows and is a herculean task,” they said. “What all graduates have in common is the challenge to discover something they didn’t know before.”

The couple met during military service in the training section of the Combat Engineering Corps. After the army, Oren began studying for a bachelor’s degree in the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at the Technion and Natalie attended the Faculty of Biology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. After graduating, Natalie joined Oren in the Technion dorms, and they both began studying at the Technion for a master’s degree that soon turned into a direct doctoral track. In her doctoral dissertation, Natalie, under the supervision of Professor Emeritus Arie Admon from the Faculty of Biology, researched “the identification of mutant and unique peptides in cancer cells,” while Oren researched the mechanical reaction of metal plates under load under the guidance of Professor Danny Rittel from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering. While studying for their doctorates, they brought two children into the world, Tomer, who is now 5, and Yuval, who is 3. They are currently expecting their third child.

The oldest graduate to receive their degree was Dr. Rinat Baor, who carried out her research in the Faculty of Education in Science and Technology. She said that after working for 20 years as a math teacher and 13 years as a teaching assistant, “I wanted to do a Ph.D., and unfortunately, I wasn’t able to afford it and didn’t have time. The Technion gave me the opportunity to do a doctorate in a faculty with a really nice atmosphere. I received excellent guidance and enjoyed a good relationship with my supervisor, Associate Professor Einat Heyd-Metzuyanim. The research group I joined also helped me develop my research and encouraged Ph.D. thinking.”

In total, 212 Ph.D. degrees were awarded to graduates from all Technion faculties, for their research work across various interdisciplinary fields, including: calculations using an engineered bacterium (Dr. Natalia Berger, under the supervision of Prof. Daniel Ramez), flow in coral reefs (Dr. Shai Asher, under the supervision of Prof. Uri Shavit), assessing the accessibility of urban spaces for the visually impaired (Dr. Ahituv Cohen under the supervision of Dr. Sagi Dalyot and Dr. Asia Netapov), research into the development of water waves under wind constraint (Dr. Almog Shani-Zerbib, under the guidance of Prof. Dan Liberzon), from start-up beginnings to entrepreneurial success (Dr. Moran Lazar, supervised by Prof. emeritus Miriam Erez and Prof. Ela Meron-Spektor), biomaterials – complex designs (Dr. Noam Attias, led by Prof. Noam Grubman and Prof. Ezra Tarazi), using diverse sources of information for the re-labeling of drugs (Dr. Galia Nordon, under the guidance of Prof. Benny Kimelfeld and Dr. Kira Radinsky), repairing DNA fragments. Dr. Ines Abu Zahya, led by Prof. Nabieh Ayoub), muscle tissue engineering to increase insulin sensitivity in diabetics (Dr. Margarita Beckerman, under the guidance of Prof. Shulamit Levenberg and Prof. Emeritus Eddy Karnieli), and stretch sensing systems for the development of electronic skin (Dr. Yehu David Horev under the supervision of Prof. Hossam Haick), among many others.

 

 

 

Thank you, President Sivan and the entire Board of Governors for conferring upon me this honorary degree. It is a great honor to be a part of the Technion Institute community.

To all of today’s graduates — congratulations!

As a scientist and a Jew, I can’t overstate how much it means to me to receive this degree and to be invited to address this year’s graduating class.

Since first opening its doors in 1924, the Technion has been a beacon of light not only for Israel, but for the entire world. The story of the Technion, like that of my company, Pfizer, is a one of innovation, but also of courage and optimism – all of which have helped give birth to technological and scientific breakthroughs aimed at making the world a better place.

Researchers at the Technion have driven advances in alternative fuels that are helping mitigate climate change. Professors Aaron Ciechanover and Avram Hershko’s Nobel Prize-winning work in ubiquitin-mediated protein degradation led to a better understanding of human health. And the Technion’s first-of-its-kind collaboration with Cornell University is pursuing breakthroughs in the areas of connective media, health technologies and urban engineering.

But none of these successes would have been possible without courage and optimism – the courage of Paul Nathan, who endeavored to establish a university in Israel that would improve the lives of Jews while they were largely banned from studying scientific and technological subjects in Europe … and the optimism of Dr. Chaim Weizmann and Albert Einstein who refused to let the school die after the financial difficulties brought on by World War I.

Innovation, courage and optimism are three things that define my colleagues at Pfizer, as well. It took courage, for example, to make the counterintuitive decision to use mRNA technology in the COVID-19 vaccine we developed with BioNTech. This courage not only helped us deliver a safe and effective vaccine in only nine months, but it may also prove to be an important step in unlocking the great promise that the technology holds for many other therapeutic areas, including cancer and rare disease. Our successful vaccine journey showed us we can make the impossible possible – and our colleagues are now taking this newfound optimism to their work in other areas.

If you are anything like I was on my graduation day, you are thinking about all the hard work it took to get you to this day. But guess what … that was the easy part. There was a curriculum and you did what you needed to do to complete it.

What makes the next chapter more challenging – but also more exciting – is there is no set curriculum. The next chapter is all electives – and your choices will define your future.

Now, I can’t tell you what choices to make because we are all different people from different backgrounds with different circumstances. What I can do is share a few simple truths I have learned along the way that might help you make choices that are right for you – and that just might help you change the world (or at least your little corner of it).

First, setting extremely ambitious goals that are seemingly impossible based on conventional wisdom does not restrain human ingenuity, it liberates it. That’s why you should always aim high. If you aim for incremental change, you may improve upon something someone else has done, which is great. But it’s only when you aim for step changes – aim to do the seemingly impossible – that you can unlock the full potential of your creativity, discover completely new ways of solving a problem and deliver true breakthroughs.

Of course, aiming high does not guarantee you will hit your target. The truth is the first time you pursue an ambitious goal, you are more likely to fail than to succeed.

This brings me to the second truth: Resiliency is as important as getting it right the first time. Our failures can teach us even more than our successes. So, when something you set out to do doesn’t go as planned, don’t choose to walk away and give up; rather choose to find out why it didn’t work and let that knowledge inform your next attempt. That’s how the world moves forward.

The third truth I will share is that optimism is infectious. I learned this from my parents – particularly my mother – and it has been one of the key ingredients in inspiring my colleagues at Pfizer to shoot for the moon and make the impossible possible.

Of course, with our world facing several threats – war, the pandemic and racial hatred, to name just a few – you may find yourself asking: “How can we feel optimistic in a world that feels so dark?”

There are many reasons to be optimistic, including …

Human ingenuity. Humans have a proven ability to solve problems, and the convergence of advances in digital technologies and biology have us poised to make significant progress in the battle against disease.

Human compassion. As I was reminded again during my visit this week to Yad Vashem, the compassion of those who helped Jews escape the Holocaust was awe-inspiring and can be seen today in those welcoming refugees from Ukraine, Afghanistan, and other parts of the world.

And human courage. There’s that word again. It’s a powerful thing to have the courage to try something new, to challenge the status quo, to speak out against injustice. And even the smallest acts of courage can have a transformational impact on our world.

I will close with a quote from the man many have called the greatest philosopher of all time – the namesake of the university from which I proudly graduated – Aristotle – who said:

“Excellence is never an accident. It represents the wise choice of many alternatives – choice not chance, determines your destiny.”

As you approach the many alternatives that lie ahead in your journey, always remember to aim high, be resilient and remain optimistic in all you do. If you do, you just might be surprised with what you can accomplish – and the lives you will impact.

Thank you again for inviting me to be a part of this celebration. I wish you all tremendous success.

Congratulations and good luck.

To watch the film on Dr. Bourla we aired at his Honorary Doctorate Conferment Ceremony on June 30, 2022, click here (a subtitled film is also available):  

Dr. Albert Abraham Bourla, Pfizer Chairman and CEO, received an honorary doctorate yesterday from the President of the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Professor Uri Sivan, during the graduation ceremony of 1,869 Technion undergraduates. Dr. Bourla received the award “in acknowledgment of his exceptional leadership in advancing the rapid development of a safe and effective vaccine against COVID-19; with gratitude for spearheading this monumental feat in the face of a global crisis; and in admiration of his steadfast commitment and pioneering ingenuity, which embodies the highest values and standards of excellence in scientific innovation.”

Technion President Prof. Uri Sivan said: “As Chairman and CEO of the Board of Pfizer Inc., Dr. Bourla headed the trailblazing effort to develop a vaccine against the novel coronavirus. The development of the COVID-19 vaccine is an extraordinary biotechnological achievement that exemplifies the importance of science and multidisciplinary research. The vaccine helped rescue the world from the crisis that began at the end of 2019, with the epidemic outbreak. Dr. Bourla’s family history, as a son of Holocaust survivors from Thessaloniki, is a symbol of the remarkable vitality of the Jewish people and their renewal capacity in the wake of the Holocaust.”

Dr. Bourla addressed the students in a moving and inspiring speech. “As a scientist and a Jew, I can’t overstate how much it means to me to receive this degree and to be invited to address this year’s graduating class. Since first opening its doors in 1924, the Technion has been a beacon of light not only for Israel, but for the entire world. The story of the Technion, like that of my company, Pfizer, is one of innovation, but also of courage and optimism – all of which have helped give birth to technological and scientific breakthroughs aimed at making the world a better place.

“Innovation, courage, and optimism are three things that define my colleagues at Pfizer. It took courage to make the counterintuitive decision to use mRNA technology in the COVID-19 vaccine we developed with BioNTech. This courage not only helped us deliver a safe and effective vaccine in only nine months, but it may also prove to be an important step in unlocking the great promise that the technology holds for many other therapeutic areas, including cancer and rare disease. Our successful vaccine journey showed us we can make the impossible possible – and our colleagues are now taking this newfound optimism to their work in other areas.”

He ended by citing human ingenuity, compassion, and courage, as values for the graduates to aspire and hold on to. “As you approach the many alternatives that lie ahead in your journey, always remember to aim high, be resilient, and remain optimistic in all you do. If you do, you just might be surprised with what you can accomplish – and the lives you will impact.”

Dr. Albert Abraham Bourla was born in Thessaloniki in 1961 to a Jewish family, part of which perished in the Holocaust. His family, who arrived in Greece from Spain following the Alhambra Decree, dealt in jewelry and diamonds, and their business spread across many countries. The Thessaloniki Jewish community, once the largest in Greece, had a population of approximately 80,000 in the 1930s. Approximately two-thirds of them perished in the Holocaust.

Dr. Bourla completed all his academic degrees at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and holds a Ph.D. in veterinary medicine and reproductive biotechnology. In 1993 he joined Pfizer, one of the world’s leading biopharmaceutical companies, where he went on to hold a series of positions. He oversaw antibody development and served as Group President of VOC – Pfizer’s Global Vaccines, Oncology, and Consumer Healthcare business. In October 2018 he was appointed Pfizer’s Chief Operating Officer, in 2019, he was appointed CEO, and in 2020 he became Chairman of the company.

In recent years, Dr. Bourla has led Pfizer in strengthening ties with technology companies and in adopting technologies such as artificial intelligence. At the beginning of 2020, following the global outbreak of the COVID-19 epidemic, he harnessed most of the company’s resources to develop a vaccine, meeting challenging schedules. Throughout the process, Dr. Bourla promised there would be no compromise regarding the safety of the vaccine, and approval was obtained after an extensive study that included more than 40,000 subjects.

An honorary doctorate is the highest honor bestowed by the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology upon the few who distinguished themselves through their outstanding scientific work or their leadership and public service to the benefit of Israel, the Jewish people, and humanity at large. Some notable examples include Chaim Weizmann (1952), Albert Einstein (1953), Niels Bohr (1958), David Ben Gurion (1962), Yitzhak Rabin (1990), Margaret Thatcher (1989) and Dr. Angela Merkel (2021).