Welcome to the 2019 President’s Report, in which we review a decade of progress and look forward to continuing fruition of the Technion vision.
When I received the tremendous honor of becoming Technion President ten years ago, I felt that I was handed an enormous responsibility: not only to maintain Technion’s status as Israel’s first and leading university but to steer it onward and upward to new levels of excellence and global standing.
Fast forward with AI, EE, Bioprinting and so much more at Technion Israel. Enjoy and subscribe to Technion LIVE!
“Supporting tomorrow’s technological solutions through today’s research is a crucial manifestation of our vision that philanthropy’s ultimate goal is the betterment of society as a whole,” added fellow trustee Eric J. Gertler.
Design Meets Technology in the First Design-Tech International Conference at the Technion, Israel
“Design-Tech 2019”, the first International Design and Technology Conference hosted at Technion Israel, took place on 18-19 June 2019. The conference attracted over 150 participants and showcased over 40 featured presentations of innovative projects by designers and researchers.
The 2-day gathering was an inspiring, diverse and interesting platform for sharing ideas, knowledge, and questions to improve and deepen the understanding of the links between design and technology in the present era.
The conference was initiated by Prof. Ezri Tarazi, Head of the Industrial Design Graduate Program at the Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning In his opening words, Prof. Tarazi spoke of the meeting point of design and technology: “We urgently need to move fast towards humane-centered design and nature-centered design. We need to shift quickly our minds, awareness, values, and goals,” he said.
Keynote Speakers were Prof. Dr. Gesche Joost, from the Design Research Lab at the Berlin University of the Arts – who spoke of “Civic Design for an Inclusive Digital Society”; and Prof. Kalevi “Eetu” Ekman from Aalto Design Factory, Finland, who shared his thoughts on “Passion based Learning”.
Prof. Barry Katz, from the California College of the Arts and the Stanford University Design Group said that: “the last 10 years have seen deeper and more far-ranging changes than any previous decade in human history”. The keynote speaker then posed the question: Do the theories and methods that designers have applied so successfully in the past provide give a reliable guide to the future?”
The conference attracted leading Israeli designers and researchers, such as Tamar Yehezkel, Yaniv Glozman, Michal Greenberg Abrahami, Tami Warshavski, Safi Hefetz, Merav Perez, Arielle Blonder, Shira Shoval, Romi Mikulinsky, Matan Zohar, Alon Shikar, Raz Elias, Liron Lavi Turkenich, Yonatan Assouline and Asaf Cohen.
Technion students and researchers presenting their work included: Ezra Ozery who got the audience on their feet with their hands in the air during his presentation on “The Gamification of Physical Therapy in Virtual Reality”; Alexander Geht, who presented his initiative “Anatomic Mass Customization and Assistive Technology”; Avishag Shemesh who shared her investigation of the question “How does Geometry of Space Affect our Emotions”; Ofer Berman spoke about 3D printing of “Digital Tabular Coral”; Offri Lotan presented “Re-Design the Modern Surfboard”; Dr. David Behar shared research with Ronen Eidelman on “Community Surveillance and Mass Surveillance”; and Tom Shaked presented his work on “Autonomous Robotic Stone Dressing”.
From overseas, the conference hosted Alessia Buffagni and Francesca Toso from Italy; Deepshikha from India; Denisa Reshef Kera from Spain; Philip Meier, Ute Hilgers-Yilmaz, Bianca Herlo, from Germany; and Isabella Molloy from New Zealand. Israeli Marine Zorea presented her Japanese research on “Sonic Mapping of Everyday Interactions at the Elderly Home”; and Indian Kartikeya Date presented his Israeli research on “Designing Archives in The Digital Age”.
Prof. Wendy Ju – a special guest from the Jacobs Technion Cornell Institute in New York City – gave a presentation on: “Addressing Cross-Cultural Differences in Design”.
Design Tech 2019 was managed by Valeria Geselev, produced by Meital Gotfrid and Limor Abas Or, and supported by The Firefly Scientists’ Foundation.
All the conference lectures were documented, and are to be shared on the Design-Tech YouTube Channel and Website designtech.net.technion.ac.il
Photography by Lauren Blumenthal.
Innovative technology developed by researchers at the Technion and Kahn-Sagol-Maccabi Research and Innovation Institute at Maccabi Healthcare Services (KSM) is expected to improve and make more efficient the giving of antibiotic treatments. It will also hinder the development of resistant bacteria. The technology, which was presented in a study published in Nature Medicine, was made possible by a unique collaboration between the KSM Institute of Maccabi, headed by Professor Varda Shalev, and Technion researchers Professor Roy Kishony and Dr. Idan Yelin.
The use of antibiotics globally is extensive and leads to bacteria developing antibiotic resistance. As a result, antibiotics lose their effectiveness, leading to concerns that in the future, bacterial infections will become refractory to antibiotics. Infections that are now considered mild and not dangerous will become treatment resistant and deadly.
One of the factors that speed up the evolution of antibiotic resistance is the widespread use of broad-range antibiotics, drugs designed to kill a wide spectrum of bacteria. Reducing this dangerous trend can potentially be achieved by prescribing antibiotics specifically aimed at the infection causing bacteria for each particular patient.
Prof. Roy Kishony, one of the leading experts in the field of antibiotic resistance, developed methods for genetic mapping of bacterial resistance to antibiotics. These techniques make it possible to predict the resistance of a given bacterium to various antibiotics in the present and, even to the level of resistance that bacteria may develop in the future.
The current study focused on a specific type of infection – in the urinary tract – which affects more than half of women at some time during their lives. These infections involve various bacteria, including Klebsiella pneumoniae, E. coli, and Proteus mirabilis.
In the joint study conducted by the Technion and researchers at the KSM Institute of Maccabi, a system was developed to help the doctor choose the optimal antibiotic for treating urinary tract infections. The researchers found that antibiotic resistance levels were different for each patient and that a certain antibiotic will be effective in one patient and not in another.
The reasons for this are related to each patient’s personal characteristics and medical history.
“It is now possible to computationally predict the level of bacterial resistance for infection-causing bacteria,” said Dr. Yelin. “This is done by the weighting of demographic data, including age, gender, pregnancy or retirement home residence, together with levels of resistance measured in the patient’s previous urine cultures as well as their drug purchase history.”
The study is a significant step in the innovative field of medical studies based on machine learning and Big Data. Prof. Kishony emphasized that the study was made possible thanks to the cooperation with Maccabi.
“The collaboration between Maccabi and the Technion – one of the most innovative research institutes in the world – and the combination of deep understanding of medicine, Big Data and innovative research methods has enabled a real breakthrough in the field of antibiotic resistance,” said Prof. Shalev. “We look forward to a continued fruitful cooperation with the Technion and Prof. Roy Kishony.”
The study analyzed more than five million cases of antibiotic purchases made over 10 years and measurements of antibiotic resistance in more than 700,000 urine cultures. A sophisticated algorithm was able to find a clear link among the various data and thus predict the level of antibiotic resistance for each infection and provide a recommendation for the best type of antibiotics. The researchers found that the use of the technology could reduce the likelihood of choosing the wrong medication by about 40%. Therefore, they estimate that this system will contribute greatly to the global effort to delay the “resistance epidemic.”
Prof. Varda Shalev, who was elected in 2018 to the 100 Most-Influential list of The Marker newspaper, is a professor of medicine at Tel Aviv University and director of the KSM Research and Innovation Institute. The Institute is based on the professional knowledge of the best researchers and Maccabi’s unique database. Since its establishment, hundreds of studies have been carried out that have contributed to far-reaching improvements in the medical treatment provided to the community. The Institute studies Maccabi’s database, which includes hundreds of millions of doctor visits, various types of lab samples and other medical data. It maintains long-term cooperation with researchers at the Technion, with the aim of developing new ways to analyze medical data and its application to the welfare of patients.
Prof. Roy Kishony is a member of the Technion Faculties of Biology and Computer Science, and the head of the Lorry I. Lokey Interdisciplinary Center for Life Sciences and Engineering. His research has been published in leading journals, including Nature and Science, focusing on the development and prevention of antibiotic resistance.
The first detection of an interstellar asteroid/comet-like object visiting the Solar system two years ago has sparked the ideas about the possibility of interstellar travel. New research from the Technion–Israel Institute of Technology suggests that such objects also raise far-reaching implications about the origins of planets across the galaxy, and possibly even the initial formation of the Solar system itself.
The asteroid/comet-like object named “’Oumuamua” confirmed decades-old scientific expectations that suggested that the interstellar medium is full of loose chunks of rock flying around. Such debris was thought to be ejected from planetary systems in the aftermath of planet formation, when large planets formed and kicked out some of the leftover minor-planets and planetesimals still lying around. From time to time, some fraction of these ejected rocks can still encounter foreign stars. In fortunate instances, this phenomenon can be observed as it swooshes through the Solar system.
The Technion researchers, Evgeni Grishin, Hagai Perets and Yael Avni wondered what would have happened if these ‘Oumuamua-like interstellar rocks were flying around 4.5 billion years ago, when our star was young and wild, and a gaseous disk was present instead of our planetary system? Their findings could be critical to answering some of the biggest puzzles regarding planet formation and the origin of planets in the Solar system
Forming planets with foreign (planetesimal) currency
Planets are formed in protoplanetary disks, mostly made of gas and dust. The dust grains are thought to grow into pebbles, coagulate into bigger planetesimals, and finally, form planets. Once the objects reach km-size, they can survive and eventually coagulate and accrete smaller rocks/pebbles as to form planetary embryos and full-fledged planets. The main obstacle for such growth appears to occur before km-size objects form, in the stage when smaller rock and pebbles initially form. Indeed, several culprits conspire to destroy pebbles and meter-sized boulders before they can ever grow into larger planetesimals. Such pebbles and rocks move through the gaseous disk in which they are initially embedded and experience a headwind that slows them down. The continuous push of the headwind might eventually lead them to quickly spiral inward into the Sun and be destroyed. In addition, collisions between small pebbles can lead to their fragmentation into smaller pieces halting their growth into larger planetesimals. In other words, pebbles and small rocks encounter a so-called “meter-size barrier” in their ability to grow into even larger planetesimals.
Several models were suggested as to overcome the meter-size barrier, but these typically require fine-tuned conditions that are unlikely to exist in most planetary systems; nevertheless, it is common knowledge that most if not all stars host planetary systems. The question is then how this came to be.
In their recently published paper in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Grishin and collaborators showed that interstellar objects are the key. They suggested that most systems do not need to go through the difficult stage of forming km-size planetesimals. Instead, most systems can capture interstellar km-size planetesimals that were originally ejected from other planetary systems. But how can an object moving at tens of km per second velocity through a Solar system be captured? It turns out the answer is simple – the same headwind that drives small rocks to inspiral into their sun can slow down bigger, km-size interstellar planetesimals and thereby capture them into a newly formed protoplanetary disk.
In this way, even a single planetary system can eject km-size planetesimals that then serve as seeds for the formation of many new planetary systems. As a result, even a very small number of planetary systems can seed the formation of many other systems – all it requires is just a few lucky rare cases to begin the process, and then these systems can spawn planetesimal “seeds” across the galaxy, which in turn can be captured into a newly forming protoplanetary disks and provide them the basic km-size building blocks needed for planetary growth. Planet formation no longer occurs in isolation; no planetary system is an island, but rather the reservoir of ejected rogue interstellar planetesimals serves to continuously initiate the birth of new planetary systems. In turn, any newly formed planetary systems eject their own rogue planetesimals and help rebuild the reservoir of interstellar planetesimal seeds. The question becomes: what are the odds of capturing these planetesimals, and how many successful formations are required to populate the entire birth cluster with planetesimals?
Nature vs nurture: Where you live matters!
To estimate the odds of planetesimal seeding and its implications for planet formation, the researchers developed a mathematical and numerical model for capture probability, depending on the properties of the interstellar planetesimal population and the disc. They found capturing small pebbles is extremely efficient, and that capturing larger bodies is more challenging, but still reasonable.
In the dense regions of stellar clusters where tens, hundreds, or even thousands of stars are born and live in a small regions (the “Manhattan” of star formation), around 10^6 of ‘Oumuamuas are captured in the birth cluster, and the largest body captured can be as large as ~10 km.
In the galaxy’s countryside, the galactic field environment, capture is more challenging, but still around ~10^3 ‘Oumuamuas can be captured, and bodies up to ~1 km are captured per system – enough to serve as the seed for planet formation in each system.
One is enough, planetesimals bring joy and life!
The researchers summarize that only a small fraction of the stars in a cluster (less than 1%) are required to form the primordial planetesimals, which eventually seed the entire birth cluster of ~1000 stars. Roughly similar numbers are expected also for field environments. Both estimates are conservative. The interstellar reservoir, therefore, works in tandem with the main planet formation models, providing the initial seeds for many of the planetesimal formation models.
Another interesting side aspect is that biologically active material, in the form of bacteria, can survive the tough interstellar environment if the rock in which it is embedded is large enough (larger than a few cm scale). Although only a minute fraction of ejected rocks might harbor these hardcore bacteria, a large number of such potentially biologically active rocks can be captured. This gas-assisted capture is a far more efficient mechanism for widespread panspermia, and most systems have probably gained their first life building blocks from somewhere else.
Read all about it! New leadership, sustainability, and the scientific revolution arising around matter and light from the research labs of Prof. Motti Segev.
Dozens of academic prizes were awarded to outstanding Technion researchers in a festive ceremony held as part of the 2019 Board of Governors’ events.
“Today we award prizes for excellence in teaching, research and innovation and honor researchers who have received grants from the European Research Council (ERC).” said the host of ceremony Prof. Steven Frankel of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering. “We are grateful to the people, the families, the foundations, and the organizations that fund the prizes. For us, it is an opportunity to cherish excellence and nurture excellent research to help tackle the challenges of modern life and to advance science and technology.”
“We are the tip of the iceberg of research,” said Associate Prof. Mirella Ben-Chen of the Faculty of Computer Science, speaking on behalf of the award winners. “Research is not the work of a single researcher but the result of close and long-term collaborations. I thank the generous donors who support research and the development of new ideas, as well as the other people without whom our research would not have been possible: Graduate students, who do most of the work in practice; laboratory managers and other technical personnel; and the people who keep our sanity and remind us that there is life outside the laboratory – spouses, family, and friends.”
This year was the first time that the Mauerberger Foundation Fund (MFF) Research Award for Transformative Technologies for Africa was awarded. The prize is intended to strengthen academic ties and the exchange of information between researchers in Israel and in Africa and to harness new technologies for the benefit of humanity. The award is open to researchers from the Technion and other universities in Israel.
Prof. Emeritus Uri Shamir of the Technion’s Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering headed the professional evaluation committee, which submitted its recommendations to the MFF’s management committee. He said that the committee received eight proposals, from which two research groups were selected: From the Technion – Prof. Yehuda Agnon, Associate Prof. Mark Talesnick and Dr. Guy Ramon. From the University of Ben Gurion in the Negev – Prof. Yoram Oren, Prof. Zeev Ronen, and Prof. Jack Gilron.
Jonathan Yach, a trustee of the fund, said that: “Technology and high-tech are wonderful things… our grandfather, Morris Mauerberger, founded the award to make technology available to people who do not normally enjoy it. As noted, this is the first year that the prize was awarded, and this year we focused on water. Water is a vital resource, and as the biologist, Sylvia Earl said: ‘There may be water without life, but there can be no life without water.’”
The Technion’s Vice President for External Relations and Resource Development Prof. Boaz Golany thanked Jonathan Yach, Stephen Seiden and Renie Carniol for being “the next generation of Friends of the Technion.”
The Cooper Award for Research in Excellence
Awarded to Prof. Shaul Markovitch of the Faculty of Computer Science for the development of a new methodology for automatic processing of natural languages.
The Diane Sherman Prize for Medical Innovations for a Better World
Awarded to Prof. Jackie Schiller of the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine for her contribution to understanding the dynamics of the basic computational units in the brain.
The Norman Seiden Prize for Academic Excellence
Awarded to Associate Prof. Guy Bartal of the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Faculty of Electrical Engineering for the development of nanoscale “Nano-Hedgehogs of Light” that pave the way for new applications in information processing, transmission, and storage. Steven, the son of Norman Seiden, explained that the prize was created in honor of his father’s 90th birthday and said that “unfortunately my father was unable to attend the ceremony this year, but it is important for us to note that the Technion has been, and still is, a central part of his life.”
The Henry Taub Prizes for Academic Excellence
Awarded to Prof. Efrat Lifshitz of the Schulich Faculty of Chemistry for her achievements in the development of nanoscale semiconductors and magnetic materials, including quantum wells and semiconductor nanoparticles; to Prof. Oded Béjà of the Faculty of Biology for the discovery of a new family of rhodopsin – light-sensing proteins; to Associate Prof. Mirela Ben-Chen of the Faculty of Computer Sciences for her achievements in algebraic representation of geometer information; to Assoc.Prof. Alex Leshansky of the Wolfson Faculty of Chemical Engineering for his theoretical contribution to understanding the movement of artificial nanometer swimmers; to Associate Prof. Dan Mordehai of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering for his achievements in calculations relating to nanocrystals; and to Assoc.Prof. Meytal Landau of the Faculty of Biology for discovering the mechanism of attack of the violent bacteria “Staphylococcus aureus.”
The Uzi and Michal Halevy Innovative Applied Engineering Award
Awarded to Asst.Prof. Yoav Shechtman of the Faculty of Biomedical Engineering for his work on the subject – High Throughput Three-Dimensional Multicolor Localization.
The Uzi and Michal Halevy Innovative Applied Engineering Research Grants
Awarded to Asst.Prof. Amir Gat of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering for his work on Etafoils – Morphing airfoil skins and to Associate Prof. Gilad Yossifon for innovative technology for the analysis of sperm sampling and screening of live sperm cells.
The Hilda and Hershel Rich Technion Innovation Awards
Prof. Assaf Schuster and Mr. Ilya Kolchinsky of the Faculty of Computer Science, to Prof. Gershon Elber and to Fady Massarwi of the Faculty of Computer Science, to Asst.Prof. Shai Berlin of the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, to Prof. Hossam Haick and Mr. Mohamed Khatib of the Wolfson Faculty of Chemical Engineering, and to Asst.Prof. Michal Rahat of the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine.
European Research Council Grants
Noted recipients: Assoc. Prof. Ronen Talmon of the Viterbi Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Asst.Prof. Yuval Filmus of the Faculty of Computer Science, Asst.Prof. Yoav Shechtman, Prof. Shulamit Levenberg and Prof. Amit Meller of the Faculty of Biomedical Engineering and Assoc. Prof. Kinneret Keren and Assoc. Prof. Oren Cohen from the Faculty of Physics.
Students from Technion’s Viterbi Faculty of Electrical Engineering have developed an inexpensive and simple system to prevent leaving children alone in vehicles.
To mark the official end of the school year, the advanced system based on machine learning technology was created by Technion undergraduate students Adam Barhak and Assaf Yitzhak under the guidance of doctoral student Ayal Taitler and master’s degree student Dotan Shambi. The system has a number of advantages that are hard to find in existing systems – ease of use, simple installation, highly reliable and the low cost.
Leaving babies and toddlers in cars, the tragic consequences of which we are all familiar with is a human error that has occupied researchers for years. However, the various solutions offered to date, such as continuous monitoring of the weight placed on the car seat are unsatisfactory.
Barhak recalls, “We asked ourselves how was it possible that no effective technological solution has been devised for this problem. We decided that we needed to change direction and embark on a new concept – an advanced and cheap thermal sensor that transfers the data to a system that is able to learn, analyze and rapidly make correct decisions.”
The system developed by the two is based on a relatively simple and inexpensive thermal sensor installed opposite the baby seat in the back of the vehicle. The thermal sensor produces an image of the child and transfers the data to a tiny, inexpensive computer (Raspberry Pi), which processes the information and issues an alert. Additional variables are also assessed to prevent false alarms.
The system activates a sequence of alarms in a closed loop that expands according to time passed and the temperature of the vehicle. First, a warning light is turned on, followed by a warning beep and if necessary, notification by text messages to an expanding loop of contacts. The contacts will include rescuers who can remotely open the car doors and windows.
The system is easy to install, the sensor placed on the back of the front seat facing backward plugs into the cigarette lighter socket and can easily be transferred from one vehicle to another. The entire rear seat is monitored and an additional safety seat is not required.
The students are gratified that their main reward for developing the system will be the drastic reduction in the number of small children abandoned in vehicles.
Researchers from the Technion, in collaboration with Japanese and American scientists, have discovered how cyclic peptides inhibit the breakdown of proteins that help cancer grow and thrive. The researchers believe the strategy they have developed will pave the way for new types of anticancer treatment based on cyclic peptides.
Researchers from the Technion, in collaboration with Japanese and American scientists, have developed an innovative strategy for eliminating cancer cells. The research was recently published in Nature Chemistry by Prof. Ashraf Brik of the Schulich Faculty of Chemistry at the Technion, Prof. Hiro Suga of the University of Tokyo, Nobel Laureate in Chemistry and Distinguished Prof. Aaron Ciechanover of the Technion’s Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, and Prof. David Fushman of the University of Maryland’s Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry.
The study is a dramatic milestone in the application of the discovery of the ubiquitin system that led to the 2004 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for Distinguished Professors Avram Hershko and Aaron Ciechanover, and Dr. Irwin Rose. The trio of researchers discovered how unique proteins, which they called the “ubiquitin proteins,” label defective proteins with a “death tag” that leads to their breakdown in protease, also known as the “cellular garbage can.”
Proper functioning of the ubiquitin system is essential for the healthy functioning of the organism, not only in the context of the breakdown of used proteins, but also in many other functions. Disruptions in this system cause serious diseases, including various cancers, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig’s disease), cystic fibrosis, Parkinson’s disease, and other neurodegenerative disorders.
The discovery of ubiquitin paved the way for a new field of research, and many research groups around the world have been working on the ubiquitin system and harnessing it for developing innovative medical treatments. To date, four such drugs have been approved for the treatment of cancer in general and multiple myeloma in particular. These drugs have already saved the lives of many people around the world, but according to Prof. Brik, “the progress in the study of the ubiquitin system and the development of drugs based on its understanding are very slow relative to its potential.”
The first stage in the normal natural activity of the ubiquitin system is the creation of chains of ubiquitin (polyUB chains) that later label the proteins to be broken down. The problem is that when cancer develops in the body, cancer cells know how to carry out manipulation in the ubiquitin system and exploit it for survival and proliferation.
The strategy developed by the group headed by Prof. Brik was designed to neutralize the ability of the malignancy to perform the same manipulation. This strategy is based on an unprecedented combination of Prof. Brik’s skill in producing ubiquitin chains using advanced chemical methods and Prof. Suga’s method of creating very large libraries of molecules called cyclic peptides. As part of the collaboration, the researchers discovered how these cyclic peptides bind to the ubiquitin chains and thus inhibit the breakdown of proteins that help cancer to grow and thrive. They believe the strategy they have developed will pave the way for new types of anticancer treatment based on cyclic peptides.
Prof. Ashraf Brik holds Jordan and Irene Tark Chair in the Schulich Faculty of Chemistry. The current study is supported by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Miriam and Sheldon Adelson Foundation, the Israel Science Foundation (ISF), the Germany-Israel Foundation for Research and Development (GIF), and the Israel Cancer Research Foundation (ICRF).
Security Vulnerability in the Cortana-Alexa Partnership Demonstrates Lock Screen Bypass
Student at the Computer Science Department of the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology has uncovered a significant cybersecurity risk at the interface between the voice-controlled digital assistants of Microsoft and Amazon
A previously unknown security vulnerability in the partnership between voice assistants of Microsoft and Amazon has been revealed by Technion graduate student Yuval Ron and his co-supervisor Amichai Shulman of the Faculty of Computer Science.
“The two companies have created an innovative integration between their voice assistants, which enables the launch of Amazon’s Alexa through Cortana on Windows 10 devices, even when they are in locked mode. For example, Cortana users can talk to Alexa and make online purchases through their Amazon account using voice commands,” says Shulman.
“However, we discovered that this interface also supports the capability of donating thousands of dollars to an arbitrary charity. The danger, of course, is that attackers with physical access to someone’s locked PC could ‘donate’ to themselves without the user’s knowledge.”
But that’s not the only security threat, says Yuval Ron, a graduate student supervised by Prof. Eli Biham head of the Hiroshi Fujiwara Cyber Security Research Center at the Technion and Amichai Shulman. “We encountered another problematic scenario during the sign-in stage,” he says. “When a Cortana user needs to sign into Alexa, the connection was implemented by opening a customized Internet Explorer browser over the locked screen. Such a sign-in mechanism allows attackers to easily manipulate the browser to navigate to malicious websites. If the browser stored cached credentials, the attackers can also hack into the user’s social accounts, like Facebook and Twitter.”
Ron and Shulman reported these security issues to Microsoft on September 1, 2018, and the company fixed it by a server update removing. They removed Alexa from the locked screen, on September 24, 2018.
However, the researchers continued to investigate Cortana and found additional vulnerabilities in its integrations with other platforms such as Spotify. “The connection between Cortana and other platforms expands the attack surface of the locked device, and as we have shown, this surface can be exploited,” says Shulman. As a response to these additional reports by the researchers,
Microsoft decided to disable almost all of Cortana’s skills over the locked screen. It has re-enabled only the skills that have been proven to be safe above the lock.
On June 24, 2019, Ron and Shulman presented their findings in a talk called “Alexa and Cortana in Windowsland”, at the BSidesTLV 2019 conference as part of the CyberWeek events at Tel-Aviv University.
This is not the first time that Technion researchers have raised concerns about security issues in voice assistants. In 2018, Technion students exposed a security vulnerability (CVE-2018-8140) in Cortana. The attack they demonstrated was unprecedented because the students used a voice interface to take over a locked machine. Microsoft fixed the vulnerability based on the information received from the Technion.
This attack on Cortana was created by Yuval Ron and Ron Marcovich, students at the Technion’s Computer Science Department, guided by Amichai Shulman and Prof. Eli Biham, head of the Hiroshi Fujiwara Cyber Security Research Center at the Technion, and with the assistance of security expert Tal Be’ery. The students were invited to present their discovery at Black Hat 2018 – one of the largest security conferences in the world.
Prof. Sivan’s appointment was ratified by the Technion Board of Governors.
He will assume office on 1st October, 2019.
The Technion International Board of Governors approved the appointment of Prof. Uri Sivan as the next president of Technion. Prof. Sivan, a member of the Faculty of Physics, was nominated last February by the presidential search committee. His appointment was approved by the Senate Academic Assembly, and the Technion Council – headed by Gideon Frank.
Prof. Sivan will assume office as President of Technion on October 1, 2019, and will replace the outgoing President Prof. Peretz Lavie, who will complete his term after a decade in office.
Prof. Sivan, 64, a resident of Haifa, is married and the father of three. He served as a pilot in the Israeli Air Force. In 1991, Sivan joined the Faculty of Physics at Technion and he is the incumbent of the Bertoldo Badler Chair. His research has covered a wide range of fields including quantum mesoscopic physics and the harnessing of molecular and cellular biology for the self-assembly of miniature electronic devices. In recent years, his research has focused on the way water orders next to molecules and the effect of this ordering on inter-molecular interactions in biologically relevant solutions.
Sivan has held numerous senior positions at Technion and on a national level. He established and led the Russell Berrie Nanotechnology Research Institute (RBNI) at Technion from 2005 to 2010. Two years ago, Prof. Sivan set up the National Advisory Committee for Quantum Science and Technology of the Council for Higher Education’s Planning and Budgeting Committee (PBC). The committee outlined the national quantum academic program, which was adopted and launched last year under Sivan’s leadership.
“I wish to thank you for the trust that you have placed in me,” said Prof. Sivan to the International Board of Governors. “I stand on the shoulders of giants and I hope to see far, high, and deep. The President of Technion carries tremendous responsibility for the excellence of the institution itself, and the success of its students, administrative staff, and faculty. We are committed to the State of Israel, its security and economic prosperity. I humbly stand here before you committed to do everything in my power to lead this remarkable institution to even greater achievements as it approaches 2024, a century since opening its doors. Technion will continue to serve as a beacon of pluralism, equality, freedom of speech, integrity, ethics, social justice, environmental consciousness, and inclusion in the global community based on these values.”
Technion awarded honorary doctorates to seven distinguished men and women, including entrepreneur and businessman Sami Sagol, architect Moshe Safdie, ISEF founder Nina Weiner, and Prof. Stéphane Mallat, whose grandfather secured the permit to build the first Technion building in 1911
During the festive and emotional ceremony, which took place during the annual Board of Governors meeting, Technion conferred honorary doctorates on seven distinguished individuals. The ceremony was held in the presence of Technion President Prof. Peretz Lavie, Chairman of the Council Mr. Gideon Frank, Chairman of the Board of Governors Mr. Lawrence Jackier, of Canadian Ambassador to Israel H.E. Deborah A. Lyons, French Consul in Haifa Mr. Patrice Servantie, Deputy Mayor of Haifa Mr. David Etzioni, members of the Technion management and Faculty deans.
Technion President Prof. Peretz Lavie said at the ceremony that, “The success of the State of Israel in general, and of Technion in particular, rests on a combination of chutzpah, ambition and the courage to ask questions and risk making mistakes. These are the traits shared by the seven laureates receiving honorary doctorates this evening. They don’t all come from cultures where chutzpah is prevalent, but all succeeded thanks to the fact that they dare to think outside the box, ask important questions and strive for satisfactory answers. We are grateful for your heroic efforts to make the world a better place.”
The Laureates
Architect Moshe Safdie is one of the world’s most celebrated architects. During his distinguished 50-year career, Mr. Safdie has created well over 200 awe-inspiring architectural projects that span the globe. “I was born in Hadar Hacarmel in a Bauhaus modernist building, across the street was the Technion”, he said. “With my parents coming from Aleppo and my architecture education being in the west in Canada, I think I merged within me Western European and Eastern traditions. While I’ve received many Honorary Doctorates and other awards, I’m very moved by being honored by the Technion. For me the Technion is home territory, it is literally where I was born and where I grew up. When I decided to be an architect far away in cold Montreal the Technion was always for me the memory of which school of architecture I should have been at.”
Entrepreneur and businessman Sami Sagol was born in Turkey and made aliyah with his family when he was 15. Under his leadership, the Keter Group grew from a small family-owned company founded by his father in 1948 to a global corporation with an annual turnover of nearly a billion dollars. Mr. Sagol, Technion alumnus in chemistry, said: “I started at Technion as a very young student, before my military service. At Technion I received a basis, not only an education, but how to think and what to think in many fields. In this sense the Technion was the basis for everything I did in my future. The Honorary Doctorate degree from Technion is very special to me as it comes after my first degree in engineering and science from Technion, in this sense it closes a circle. The Technion has a very special place in my heart.”
Prof. Stéphane Mallat, who spoke on behalf of the laureates, is one of the world’s foremost scientists in signal and image processing. However, his speech focused on his family’s unique connection to Technion. “The Technion represents for us a family story across three generations. It began with my grandfather, Asher Mallat, who studied in Istanbul. When the project of the Technion was rejected by the Ottoman authorities in Palestine, he was able in Istanbul to reverse the decision and obtain the rights to build the Technion.” My father was always very attached to Israel and was very impressed by the economic effect of the Technion on Israel.”
Prof. Mallat has close ties to researchers at Technion’s Faculty of Computer Science. He said, “This Honorary Doctorate is a high honor from colleagues, but it is for me a gift from the Technion to my family to remember the engagements, the action of my grandfather and of my father for Israel and Technion.”
Nina Avidar Weiner founded the international educational foundation ISEF, which supports outstanding young Israelis from disadvantaged backgrounds. Through the foundation, Mrs. Weiner has empowered a new generation of leaders who are making an impact on Israeli society. “We’ve had a wonderful relationship with the Technion”, she explained. “A minimum of 30-40 students a year at Technion receive scholarships and the results are phenomenal. We have three or four outstanding students that teach at Technion. The award from Technion is very, very special. I’m sure it will be incredibly important for all our alumni, all of the thousands of alumni we have all over Israel to be recognized by the Technion. I’m very grateful for it.”
Prof. Dr. Alfred Forchel, President of the University of Würzburg, received the honorary degree for his significant contributions to the study of physics and quantum optics, and for his collaboration with researchers at Technion. He remarked,”The cooperation with colleagues at Technion have enabled scientific studies that wouldn’t have been possible otherwise. This Honorary degree from Technion will encourage me to enhance the cooperation in science between the two institutes and beyond this to use this as a means to fuel the exchange of people in Israel.”
Carol Epstein received the honorary degree for her extensive contribution to the State of Israel, Technion and the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute in New York. She told the story about when her parents came to Israel in 1959: “My father walked in and sat in a classroom. He didn’t understand a word of Hebrew but he could understand what was written on the blackboard. He was blown away by the level of instruction. He said, ‘I believe if any single entity is going to be responsible for the success of the State of Israel it’s Technion.’
Receiving an Honorary Doctorate is a great honor both of my parents had Honorary Doctorates. Although I’ve received a couple of awards they never got, this is the only one they got that I’ve yet to receive and I think it’s really special.”
Dr. Stuart I. Feldman received an honorary doctorate for his achievements in the world of computers and software design, for his commitment to technological innovation in Israel and for the advancement of scholarships for women in Mathematics and Computer Science in Israel. He said: “Israel has simply been an amazing source of scientific and engineering progress and the Technion is a very clear leader of the pack in Israel. The quality is simply there, the energy is there, the desire to innovate is there. I’d like to express my thanks to Peretz Lavie and Technion for giving me this fantastic honor.”
