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The Andrew and Erna Viterbi Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering, in collaboration with the semiconductor industry, recently held an event titled “Worlds of Hardware.” The aim of the event was to provide students better exposure to hardware engineering. Speakers explained how hardware engineering is rapidly changing and evolving, and gave examples of the kind of challenges engineers are solving in the industry today.

The event included a presentation of the various tracks that students could pursue. In the “World of Students” section, the students were shown the different courses, labs, and projects included in electrical engineering and computer engineering degrees in the field of hardware design. In “World of Research,” research labs from the faculty presented their work, including graduate students’ posters and lab demos. In the “World of Career” booths, ten semiconductor companies demonstrated their most advanced technologies. Some 800 students participated in the event.

Israel is a global center for chip design. In recent years, increasingly advanced functionalities are performed not on the software (programming) but on the hardware level. Consequently, hardware engineers are in increasing demand, not only in the traditional semiconductor industry but also in software corporations like Google, Microsoft, and Meta (Facebook). Technion alumni form an important part of this industry.

Speakers at the event included Evelyn Landman, Co-Founder and CTO at ProteanTecs; Guy Azrad, Vice President of Chip Design Engineering at Google; Ido Bukspan, Vice President of Chip Design at NVIDIA; and Tal Inbar, Senior Director of System on Chip Engineering at Apple.

R-L: Ido Bokspan, Tal Inbar, Avelyn Landman, Tami Sasparta, Guy Uzrad, Prof. Shachar Kvatinski

R-L: Ido Bukspan, Tal Inbar, Evelyn Landman, Tami Sasporta, Guy Azrad, Prof. Shahar Kvatinsky

“A decade ago, the dominant paradigm in hardware was that as transistors are becoming smaller, one need only cram more transistors on the same chip to make it more efficient,” Guy Azrad from Google told the students. “These days, we’ve just about reached the physical limits of how small a transistor can be. So, we have to design smarter.”

“Designing hardware is becoming increasingly challenging, and increasingly interesting,” added Tal Inbar from Apple. “It is also increasingly rewarding. Doing things in hardware is significantly more efficient than doing them in software, in terms of both power and performance. Through smart design, we get to push the limits of the possible.”

“There are many different technologies all combined on every single chip,” Ido Bukspan from NVIDIA explained. “Consider for example systems like lab-on-chip, a device only square millimeters in size, which can perform laboratory functions – how many different technologies must be incorporated inside. A chip is like a city of technologies. Balancing them all so the chip functions properly – to me that’s engineering at its finest.”

Assistant Professor Yonatan Belinkov from the Henry and Marilyn Taub Faculty of Computer Science at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology has been awarded funding from Open Philanthropy for “An Initiative for the Interpretable Control of Artificial Intelligence.” Open Philanthropy identifies outstanding giving opportunities, makes grants, follows the results, and publishes its findings. Its mission is to give as effectively as it can.

Prof. Belinkov won the grant together with Dr. David Bau from the Khoury College of Computer Sciences at Northeastern University. The grant will support the two research teams’ development of interpretable methods to control artificial intelligence.

Prof. Yonatan Belinkov

“Our initiative aims to develop methods to trace and analyze world knowledge in large language models,” said Prof. Belinkov. “We expect this research will help us deal with emergent and unexpected behaviors of AI systems, including potentially harmful behavior, by providing new ways to control unexpected capabilities that may emerge in AI systems.”

As automatic decisions made by AI systems increasingly affect human society, it is important for the objectives of these systems to be aligned with the best interests of humankind even when their capabilities would eventually surpass humans. To this end, the two researchers aim to open the AI “black box” and close the gap between human and AI knowledge by developing interpretable tools for mapping, evaluating, and controlling the processing of knowledge within large language models. Such tools would facilitate the study of ways to ameliorate serious alignment challenges in critical areas such as misinformation, bias, and privacy.

Prof. Belinkov joined the Taub Faculty of Computer Science in October 2020 after completing a Ph.D. at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a post-doctorate at Harvard University and MIT.

Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and Pfizer, one of the world’s premier biopharmaceutical companies, recently signed a collaboration framework agreement to identify opportunities to collaborate and bring forward scientific breakthroughs at the interface between artificial intelligence and drug development.

The framework agreement was finalized during the visit of a delegation from Pfizer to the Technion. The delegation was led by Pfizer Chairman and CEO, Dr. Albert Bourla, and included Dr. Mikael Dolsten, Chief Scientific Officer and President, Worldwide Research, Development and Medical; Lidia Fonseca, Executive Vice President and Chief Digital and Technology Officer; and other senior executives. Pfizer leaders met with the Technion President Professor Uri Sivan, members of the Technion’s senior management and Technion faculty members from the fields of life sciences and engineering.

Pfizer, a biopharmaceutical company with 170 years of experience developing innovative medicines and vaccines, has made an enormous impact on global health in recent years through its development, with BioNTech, of vaccines that help protect against the COVID-19 virus. In addition to its internal drug discovery efforts, Pfizer regularly collaborates with the biotech industry and academia to identify research and technologies that could lead to scientific breakthroughs. The framework agreement with the Technion is consistent with the Institute’s ambition to advance technological and medical developments by identifying new technologies and various digital tools with potential industrial application.

The Pfizer delegation led by Pfizer Chairman and CEO, Dr. Albert Bourla with the Technion delegation led by Technion President Professor Uri Sivan

“Human health is one of the grand challenges facing humanity in the 21st century,” said Technion President Prof. Uri Sivan. “Like other global challenges, today’s scientific and technological breakthroughs require multidisciplinary research and close cooperation between academia and industry. We recently launched Tech.AI, Technion’s Artificial Intelligence Hub, to serve as the main Technion platform providing faculty & students from all Technion units with the best possible access to the forefront of AI research and application. Cooperation with industry, where the great challenges lie, is vital to an undertaking of this kind, and I am therefore looking forward to Pfizer’s potential contributions to this mission.”

During their visit, the guests met leading Technion researchers working in the field of AI in the context of human health: Associate Professor Shai Shen-Orr from the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine; Professor Tomer Shlomi from the Henry and Marilyn Taub Faculty of Computer Science; Assistant Professor Dvir Aran from the Faculty of Biology and the Taub Faculty of Computer Science; Assistant Professor Noga Ron-Harel from the Faculty of Biology; and Assistant Professor Uri Shalit from the Faculty of Data and Decision Sciences.

According to Prof. Shai Shen-Orr, “the Technion is a leading institution in the field of AI, ranked first in Europe in this field by CS ranking. Our Tech.AI center brings together the Technion’s activity in this field. We are extremely thrilled with the agreement with Pfizer, which will offer Technion researchers close encounters with real-world challenges in drug development, help identify potential applications of AI to drug research and development and expand the Technion’s capabilities in translational research.”

Dr. Albert Bourla with Technion researchers. L-R: Assistant Professor Noga Ron-Harel, Professor Tomer Shlomi, Dr. Albert Bourla, Associate Professor Shai Shen-Orr, Assistant Professor Dvir Aran and Assistant Professor Uri Shalit

Lord (Tariq) Ahmad of Wimbledon, Minister of State for the Middle East, North Africa, South Asia, and United Nations at the FCDO (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office of the United Kingdom) and H.M.A. Mr. Neil Wigan, the UK’s Ambassador to Israel, along with other members of the FCDO and the Embassy, recently visited the Technion’s David and Janet Polak Visitors Center and met with Technion President Professor Uri Sivan and other senior members of the Technion’s management.

The meeting focused on diversity and inclusiveness in the academia, and on the expansion of research collaborations with universities in the UK.

L-R: Technion President Prof. Uri Sivan; Lord (Tariq) Ahmad of Wimbledon, Minister of State for the Middle East; UK Ambassador to Israel Mr. Neil Wigan; Prof. Hossam Haick; Prof. Adi Salzberg, Vice President for Diversity and Inclusion; Prof. Wayne Kaplan, Vice President for External Relations and Resource Development

Lord Ahmad also met Professor Hossam Haick from the Wolfson Department of Chemical Engineering and expressed excitement about his research. Prof. Haick is a recipient of the BIRAX (Britain Israel Research and Academic Exchange Partnership) grant for his study into the development of a breath test for Parkinson’s disease.

President Sivan spoke of the important role of the Technion in Israel’s innovation scene and of diversity on campus. He also conveyed his wishes to expand the scope of Technion collaborations with British academic institutions.

Lord Ahmad expressed the UK’s commitment to strengthening and expanding the collaborations with Israel.

Lord Ahmad (right), Prof. Hossam Haick (back), and Technion President Prof. Uri Sivan at the David and Janet Polak Visitors Center

Do energy bars and ready meals have to be unhealthy? We’re told processed food is “junk food” that is bad for us. But does it always have to be? Processed foods fill certain needs in our lives: we might not have the time to cook on a particularly busy day, wish to pack a pick-me-up after a day of running around, or long for some comfort food. Can we have all of that, while also being confident that we are eating healthily?

In an international event funded by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), students from Turin, Helsinki, Madrid, and the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology worked to design and develop new shelf-stable processed food products that are healthy. The groups were part of the Food Solutions project and chose to look at processed foods as a fact of life, recognizing an opportunity to offer foods that are both healthy and environmentally friendly. The two Technion teams won gold and silver medals respectively for their innovative ideas.

Group photo, R-L: Prof. Uri Lesmes, Michal Halfon, Ari Yolles, Eden Freundlich, Prof. Avi Shpigelman, Caroline Hali, Prof. Maya Davidovich-Pinhas, Neta Shimony, Noa Ben David-Zinn, Rauf Nasyer

“We think of ‘fresh’ and ‘natural’ as the healthy and ‘green’ choices,” Associate Professor Maya Davidovich-Pinhas, one of the teams’ guides, explained. “But that’s not quite true. Modern processing methods, based on scientific knowledge, can preserve, and even enhance the food’s digestibility and nutritional values. When you think about it, food processing has been a part of human history for millennia; it’s what enabled people to preserve food for winter, make it safe for prolonged periods, and carry it on long journeys. Even cooking is a form of processing food, which makes nutrients easier to digest, renders the food safer, and removes toxins and pathogens. Health-consciousness, a scientific approach, and new technology enable us to do the same things in smarter ways, and to get novel healthy food solutions.”

Speaking of products’ environmental footprint, the teams said fresh products require cold storage and cold transportation, which have a high energy cost that shelf-stable products do not incur. Fresh products also spoil quickly, and often go to waste. “One needs to look no further than the local greengrocer’s, at the fruit or vegetables that are imported from across the globe, but will be thrown away at the end of the day if they’re not sold,” the teams commented. “We wanted to create a product that harnesses the benefits of modern processing methods and changes negative connotations about processed food.”

The first team, “OmeleTofu,” won the gold medal for an instant vegan omelette that is ready to eat after just adding water. This tofu-based product is offered in two flavors: mushroom or shakshuka. The product is produced using freeze-drying, a process first developed for medical applications and space travel that, unlike heat-based drying methods, better preserves the food’s nutritional values. The team included graduate students from two faculties: Yael Friedler from the Faculty of Data & Decision Sciences and Neta Shimony, Eden Freundlich, Noa Ben David-Zinn, Rauf Nasyer, and Caroline Hali from the Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering. The idea for the omelette, they say, came from Neta’s vegan boyfriend, who was struggling to find healthy food options that wouldn’t require much time to prepare and would match his dietary needs. The prototype development was supported by Garuda Labs, which helped the team with culinary aspects and implementation of the technology.

צוות Omletofu. מימין לשמאל, יושבים: ראוף נסייר ונטע שמעוני; עומדות: קרולין חלי, נועה בן דויד ועדן פרינדליך (לא נמצאת בתמונה: יעל פרידלר)

The OmeleTofu team. R-L, sitting: Rauf Nasyer, Neta Shimony. Standing: Caroline Hali, Noa Ben David-Zinn, Eden Freundlich. (Missing from the photo: Yael Friedler)

The product developed by the team. (Photo: Caroline Hali)

The second Technion team, which won silver, is comprised of undergraduate students Ari Yolles, Michal Halfon, and Shaked Katzelnik from the Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering, joined by chef Adam Kleinberg from “Bishulim” culinary school. Calling themselves “Proteinchick,” the team developed a vegan, gluten-free, low-sugar, savory protein snack. This snack is made from chickpeas and lentils with a cashew-based filling. Its manufacturing process utilizes its own side-stream – the water in which the chickpeas are cooked, to bring the ingredients together in a process of coextrusion that gives it a fluffy and crunchy texture.

The Proteinchick team: Michal Halfon and Ari Yolles. (Missing from the photo: Shaked Katzelnik and Adam Kleinberg)

The product developed by the team. (Photo: Shaked Katzelnik)

Both groups were guided by Professors Maya Davidovich-Pinhas, Avi Shpigelman, and Uri Lesmes from the Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering. “This competition offers students a unique learning experience,” explained Prof. Lesmes. “They get a taste of the challenges the food sector faces these days. They develop a product, lay down a business plan, scheme its manufacturing, and present their ‘company’ to a team of experienced judges, so the whole process is very similar to founding a real start-up.”

The victories of “OmeleTofu” and “Proteinchick” join a line of trophies Technion students have won in Food Solutions competitions since the initiative was launched in 2017. Winning projects from previous years include vegan oat-based labneh, soy-based yogurt, low-sugar chocolate cake, spirulina-enriched falafel, and a solution to help prevent spoilage of natural juices.

The Technion teams’ success, year after year, is owed to experienced faculty, excellent students, and first-rate infrastructure. As part of their studies in the Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering, the students gain experience in developing food products and in practical work on semi-industrial machinery in the faculty’s Food Innovation Center, in addition to extensive studies of science and engineering. This year, the Technion has set out to upgrade the existing infrastructure, founding the Carasso FoodTech Innovation Center – a research and development center that will be one of its kind in Israel and one of the most advanced in the world, connecting the students to the flourishing foodtech ecosystem.

The Food Solutions competition is part of a larger EIT Food Education program aimed at strengthening the food sector in the European Union through training professionals for innovation, health awareness, and sustainability. The recent competition took place in Brussels, Belgium, in November, and was hosted by Puratos Corporation.

Rafi Aviram

The Technion Council has approved the appointment of Dr. Rafi Aviram to be the Technion’s next Executive Vice President and Director General, following his nomination by the Technion President Professor Uri Sivan and the recommendation of the Technion Senate.

Dr. Aviram’s extensive management experience includes five years as Vice President and Director General of Azrieli College of Engineering in Jerusalem, and, in the past year and a half, Chairperson of the Directors-Generals’ Forum of the Public Colleges in Israel [VARAM].

Dr. Aviram retired from the IDF with the rank of Colonel after a long commanding service. He served as the Managing Director of the Friends of the IDF (FIDF) organization in the United States. Upon returning to Israel, he was appointed an Executive Director of the Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

“After a thorough process and the consideration of dozens of candidates, I am happy to announce the appointment of Dr. Rafi Aviram as Executive Vice President and Director General,” said Technion President Prof. Uri Sivan. “He arrives to the Technion with extensive management experience and specifically in all aspects of the management of academic institutions. I have no doubt that he will quickly become an integral part of the Technion and contribute his experience and abilities to its continued development.”

“I am excited to join the Technion family, a first-class academic institution in Israel and in the world,” said Dr. Aviram. “I am a strong believer in teamwork and will work towards its advancement.”

Dr. Aviram earned a Bachelor’s degree in Physics and Atmospheric Sciences from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, a Master’s degree in Business Administration from Tel Aviv University, and a Doctorate degree in Professional Studies in Business from Lubin School of Business, at Pace University, New York.

An important step has been made in the collaboration between Intel and the Faculty of Materials Science and Engineering at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa. The huge Intel Corporation – the American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California and the world’s largest semiconductor chip manufacturer – has donated to the faculty an advanced characterization device that will help train undergraduate students as leading engineers and scientists.

The new device, called Atomic Force Probe (AFP), makes it possible to perform complex electrical measurements in nanotechnology devices. It came directly from the company’s research and development labs where it was used to develop innovative chips. The device will be available to the students in the faculty’s advanced laboratory courses, to characterize the electrical properties of nanometer structures that they create themselves.

L-R: Dr. Sigal Ben Zvi, director of Intel-Technion relations; Mariana Waxman, director of Intel Israel’s academic relations; Merav Chetrit, responsible for human capital planning for Intel Israel’s production centers; Prof. Gitti Frey, dean of the Technion’s Faculty of Science and Materials Engineering; Estee Gazit, academic relations coordinator at Intel Israel; and Prof. Yachin Ivry, Faculty of Materials Science and Engineering

On behalf of the Technion, the initiative was led by Prof. Yachin Ivry. “The close and ongoing collaboration with Intel expresses our mutual commitment to training the future generation and helps us maintain the Technion’s status as a leading place for training materials engineers,” he asserted. “The device for electrical measurements that Intel is donating will allow students to characterize materials they produce in the laboratory courses in a way that reflects the material taught in the theoretical courses, while using current and relevant tools in an industry that is expected to absorb them after graduation.”

According to faculty dean Prof. Gitti Frey, “We attach great importance to the advanced lab courses, where the theoretical knowledge of the students is combined with the practical work on the research and engineering equipment that they will use outside the academics as well. The new equipment will allow us to expand and deepen this important experience during their undergraduate studies.”

Mariana Waksman, director of academic relations for Intel Israel. said: “Intel and the Technion have cooperated since the establishment of Intel Israel in 1974. It is important to us and will continue to be true in the future. The donated device will mean that not only the students from the faculty will benefit from it but also Israel’s semiconductor industry. We are committed to promoting academic teaching in the field and will continue to strengthen the Israeli academy through support and strategic collaborations with the various universities.”

Researchers at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, in collaboration with researchers at Nagoya and Tokyo Universities in Japan, have uncovered a significant new function of the mammalian sperm protein IZUMO1 that may ultimately lead to more targeted diagnoses and treatment of human fertility problems, as well as enable the development of more sophisticated forms of contraception.

The study, published in The Journal of Cell Biology, was led by Technion researchers Professor Benjamin Podbilewicz and postdoctoral fellow Dr. Nicolas Brukman from the Technion’s Faculty of Biology, and Professor Tetsuya Higashiyama and Dr. Kohdai Nakajima from the Nagoya and Tokyo universities, Japan.

The research group from the Technion,R-L: Prof. Benjamin Podbilewicz, Clari Valansi, Dr. Nicolas Brukman, Xiaohui Li and Katerina Flyak

The researchers found that the protein IZUMO1, which had been discovered in 2005 by Inoue and collaborators to be critical for the binding of sex cells, also plays an essential role in fusing the cells to allow the exchange of genetic material and, ultimately, the creation of the zygote. In 2017, Podbilewicz’s lab discovered the fusogenic function of a different protein responsible for the fusion of sperm and egg cells in plants.

During mammalian fertilization, the plasma membranes of the sex cells attach via an interaction between the sperm protein IZUMO1 and the egg protein JUNO. Once this binding has taken place, IZUMO1 works unilaterally as a fusogen to allow the exchange and combination of the sperm’s and egg’s respective DNAs into a single nucleus. IZUMO1 is the first such protein to be designated as a fusogen in mammalian reproduction. The present study was conducted in the lab, utilizing sperm and eggs from mice and kidney cells in culture.

Dr. Nicolas Brukman, postdoctoral fellow at Podbilewicz lab

Interestingly, the two functions of IZUMO1 – in binding and fusing – operate in a compartmentalized fashion in different regions of the protein, so that each function may potentially be isolated to address specific fertilization problems related to either realm, opening the door to more tailored or personalized fertility treatments and diagnosis.

IZUMO1’s newfound property as a fusogen may also open the door to new approaches to next-generation male oral contraceptives that temporarily disrupt the sperm protein’s binding and/or fusing abilities. This new function of IZUMO1 makes it even more suited to its name, which is taken from one of the most sacred shrines in Japan, dedicated to marriage.

A kidney cell expressing JUNO and a protein that binds DNA (green) was mixed with mouse sperm cells expressing IZUMO1 (red) and their DNA is stained in blue. The pink arrowhead points a sperm that is bound but did not fuse and the white arrowhead points a sperm fused to the cell and therefore is stained in green

Kidney cells expressing IZUMO1 and a fluorescent protein on the nucleus (magenta) are bound to a mouse oocyte expressing a fluorescent protein on the membrane (green) and a blue staining to see the DNA.

Click here for the paper in The Journal of Cell Biolog

In the dorm room of student Ahlam Abugosh hangs a painting of a bird drawn by her sister, Rina Abugosh. “She sold it to me for 100 shekels when she was 12 – after we negotiated the price,” Ahlam says with a smile.

This is just one example of the 97 works on display in the new exhibition in the Technion’s Ullmann building. Although the gallery has only been opened last year, this is already the third exhibition to be held there, in a cooperation between the Dean of Students Office and the Unit for Undergraduate Studies.

The current exhibition, called “Dorms Art Survey,” features photos of diverse works of art from 39 apartments in the Technion dorms. The works were selected by the exhibition team headed by curator Valeria Geselev. More than 40% of the presented artwork was created by the students themselves.

R-L: Technion Student Association chairman Liby Manash; Dean of Students Prof. Ayelet Fishman, Exhibition Curator Valeria Geselev, Israeli Hope Officer at the Technion Effi Barka’i Goral, Senior Technion Executive Vice President Prof. Oded Rabinovitch, Vice President for Diversity and Inclusion Prof. Adi Salzberg, and Dr. Janna Shainsky-Roitman, the Dean of Students

“We issued an open call to students to participate in the exhibition, and the response was tremendous,” said curator Geselev. “All summer, we walked around the student dorms on campus, looking for artworks of all kinds – posters, drawings, oil paintings, and more. We photographed them professionally, with the cooperation of the students, of course. They were warm and enthusiastic. Behind every door, we found love. The students opened up their worlds to us, their personal space, that is sacred to my eyes.”

The exhibition’s opening last week was attended by the Technion Senior Executive Vice President Professor Oded Rabinovitch; Dean of Students Professor Ayelet Fishman; and the director of the dean’s office, Dr. Janna Shainsky-Roitman; the director of the student dormitories, Avraham Adgaha; Efrat Nativ Ronen, secretary of the Unit for Undergraduate Studies.; Israeli Hope Officer Effi Barkai Goral; and Liby Manash, chairman of the Technion Student Association.

The director of the student dormitories Avraham Adgaha

Exhibition curator Valeria Geselev

“The Ullmann building, where all Technion students spend their first year, is considered the melting pot of the Technion, and the most important building in the education we offer our students,” said Prof. Oded Rabinovitch. “This is where the Technion spirit is created, so this location is right and proper for the exhibitions held here. This exhibition will also enhance the feeling of home and transmit a beautiful and important message to the entire Technion community.”

“The exhibition represents the diversity of the dormitory residents,” said Dean of Students Prof. Ayelet Fishman at the opening. “It is a means for women and men pursuing all degrees, individuals and families from all sectors, from Israel and abroad, to express themselves. I warmly thank the students who shared their personal spaces with us.”

“When I began my studies here four years ago, the walls in Ullmann building were empty,” said Technion Student Association Chairman Liby Manash. “This change is so important because art is vital to life. It’s very exciting to see how many students devote time to art while studying at the Technion.”

Student Maymana Hasan alongside her works

Student Tab Mandler next to the works in the exhibition

Student and artist Ofek Zur

Other examples of art presented in the exhibition include:

Levi Horvitz’s dorm room is decorated with paintings his partner, Sapir Solomon, drew as a child;
Zoe Morgenstern hung tapestry in her room, that she got from her brother before he flew abroad;
Jose María Velasco decorated his room with paper cutouts that are part of the Day of the Dead tradition in his native Mexico. “It’s my favorite holiday. I really miss the colors”;
Gleb Merkulov hung a painting in his room created by Lali Kalinina, his mother’s friend from Moscow;
Bhargav Jah has a painting that his former roommate, Noam, found and brought home. “Since then, Noam has returned to the U.S., but the painting remains in my Technion dorm”;
Ofek Zur from the Faculties of Physics and Electrical and Computer Engineering, who filled her room with her own paintings, explained that “The paintings remind me to believe in my talent to create life on paper. They also give me peace and calm and remind me of significant and pleasant moments in my life.”

Students at the exhibition

Curator Valeria Geselev noted that she got her inspiration from the exhibition “Home Is Where The Art Is,” held in 2020 at the Zeitz MOCAA Museum in Cape Town, South Africa. That exhibition displayed about 2,000 works that residents brought from their homes.

According to Geselev, “In the Technion exhibition, we didn’t bring the works themselves, but photographed them and printed them in their original sizes on the walls of the corridor in the Ullmann building. The Technion is seen as a place of achievement and sometimes as a rigid place, but the exhibition reflects the beautiful and varied face of the campus’s human diversity. For me, this is a celebration of individualism – students, their lives, their stories, the human connections they form. I thank all the partners who joined me on the exciting path that led to this exhibition, which is a rich group portrait depicting a temporary human community whose center is the Technion.”

A wall in the exhibition

Explore the arts of the student residences

The Dorms Art Survey

Curator: Valeria Geselev

Producer: Haneen Abed

Photographer: Tair Zargari

Design: Hagar Messer and Ofri Fortis

All the texts in the exhibition appear in Hebrew, Arabic and English

The exhibition will be open until the end of February, 2023.

On October 23, 2022, the “Taste of the Future” conference, which focused on the development of alternatives for animal proteins, was held at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology.

Speakers presented challenges, developments, and breakthroughs in the development and production of substitutes for animal-based foods. The need for such substitutes is increasing as a result of climate changes, the growing shortage of food and water due to the increase in the world’s population, and the devastating damage to biological diversity in nature caused by the clearing of forests for growing feed for cattle and for other animals raised for food.

Professor Sima Yaron, dean of the Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering and among the initiators of the conference, welcomed the attendees and emphasized the importance of promoting this multidisciplinary research at the Technion, partly through the help of the Carasso FoodTech Innovation Center currently being established within the faculty.

R-L: Technion President Prof. Uri Sivan; Prof. Maya Davidovich-Pinchas from the Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering; Roni Zidon, Business Development Manager at Imagindairy, Prof. Avi Shpigelman from the Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering, Anya Eldan – CEO of Nury Ventures, Doron Maor – director of innovative technologies in protein and milk substitutes at Tnuva, Professor Uri Lesmes from the Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering, Dr. Neta Lavon – CTO at Aleph Farms, Professor Eyal Zussman from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Conference Chairman Prof. Yoav Livney, from the Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering, Ella Waldman – Government Relations at GFI, Nir Goldstein – CEO of GFI Israel, Prof. Shulamit Levenberg from the Faculty of Biomedical Engineering, Dr. Liz Specht – Global GFI vice president for science and technology, Dr. Michal Halpert – director of academic relations – GFI Israel, David Shem Tov – leader of innovation and applied research at the Research Authority at the Technion. Conference Organizers: Prof. Livney, Goldstein, Shem Tov, Prof. Shpigelman, and Dr. Halpert.

The conference was organized by Professor Yoav Livney and Professor Avi Shpigelman from the Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering, Mr. David Shem Tov from the Research Authority, and Mr. Nir Goldstein (CEO) and Dr. Michal Halpert (Director of Academic Relations) from the Good Food Institute (GFI), Israel. GFI is a global nonprofit organization that promotes the development of alternatives to animal-based food by supporting research within the field and its application.

Speakers at the conference included:

Dr. Liz Specht, vice president, science and technology, of the global GFI organization, who presented the multidisciplinary nature of the field and the needs that require basic and applied research, and emphasized the urgency of conducting research in the field

Nir Goldstein, CEO, GFI Israel, who reviewed the developments in Israel and the world in the business arena and explained that in terms of investments in alternative proteins, Israel is ranked second globally

Professor Shulamit Levenberg from the Technion’s Faculty of Biomedical Engineering, who explained her research in the field of cultured meat

Dr. Martin Jager, managing partner of the venture capital fund InnoVestNutrition, who described the complex challenges faced by companies in this field

Sunny-side-up “egg” made solely from plant materials, kindly donated by the Yo-Egg company.

A steak made by 3D printing from vegetable materials produced by Redefine Meat

Technion President Professor Uri Sivan, said at the conference that, “connections between academia and industry are a central component of the Technion’s activities today. The traditional boundaries, which associate basic science with academia and applied research with industry, have disappeared. Even at this conference, we see the connection between the two sectors – experts from the Technion discuss the various issues with people from the food industry. This is the path towards changing the food industry into a high-tech industry.”

Professor Maya Davidovich-Pinhas, a member of the Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering, added that, “the Technion excels in connecting basic science with applied research in a variety of fields like food and human health and maintains many contacts with the relevant industries.”

Prof. Sima Yaron, dean of the Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering

L-R: Technion President Prof. Uri Sivan, Prof. Yoav Livney, and Prof. Maya Davidovich-Pinhas from the Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering, and Prof. Shulamit Levenberg from the Faculty of Biomedical Engineering.

Panels of both industrialists and academics discussed the challenges of the field and ways to deal with them via multidisciplinary collaborations. At the end of the conference, there was a “Taste of the Future” lunch, where the participants tried “steaks” made from vegetable protein created using 3D printing by the Redefine Meat company and egg substitutes made from plant materials, courtesy of the Yo-Egg company.