The Technion President’s Award for Exceptional Achievement was conferred upon Prof. Eli Biham
for his exceptional and unique contribution to the field of cyber.
Prof. Biham, an esteemed faculty member at the Henry and Marilyn Taub Faculty of Computer Science, has made remarkable and unparalleled contributions to the field of cybersecurity. His expertise played a pivotal role in the Technion’s rapid and efficient recovery from the recent cyber attack.
What’s new in the Technion – June 2023
Click here to read about health, climate, hackathons, conferences, a Nobel Laureate’s visit, and more.
Professor Gideon Grader of the Wolfson Department of Chemical Engineering received recently the Grand Prix Scientifique in Chemistry and Hydrogen from the Charles Defforey Foundation – Institute of France. The prestigious prize was awarded on June 21, 2023, as a research grant for developing innovative green hydrogen technology.
Institut de France (Institute of France) is a non-profit learned society that unites the five French academies. Founded in 1795 and placed under the protection of the President of the French Republic, the Institut de France encourages research, supports creativity, and provides funding for many humanitarian projects in the form of prizes, bursaries, and grants.
Prof. Grader completed his bachelor’s degree at the University of California, Berkeley, and his Ph.D. at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). He joined the Technion’s Wolfson Faculty of Chemical Engineering in 1990 following a post-doctoral fellowship at the AT&T Bell Laboratories. He is currently a member of the faculty and the founding director of the Grand Technion Energy Program.
Over the past decade, Prof. Grader developed the E-TAC process of splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen, whereby the production of the two gases is decoupled in time, along with Professor Avner Rothschild, Dr. Hen Dotan, and Dr. Avigail Landman. Based on this innovative technology, green hydrogen company H2Pro was founded in 2019 and currently employs around 100 people. The company has raised over $100 million from venture capital funds, including Bill Gates’ BEV fund, TEMASEK, and Horizon Ventures, and from several large strategic partners including steel and ammonia producers, Arcellor Mittal and Yara, respectively. H2Pro was recently selected by BloombergNEF as one of the most promising companies for solving the climate change crisis.
The existing E-TAC method uses several consecutive steps, during which hydrogen and oxygen are produced on stationary electrodes at different times in a batch process. This is achieved by circulating electrolyte solutions at different temperatures through the electrodes. The main idea for which Prof. Grader won the prize is the transformation of the E-TAC idea from a batch into a continuous process. This goal is being achieved by developing unique electrodes that can move continuously between the separated sites where the hydrogen and oxygen are produced simultaneously, while the solution remains stationary. This development will simplify process control, improve stability, and enable long-term operation at a low cost. Such a continuous system will also enable easier scale up to industrial level.
BizTec, Israel’s leading entrepreneurship program founded in 2004 at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, recently announced the opening of its 2023 class. The opening event took place as part of the t-day entrepreneurship and career day organized by the t-hub: the Technion Hub for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. To date, BizTec has supported thousands of students, and almost 600 past groups have developed their ideas into a venture. According to Program Director Dr. Lital Attia, the key to success at BizTec is a combination of finding a solution suitable for a large market, adapting the product to the client’s and the user’s needs, using suitable technologies, and strong teamwork skills. “I believe that each of the accepted ventures has tremendous potential to become a success,” Dr. Attia said.
Numerous graduates of the program attended the opening event, including Ran Korber, founder of BreezoMeter (BizTec 2013), which recently sold to Google for $200 million; Dr. Meital Segev Bar, who together with Dr. Gady Konvalina and Professor Hossam Haick, developed Feelit (BizTec 2016) and raised more than $10 million; Zinat Awad and Assaf Licht, current students in the double medicine and biomedical engineering track and co-founders of Harmony (BizTec 2020); Karny Ilan, one of the founders of Feminai (first place winner in BizTec 2022); and Anastasia Nepomnyashchaya, one of the founders of Speculate (second place winner in BizTec 2022). All shared their stories and offered advice for the young entrepreneurs.
Participants in the program benefit from lectures, workshops, training, and mentoring from academia, industry, and the venture capital sector. At the conclusion of the program, the successful ventures pitch their ideas at a major event, called Demo Day, to investors and opinion leaders. The program is held under the sponsorship of the Bronica Entrepreneurship Center, established by Yehuda and Yehudit Bronicki, founders of Ormat Technologies and winners of the Israel Prize for Lifetime Enterprise in Industry. The program is accompanied by the law firm S. Horowitz & Co. and runs in collaboration with venture capital funds Glilot Capital Partners, the Takwin Fund, and more.
A hackathon focused on coping with extreme heat waves in urban areas recently took place at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology as part of the Entrepreneurship and Career Day organized by t-hub, the Technion Entrepreneurship and Innovation Center. First place went to the ‘SOLARit’ team for their initiative, which enables the supply of electricity during power outages by using heat from water in solar water heaters. The winning team was comprised of four students from the Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering: Yoav Ronen, Ester Konstantinov, Andrei Serenko, Noy Winetraub, and Neta Soto. They worked on developing a Stirling engine as an add-on to existing solar water heaters, in order to utilize heat from the water to produce local energy for the home’s refrigerator and air-conditioning system during emergencies, such as when there is a power outage.
The winning team will represent the Technion at Green Challenge – an international sustainability hackathon taking place in Denmark on June 23, 2023. The Technion’s Sustainability Frontier will fund their flights and their participation in the hackathon.
The event was a collaboration between the Technion’s Sustainability Center, the Social Hub, and the Technion Student Association. More than 50 students from a variety of faculties took part, divided into 11 teams. The competition was launched two weeks before the hackathon with a lecture about mapping challenges in the event of extreme heat waves by Naama Shapira of the Technion’s Samuel Neaman Institute. Her lecture covered the environmental and social ramifications on urban residents, including the collapse of the electric system and other essential systems, fires and floods, energy poverty, and a rise in disease and violence.
The ‘Eco Shade’ team won second place with their social-environmental initiative to set up cooling systems in public transportation stations. Their cooling system is based on plants attached to manual water pumps. The team included students Tamar Klein, Dror Arie, Hadas Levy, and Omri Leshem, from the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Faculty of Biomedical Engineering.
Third place went to the ‘Keep it Cool’ team for their application that helps transfer disadvantaged populations to safe spaces during emergencies. The app connects the users to the Health Funds and Social Security in order to quickly reach people who require assistance. The team included Raphael Zailer, Harel Yadid, Shon Wolfson, Ofek Har Even, Fatima Abu Rabiah, and Ido Reuven from the Viterbi Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering.
The hackathon was organized by two students: Ohad Schindler of the Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Tal Fein of the Viterbi Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
The students were supervised by the following mentors: Naama Shapira of the Samuel Neaman Institute, Tali Nimrodi of the Clariter company, Yoni Haran from the company Village in the Box, Lior Kedem from Termokir Industries, Ofer Keren of Green Academy, doctoral student Naga Venkata Sai Kumar of the Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning, and guests Dr. Bela Nikitina and student Or Sharon of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.
The competition’s judges were Prof. Michelle Portman of the Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning; Dr. Yael Danin-Poleg of the Social Hub; Alona Selfin, head of industrial relations and marketing in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering; Nimrod Peleg, laboratory director at the Viterbi Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering; and Ariel Beeri of The Generator, which promotes entrepreneurial initiatives for coping with extreme heat waves.
The Doing Good hackathon concluded recently at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology’s Henry and Marilyn Taub Faculty of Computer Science. In the course of the hackathon, students developed technological solutions for social challenges. This year, the hackathon focused on improving the quality of life for children in hospitals and it was conducted in close collaboration with the Ruth Rappaport Children’s Hospital of the Rambam Health Care Campus and with Prof. Daniella Magen, Director of the Pediatrics Division and the Pediatrics Nephrology Institute at Rambam.
The ‘ProTechTor’ team won first place, having developed an automated alert system for events of violence against medical personnel. The team included B.Sc. students Gil Litvin and Edo Cohen, and M.Sc. students Nadav Rubinstein and Idan Levi.
Having learned from medical personnel about the limitations of distress buttons in hospitals, including their inaccessibility and the aversion towards using them, ‘ProTechTor’ invented an automatic AI-based system that provides alerts during incidents involving violence or potential violence. According to Litvin, “the system is based on video feeds and separates the sound from the images. The sound is analyzed according to its intensity, content, and emotional charge (fear and anger) and the images are analyzed according to the degree of violence they contain. Artificial intelligence then enables the system to provide information about each scene in a traffic light format – devoid of violence (green), potential for violence (yellow) or contains actual violence (red). An agreed code word can be added to the system and can be used by the medical personnel in the event of violence or potential violence.”
Second place went to students who developed a medical chatbot. A team that developed an efficient communications interface between patients and the nursing staff came in third. The concept was devised by one of the students who had been hospitalized as a child in the oncology department. The Audience’s Favorite category was won by a team that invented an application for physical therapy.
Prof. Danny Raz, Dean of the Henry and Marilyn Taub Faculty of Computer Science, told the participants that, “this hackathon is special – its purpose is to create something that will contribute to the community and that represents computers in the service of humanity (#CS4people). People look at high-tech and don’t understand how it affects them. It’s important that we be part of the community. Together we can make a better society.”
Prof. Daniella Magen said: “The world of medicine is marching forward thanks to advanced technology and out-of-the-box thinking, but the force that motivates development in the field of medicine is the aspiration to improve humanity and alleviate suffering. Working together with our creative partners at the Technion’s Faculty of Computer Science is a wonderful opportunity to strengthen the ties between medicine and innovation, which is likely to generate amazing initiatives that can improve the quality of life for the sick children we treat.”
Approximately 130 students took part in the hackathon. They were supervised and assisted by researchers and engineers from the Technion and from the industry, as well as by doctors and members of the nursing staff, who helped them get their solutions to the finishing line with real proofs of feasibility. The challenges were presented by Rambam staff based on actual problems that exist in the hospital: patients’ and medical personnel’s waiting times, pain level monitoring in children, and various problems related to transferring patients from the hospital back to their homes.
The hackathon was organized by four students from the Taub Faculty of Computer Science: Benny Mosheyev, Shelly Golan, Mor Ventura and Michael Toker.
The Technion Smart Social Strategy (3S) laboratory showcases its “Constellations of Loneliness” project at the Time Space Existence biennial architecture exhibition in Venice.
“Time Space Existence” is the European Cultural Centre (ECC) architecture exhibition at the Biennale di Venezia. Its 2023 edition draws attention to the emerging expressions of sustainability in its numerous forms, from focusing on the environment and urban landscape to the unfolding conversations on innovation, reuse, and community.
“Constellation of Loneliness” is an artistic project based on the data from Hadar neighbourhood, a low socioeconomic status neighbourhood with a high percentage of elderly citizens, many of them also immigrants. The project represents loneliness through a digital city model drawing on big data and AI simulation. Between 2017-2021, authorities recorded an unusually high rate of bodies found in a state of advanced decay in the Hadar neighbourhood. The absence of these people was not noticed by anyone for a considerable time. By visualizing the data sets surrounding this tragedy, viewers are invited to explore the fragments of a fragile and ambivalent reality floating through the anonymized numbers. The resulting image highlights the patterns of the database’s blueprint and its shadows. This data shadow resembles a celestial constellation of stars, separated by time and space, connected through the work of our imagination. The lines connecting the spots mark both the challenge of loneliness and the potential power of the community to reach out and bridge the distance.
“Constellation of Loneliness” can be viewed at Palazzo Bembo from 20 May to 26 November 2023.
The 3S Lab uses innovation to enhance urban resilience and achieve sustainable urban development. The group creates data-driven models of urban social life and makes them available to decision-makers and residents. By making these models accessible to the general public, it encourages civic participation. The group’s visualization theater projects these models, creating a space for assembly, learning, and dialogical development. This immersive experience allows participants to engage with the data and experiment with planning in a multi-layered and complex city model.
“Smart cities are an important modern-day breakthrough,” says Dr Meirav Aharon-Gutman, head of the 3S Lab and faculty member of the Technion Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning. “But it’s important to remember their limitations. Currently, the ‘smart city’ is all about infrastructure: surveillance cameras, traffic lights, and garbage collection. We believe that the city isn’t its infrastructure but its people and the connections they form. Loneliness is an important issue of city life; it’s a 21st-century epidemic. We must not ignore it.”
To address loneliness, Dr Aharon-Gutman explains, it must first be seen. On a personal level, we see and feel it, of course. But data-based visualization tools are required to handle it on an institutional level. “The tools we develop in the 3S Lab can provide social and municipal workers with relevant data about the city’s people, including the loneliest among them.” As a proof of concept, 3S Lab created a digital twin of the Hadar neighbourhood of Haifa, featuring 170 layers of data, including rent, number of people per apartment, homes of elderly citizens, community centres, and street dealer locations. This varied data allows municipal bodies and charitable organizations to identify problems and provide aid.
The Israel Innovation Institute’s PLANETech community has embarked on a unique collaboration with the Technion, whereby researchers from different academic departments whose studies relate to FoodTech, water, energy and materials, meet with entrepreneurs and investors interested in Climate Tech. The two groups will conduct a series of meetings during which they will tackle an important, high-impact challenge: how to accelerate the translation of scientific breakthroughs into applications that will help fight the climate crisis.
The opening session at the Technion was led by Noam Sonennberg of PLANETech; Prof. Avner Rothschild, Deputy Senior VP for Sustainability at the Technion; Rona Samler, Chief Business Officer at Technion R&D Foundation Ltd.; and Orly Mulla, Director of the Sustainability Center at the Technion. Twenty Technion researchers whose fields of expertise cover water, energy and food took part, as well as around 20 entrepreneurs. The purpose was to form “business matches.”
After the various research projects were presented, scientists and entrepreneurs discussed topics including renewable energy technologies, moderated by Uri Sadot and Itay Diamant from the company SolarEdge; food technologies, led by Ari Ben Dror of the Good Food Institute Israel; water technologies, with Ravid Levy of WaterEdge.IL; and materials, headed by Zvi Cohen of Criaterra Innovations.
Noam Sonennberg, Director of PLANETech, said that “the key to successfully fighting climate change is deep technological developments and their rapid, extensive assimilation. Important scientific breakthroughs in this field already exist and are waiting to emerge from the walls of academia and become tech companies. Many times, the problem lies in bringing together the science and technology people and the entrepreneurs. Together, they can build amazing companies that can help us solve the largest challenge of our generation.”
Prof. Avner Rothschild, Deputy Senior VP for Sustainability at the Technion, added that, “this initiative connects between entrepreneurs on the one hand, researchers and groundbreaking research projects on the other, with the aim of sprouting companies that will develop new tech solutions for overcoming the environmental and climate crises. This is the first step of the Technion’s Sustainability Frontier, which was recently established with a view to harness the Technion’s vast knowledge and experience in a wide variety of fields. The Sustainability Frontier aims to develop sustainable solutions for the environmental and climate challenges, engage the Technion community and create partnerships with other communities in order to work together to achieve a viable future for the next generations.”
The Technion mourns the passing of Mr. Zohar Zisapel, graduate of the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and one of the pillars of the Israeli Start-Up Nation. Recipient of the Israel Defense Prize, Technion Honorary Doctorate and Technion Medal, Mr. Zisapel was a true friend of the Technion and one of its greatest and most dedicated supporters through the years.
Technion President Prof. Uri Sivan said: “Zohar was a true friend of the Andrew and his Alma Mater, the Erna Viterbi Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering. His vision, his innovation and entrepreneurial spirit, as well as his deep social commitment, made him, together with his brother Yehuda, who is also a graduate of the same faculty, a source of pride for us and an inspirational model for all Technion graduates. Zohar was among the rare people who envisioned the future and then made it a reality. His pioneering endeavors, in which he saw the Technion as a true partner, contributed immensely to the development of Israel’s high-tech industries. He and his brother recognized early on the technological potential of nanotechnology and helped establish the Sara and Moshe Zisapel Nanoelectronics Center in the Technion, the first of its kind in Israel. This center, together with the Russel Berrie Nanotechnology Institute (RBNI) sparked the Israeli nanotech revolution. The new building of the Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering, which will carry the names of Zohar and Yehuda Zisapel, will perpetuate their vision, and enable the continued growth of the faculty, the recruitment of leading faculty members and the nourishing of the next generation of Israeli engineers. We are grateful to Zohar and to his family for their support, partnership, and steadfast friendship. May his memory be a blessing.”
“The Andrew and Erna Viterbi Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering grieves the untimely passing of its graduate and friend, Mr. Zohar Zisapel Z”L,” said Faculty Dean Professor Idit Keidar. “He was one of the faculty’s most prominent graduates, a man of vision and a pillar of Israeli high-tech industry. His and his brother’s generosity enabled the faculty’s growth for years to come. May his memory be a blessing.”
In 2001 the Technion awarded Mr. Zohar Zisapel an honorary doctorate, “in appreciation for his long-standing affinity and manifold contribution to the Technion as one of its outstanding graduates, in acknowledgement of his leadership and pioneering endeavors for the development of Israel’s high-technology industries, and in recognition of his remarkable conviction and unfailing commitment to attain economic stability and prosperity for the State of Israel.”
Recognizing the future importance of the field of nanotechnology, the cornerstone of the Sara and Moshe Zisapel Nanoelectronics Center, named after Zohar and Yehuda’s parents, was laid in 2003. Prof. Uri Sivan, who was then the head of the Russel Berrie Nanotechnology Institute, said at the inauguration event that “the center will boost Technion research in this field for decades to come.” At the same event, the 9th President of Israel, Mr. Shimon Peres Z”L said, “my mentor, Ben Gurion, said that all experts are experts in what has already come to pass, but there are no experts in what’s to come. Zohar and Yehuda are just that – experts in what the future holds.”
In 2019, the Zisapel brothers made a large donation to the construction of the new Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering building, to be named in their honor. At the laying of the cornerstone, Zohar Zisapel said “when we studied here, there were discussions in the faculty over whether it should focus on electricity or electronics. But today, I understand that you must focus on both, and also be open to many other areas. The Technion always knew how to respond to the needs of the industry and it’s important that it continues to stay up to date and enter areas that are expected to develop in the future.” At the building’s inauguration ceremony last year, he said “about 50 years ago we applied to the Technion because it was the best engineering school in Israel, and really the only engineering school in Israel. It remains to maintain the Technion’s leading status, and we are happy that we can contribute to that.”
Last year, the Technion Medal was awarded to Zohar and to his brother Yehuda. This is the highest honor given by the Technion in recognition of a lifetime’s work dedicated to the Technion, and for contributing to the advancement of humanity, to the welfare of the Jewish people, and to the State of Israel. The Medal has only been awarded to 16 outstanding individuals so far. The medal was awarded to Zohar Zisapel “for being one of the pillars of the Startup Nation and an outstanding role model among generations of Technion alumni. For his generous and devoted support of the Technion and his alma mater, the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering. For his educational, social, and philanthropic activities, focused on cultivating young people from the periphery and promoting excellence in Israeli education. For his vision and endeavors laying the foundations for training the utmost engineers and researchers in the Israeli high-tech industry, which requires supreme human capital to ensure its continued prosperity.”
The Technion is home to Northern Israel’s first research MRI. Located in the May-Blum-Dahl Human MRI Research Center, it is a symbol of the Technion’s ongoing commitment to scientific excellence and human health advancement.
Until now, Technion researchers had no choice but to visit other facilities to use an MRI scanner — an essential tool for gathering extremely valuable data in a risk-free environment. Scientists and students can now conduct in-house multidisciplinary research using novel capabilities, providing highspeed structural and functional imaging.
Beyond the MRI machine, the facility itself is special because it is set up to explore childhood development. A mock scanner makes it possible for children and infants to preview the imaging process prior to entering the actual device for a more comfortable experience.
Thanks to this vital gift from Barbara and William Dahl of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and many other generous donors, Technion researchers from a wide range of disciplines now have this invaluable device close to home. The facility is also available to industry scientists who aim to deepen their research and development efforts via MRI technology.
An utterly unique feature of the May-Blum-Dahl Human MRI Research Center is its proximity to the Faculty of Biomedical Engineering—recognized as a global leader in innovative research, which spans a lengthy list of engineering-based fields. This will significantly advance research and solve some of the most pressing challenges in healthcare. Activities at the May-Blum-Dahl Human MRI Research Center will also allow us to improve MRI technology, leading to more accurate imaging in a shorter amount of time.
This project will undoubtedly lead to significant advances in biomedical imaging and human health research, especially when it comes to diagnostics and our ongoing quest to unlock more information about a variety of debilitating diseases and disorders.
On Wednesday, May 24, the Technion Faculty of Biomedical Engineering will host the pre-ISMRM symposium, organized by the Israeli Chapter of the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (ISMRM) ahead of the global ISMRM symposium. In previous years, the symposium was hosted by the Weizmann Institute of Science. We are excited to bring it to the Technion, to mark the inauguration of the Technion Human MRI Research Center (TecH MRC).
The symposium will bring together leading Israeli MRI experts, including primary investigators students, and industry representatives. About 100 professionals from the Weizmann Institute of Science, the Tel Aviv University, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the Reichman University, the University of Haifa, and of course the Technion, are expected to attend.
The symposium is generously sponsored by Siemens Healthineers, the Technion Human Health Initiative (THHI), and the Israel Research Core Facilities (IRCF).
See full program here: https://ismrm-israel.github.io/#events
“Topology and Physics on Mount Carmel” conference took place last week at the Technion. The conference, organized by Professors Ari Turner and Eric Akkermans from the Technion Department of Physics, was dedicated to Prof. Emeritus Joshua Zak, recipient of the Israel Prize. Its aim was not only to discuss the most recent developments in the field of topological physics, but also to allow as many students and young researchers as possible to attend and to learn from some of the best researchers in this field worldwide.
Topology, like group theory, is an elegant field of mathematics that allows one to describe geometrical forms, wherever they occur. It is surprising how dramatic the implications of some of its concepts can be for physics experiments. The conference aims to bring together many of the physicists contributing creatively to the “topological revolution” in condensed matter physics, in honor of one of its pioneers, professor Joshua Zak.
Prof. Zak was awarded the Israel Prize in 2022 for his development of ‘Zak Transform’, an advanced mathematical operation that studies quantum phenomena in crystalline solids, and his discovery of ‘Zak Phase’, a unique 1D crystal phase. Zak Transform is already being used in signal processing, and the Zak Phase has been widely cited and verified in numerous experiments. These tools pave the way to build and predict the capabilities of electronic devices using materials with unique properties.
Among the speakers at the conference was Prof. Immanuel Bloch from the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. Prof. Bloch was the first to show experimentally the ‘Zak Phase’, discovered by Prof. Zak.
Joshua Zak, 93, was born in Vilnius in 1929. Aged twelve, he was placed in a ghetto together with his family. Later, he found himself in concentration camps, where he lost both parents and two brothers. After the war, Zak studied physics in the University of Vienna, and graduated Cum Laude in 1955. In 1957 he made Aliyah, and in 1960 completed his PhD at the Technion. After some time at MIT, Prof. Zak returned to the Technion, where he received tenure and was among the establishers of the Solid State Institute.
Conference Program: https://phsites.technion.ac.il/topology-and-physics-on-mount-carmel/program/?fbclid=IwAR3VdutZ5wNr707Rib4t1UGpdTsCB1u7mf5ZtzfWxNd6JMsPWc_r32-SVXU
