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Two Technion professors will receive the prestigious Israel Prize in May 2022: Prof. Emeritus Joshua Zak of the Faculty of Physics will be awarded the 2022 Israel Prize for Physics and Chemistry Research. Known for the Zak Transform and the Zak Phase, Prof. Zak is awarded for his contribution to the understanding of condensed matter physics. Prof. Emeritus Yoram Palti of the Ruth and Bruce Rappaport Faculty of Medicine will receive the 2022 Israel Prize in the Field of Entrepreneurship and Technological Innovation. Prof. Palti developed groundbreaking cancer treatments that fight malignant brain tumors using electric pulses in a non-invasive manner.

The prizes were recently announced by Israel’s Minister of Educationת Dr. Yifat Shasha-Biton.

Prof. Emeritus Joshua Zak (left), Prof. Emeritus Yoram Palti (right)

His scientific contributions serve, and will continue to serve, in gaining an understanding of the chemistry and physics of material

According to the Israel Prize Committee, Prof. Zak will be awarded the prize for “the development of mathematical tools such as the ‘Zak Transform’ and the ‘Zak Phase’ for the study of quantum phenomena in crystalline solids. These tools allow for the prediction of materials with unique properties to build electronic devices.” The Committee further emphasized that “…his scientific contributions serve, and will continue to serve, in gaining an understanding of the chemistry and physics of material.”

Technion President Professor Uri Sivan commented: “We are honored and exceptionally proud to congratulate Prof. Joshua Zak on being awarded the Israel Prize, and of this important recognition of his contribution to science. Prof. Zak’s research has led to breakthroughs in an understanding of fundamental phenomena that are presented at the forefront of research into quantum mechanics, while contributing greatly to practical engineering applications. Prof. Zak is a member of the generation of giants that founded the Department of Physics at the Technion, laying the foundations for theoretical physics in Israel. This is the second Israel Prize awarded to Technion researchers within a week, and we are literally bursting with pride.”

Joshua Zak, 93, was born in Vilna in 1929. At the age of 12, he and his family were sent to the ghetto, and later, he was deported to forced labor camps and a concentration camp, during which time he lost both parents. As an adolescent, Zak was forced to join the Death March to the west and was released by and immediately recruited to the Red Army – all before he had reached the age of 16. Following his discharge in 1948 he returned to Vilna and began to attend high school, graduating with honors despite having missed many years of schooling due to the war and his military service. When the Korean War broke out, he was again recruited to the Red Army, but was immediately discharged thanks to his brother, Ben-Zion, who persuaded the authorities to permit Joshua to attend university.

He completed his studies in Physics with distinction at Vilnius University in 1955, while simultaneously earning the title of Lithuanian kayak champion. In the same year, he was accepted to further studies in Leningrad and began studying there, but in 1957 was presented with the opportunity to immigrate to Israel, an opportunity he refused to pass up. Within a short time, he was accepted by the Technion, where he completed his doctoral studies under the supervision of Technion Professor Nathan Rosen, who was Albert Einstein’s student and assistant, and Professor Yoel Racah of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In 1960, Zak received his D.Sc., spent some time at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and then returned to the Technion, where he began studying in the Department of Physics. Ten years later, he founded, and headed, the Solid State Institute at the Technion.

Professor Emeritus Joseph Avron, staff member at the Technion’s Department of Physics, who studied for his doctorate under Prof. Zak, said, “Prof. Zak’s story is one of the meteoric rise of a boy who was almost completely unschooled, and it was only thanks to his phenomenal talent that in just a couple of years he succeeded in catching up, completing the entire curriculum imparted to children by the educational system over a 12-year period”.

Prof. Zak has many achievements in physics to his credit, two of which are named after him: the Zak Transform, which is presently used in signal processing, and the Zak Phase – a unique 1D crystal phase, which he described in an article in Physical Review Letters in 1989. This prediction has been verified in numerous recent experiments and is widely cited.

As mentioned, this is the second Israel Prize awarded to Technion researchers within a week. Last week, the Committee announced that the 2022 Israel Prize for Entrepreneurship and Technological Innovation had been awarded to Novocure founder Professor Emeritus Yoram Palti of the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine at the Technion. Novocure has developed an innovative technology for the treatment of cancer, which is currently applied in some 250 medical centers worldwide.

Prof. Yoram Palti developed a groundbreaking method for electrical treatment of several types of cancer

Professor Emeritus Yoram Palti of the Technion’s Rappaport Faculty of Medicine is the winner of this year’s Israel Prize in the Field of Entrepreneurship and Technological Innovation.

The Israel Prize committee, explained its decision: “Prof. Yoram Palti developed a groundbreaking method for electrical treatment of several types of cancer. The treatment is non-invasive and highly selective. His personal story is an inspiration, since this type of breakthrough requires thinking outside of the box and a deep conviction, requiring Prof. Palti to challenge and change existing approaches in this field.” The committee added that, “Prof. Palti is working to expand the use of this technology in order to treat additional types of cancer.”

Technion President Professor Uri Sivan said: “We are proud and absolutely delighted by this important recognition and the prestigious prize awarded to Prof. Palti, who not only developed a new technology, but a groundbreaking new approach to the treatment of cancer – an approach that does not involve chemotherapy or other drugs. Prof. Palti’s work is an excellent example of the integration of engineering and medicine – integration that is among the Technion’s most distinctive hallmarks. Prof. Palti is an outstanding model of the rare ability to translate science into applications that are beneficial to people by combining profound research with an entrepreneurial spirit. Congratulations and well done!”

Prof. Palti was born in Haifa in 1937. As a child, he moved to Tiberias, and later to the U.S. When his family returned to Israel, they settled in Jerusalem, where he completed his schooling at the Beit HaKerem High School (now called Hebrew University High School). In 1955, Yoram Palti began studying at the Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School in Jerusalem. At the army’s request, he took a break from his studies to conduct a research project, and then completed a combined M.D. and Ph.D. degree in Medicine. His thesis focused on a subject that would become his life’s work: the effect of electric fields on live tissue.

He was awarded a post-doctoral fellowship from the National Institutes of Health in the United States, and conducted his post-doctoral research at the University of Maryland in Baltimore. Within one year, he was appointed to the university’s faculty. In 1969, he returned to the Hebrew University, but two years later, was asked to help establish the Technion’s Medical School. Since then, he has linked his fate to that of the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine at the Technion.

Alongside his original research work and management positions at the Faculty of Medicine and at the Rappaport Research Institute, Prof. Palti dedicated himself to translating his innovative research to the clinical field. As a result, he became a serial entrepreneurial – founding a succession of companies, including Carmel Biosensors (monitoring glucose among diabetes patients), EchoSense (diagnosing heart disease), O2Cure (respiratory assistance and artificial lungs), and BetaVive (treatment for diabetes).

The highlight of Prof. Palti’s research and entrepreneurial activities is NovoCure, the company that he founded in 2000, which developed an innovative treatment for cancer patients. The treatment is based on special electric fields (Tumor Treating Fields) that attack the cancerous cells without harming surrounding healthy cells, and therefore do not produce side effects or other risks. Clinical trials began in 2004, and their success led to FDA approval for NovoCure’s technology for the treatment of three types of cancer. Later, the technology received CE approval (the European equivalent of the FDA) for treating all types of solid cancer. Treatments for six additional types of cancer, including pancreatic, liver, ovarian, and lung cancer, are currently at various stages of clinical trials. To date, approximately 20,000 patients have been treated with NovoCure’s technology in around 250 medical centers around the world. The company’s CEO is Asaf Danziger and its Executive Chairperson is Bill Doyle.

We recently released the February edition of our e-newsletter, Technion ‘LIVE,’ which includes a special interview with Technion President Prof. Uri Sivan, a story about a possible cure for ALS, an algorithm that fights antibiotic resistance, scientific experiments in far-away galaxies, and breaking news on two Technion professors who will receive the prestigious Israel Prize in May 2022.

Prof. Emeritus Joshua Zak (pictured, left) of the Faculty of Physics will be awarded the 2022 Israel Prize in the Field of Physics and Chemistry Research. Known for the Zak Transform and the Zak Phase, Prof. Zak is awarded for his contribution to the understanding of condensed matter physics.

Prof. Emeritus Yoram Palti (pictured, right) of the Ruth and Bruce Rappaport Faculty of Medicine will receive the 2022 Israel Prize in the Field of Entrepreneurship and Technological Innovation. Prof. Palti developed groundbreaking cancer treatments that fight malignant brain tumors using electric pulses in a non-invasive manner.

To read the latest edition of ‘Technion LIVE,’ click here. To get our e-newsletter straight to your inbox, click here.

Six students – five women and one man – won top honors in the “Jacobs Research Day”, which showcases selected studies of graduate students. This year the research day took place in an online format.

The Dean of the Graduate school, Prof. Dan Givoli, said “All the presentations were of the highest standard, and despite the online format the participation was impressive.”

The research day was attended by students who previously won top honors for their research in their department. The ranking of the winners is divided into two categories: Masters and PhD.

In the PhD category, Yonit Maroudas from the Faculty of Physics won first place for her study on “Topological defects in the nematic order of actin fibers as organization centers of Hydra morphogenesis” under the supervision of Prof. Kinneret Keren and Prof. Erez Braun.

Yonit Maroudas

Lotan Portal from the Faculty of Materials Science and Engineering took second place for her research on “Self-Catalytic Growth of 1D Materials within Dislocations in Gold” under the supervision of Prof. Boaz Fokroy and Dr. Maria Kaufman-Christosov.

Sofia Kuperman from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering was awarded third place for “Fluid mechanics in single flow batteries with an adjacent channel for improved reactant transport” under the supervision of Prof. Amir Gat.

In the M.Sc. category, Amit Shemaiah from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering won first place for his research on “Adaptable Canopy-like Structure for Underwater Sensing” under the supervision of Prof. Eyal Sussman.

Amit Shemaiah

In second place, was Stav Peled from the Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering for her research on “Oligosaccharide-Lactoferrin (OS-LFH) conjugate particles for selective targeting of proteins to probiotic bacteria in the colon” under the supervision of Prof. Yoav Livni.

Anna Pshenichny-Mamo from the Faculty of Science and Technology Education took third place, for her study of “Natural History Museums Educators’ Conceptions on the Integration of Nature of Science in Guidance” under the guidance of Dr. Dina Cybulski.

Congratulations to all winners!

Technion students will soon create Hebrew Wikipedia entries as part of their coursework.

The Technion’s Social Hub and the Center for the Promotion of Learning and Teaching have teamed up with the NGO Wikimedia to encourage students to write Hebrew Wikipedia articles, with the aim of sharing knowledge with the public and expanding the free knowledge in the fields of science and engineering.

Today, there are more than 300,000 entries on the Israeli Wikipedia site, but there is a shortage of quality and quantity when it comes to STEM subjects – science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

On January 12, an introductory meeting was held for Technion professors to promote the writing of scientific and technological entries for Wikipedia by Technion students, as part of their academic studies. Hebrew Wikipedia is the fifth largest site in Israel in terms of views, with about 2,000 page views per minute.

Dr. Keren Shatzman, coordinator of academic projects at Wikimedia, explained that the organization is working to expand Wikipedia’s free knowledge base.

“In this framework, we seek to encourage students to write entries in their fields of study, which will increase the quantity and quality of free information,” she said. “Although Wikipedia is not an academic source, about 85% of students in Israel use it as ‘pre-search’ – to understand basic terms and gain background on the subject before turning to academic articles – so it is important that the information is good quality and reliable.”

The meeting was attended by the Head of the Center for the Promotion of Learning and Teaching at the Technion, Dr. Olga Chuntonov; academic chairman of the Technion’s Social Hub Dr. Meirav Aharon Gutman; Social Hub Director Ronit Piso; students and faculty members. According to Dr. Aharon Gutman, the collaboration with Wikimedia is part of the social involvement the Hub is trying to encourage at the Technion. “Writing entries in Wikipedia is an effective way of disseminating knowledge to teachers, students, and anyone who wishes to do independent learning, outside the confines of the campus.”

Dafna Levin, a doctoral student and teaching assistant of the “Issues in Urban Sociology” course – one of the courses that form part of the project – spoke about working with the students. “This is meticulous work,” she said. “Trying to find out what our added value is compared to the English entry.”

Technion students have already participated in writing articles for Wikipedia. The entry “Public Space,” written as part of Dr. Aharon-Gutman’s course, has already received 5,000 views, and “Porosity,” written as part of one of Professor Uri Shavit’s courses, has received about 6,000.

At the January meeting, Zohar Weiss, a graduate student in the urban planning track in the Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning, said that writing the entry on “cooperative housing” combined her personal interest with the professional knowledge she acquired in her studies. “At the end of the day people use Wikipedia to find out about everything, but its impact is even greater because the information reaches a really wide audience, which is really exciting.”

Zohar Weiss

The coronavirus pandemic, also known by its more precise name COVID-19, started in late 2019 and spread rapidly around the world. Although the original form of the novel coronavirus – SARS-CoV-2 – was armed with an effective system against mutations, it was not immune to them. Indeed, the virus has since “split” into strains according to differing evolutionary variables in different populations. The World Health Organization (WHO) decided not to give complicated names to each variant and has instead named the variants after letters of the Greek alphabet: Alpha for the British variant, Beta for the South African, Gamma for the Brazilian, Delta for the Indian, and so on.

The appearance of new variants is the result of random mutations and natural selection. Most mutations do not significantly alter the virus’s ability to survive and infect, but some give it a significant advantage to thrive and spread in the community. In the context of the current pandemic, these mutations occur in the spike protein – the arrowhead of the virus – which allows it to penetrate the cells in our body.

Many research groups are currently studying the mechanism for the emergence of new coronavirus variants, through analyzing their evolution and specifically the evolution of the spike protein. These studies have allowed for the unprecedented development of dedicated and effective mRNA vaccines that have largely curbed the pandemic. Although they have not completely defeated it, they have succeeded – mainly in populations with high vaccination rates – in reducing its damage to human life, the burden on health systems, and disruption to daily routine.

The commonality between most of these studies is that they focus on the dynamics of the formation of variants in the population and on the more “active” variants in terms of infection in the population. A study carried out at the Technion and published in PLOS Pathogens sheds light on a lesser-studied area: new variants at the individual level, or, in other words, what happens in the body of the patient during their illness. The study was led by Assistant Professor Yotam Bar-On and doctoral student Dina Khateeb, both from the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine.

Prof. Yotam Bar-On (left) and Dina Khateeb

The study is the culmination of a year and a half of work and is based on an experimental platform that Prof. Bar-On began developing during his postdoctoral fellowship. The technology, initially developed as part of an HIV study, provided sequencing on an individual molecule level, mapping the genome of the individual virus, and comparing different variants that developed in the patient’s respiratory system. Furthermore, it can detect very low doses of virus found in tissue cells that do not show up with simpler methods.

During the study, the researchers discovered various mutations not included in existing databases and even a new, previously unknown variant. The researchers also examined the efficacy of existing vaccines against these variants and found that the efficacy varies depending on the different types of mutations in the spike protein.

Prof. Yotam Bar-On

Good news: the mutations that develop in the patient’s body produce, as a rule, variants with a relatively low adhesion capacity. In other words, these variants may not be transmittable from person to person. The scientists emphasise that this hypothesis still requires further research, but these findings hold true for the 10 variants examined to date in the study.

The researchers identified a specific mutation in s2 – one of the spike proteins, which impairs the effectiveness of antibodies battling the virus. “This identification is an important factor in understanding the adaptation of the virus to its host’s body,” explains Prof. Bar-On. “We appreciate that our findings may lead to the detection of weaknesses in the virus – mechanisms that weaken its ability to infect – and to develop new measures to curb infection.”

The findings show that analysis of the evolution of the virus at an individual level contributes to a better understanding of its development and of possible ways to combat it using vaccines and drugs. The researchers, who have focused on mutations related to the Alpha variant, estimate that a similar analysis of the Delta variant – currently the most dangerous strain – may increase the toolbox available to science and medicine in the fight against the pandemic.

Dina Khateeb

Assistant Professor Yotam Bar-On completed his PhD at the Hebrew University and his postdoctoral fellowship at Rockefeller University. He is head of a laboratory in the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine at the Technion, which deals with the interaction between viruses and the host organism in various diseases, including Coronavirus and HIV.

Dina Khateeb holds a B.Sc. in Medical Life Sciences from Hadassah College and an M.Sc. in Biomedical Sciences from the Hebrew University. She joined the Bar-On lab at the Technion in April 2020, shortly after the outbreak of the pandemic and immediately began studying the evolution of the coronavirus. The current study was based on samples from that period – using some of the first samples taken from coronavirus patients in Israel.

The study was supported by the National Science Foundation in collaboration with the Technion Genomic Center (TGC) headed by Dr. Tal Katz-Ezov, the National Center for Influenza and Respiratory Viruses at Sheba Hospital headed by Dr. Michal Mendelboim and the MIDGAM team – Israeli National Biobank for Research – at Rambam Medical Center.

Click here for the paper in PLOS Pathogens

Genetic counseling is a complex medical process that includes an explanation of genetic principles and hereditary diseases, risk calculations, and relevant tests. The knowledge revolution in the field of medical genetics makes these conversations increasingly challenging, both for consultants and patients, who need to digest new, complex, and medically complicated information, and translate it into more concrete steps and decisions with deep personal implications for individuals and families. Informed decisions are based on available information, as well as on a wide range of personal factors, including cultural, moral, and religious perspectives.

Genetic counseling is an important service whose availability becomes more and more limited due to a shortage in professionals, the increasing length of time needed for each session, and restricted access to a genetic counseling service in certain geographic areas. These challenges are even more significant in a multicultural population with diverse educational levels, and a poor understanding of genetics. The recent epidemic has added another layer of difficulties in accessing the service.

Olfat Abuleil-Zoubi and Chen Gafni-Amsalem, both studying for a Ph.D. in the Technion’s Rappaport Faculty of Medicine and working together at the HaEmek Medical Center’s Genetic Institute, have developed an approach to make it easier for consultants and patients to streamline the process. They examined whether the use of digital tools, such as professional animations they developed on selected topics, affect the outcome of genetic counseling. They compared the effect of these animations to counseling without prior intervention, as is the current practice, as well as to the effect of reading an information booklet on the subject prior to counseling, as a more “traditional” educational tool.

Olfat Abuleil-Zoubi

Abuleil-Zoubi and Gafni-Amsalem were supervised by the director of the Institute, Clinical Professor Stavit Shalev from the Faculty of Medicine, and Professor Ayelet Baram-Tsabari from the Faculty of Education in Science and Technology. According to Prof. Shalev, “Genetic testing is a process that affects not only those being tested but also their family members and sometimes the wider community as well. The process can generate many concerns, so the access to information and full understanding of the whole medical picture, is very important. These are topics that are very diverse and personal, such as deciding whether to marry a partner, whether to endanger a pregnancy with an invasive test, or whether to terminate a pregnancy due to diagnosis of a particular genetic condition. They’re decisions that have far-reaching implications. Effective communication between service providers and recipients is critical to a successful process, at the end of which patients will make an informed personal decision, appropriate for them, based on the knowledge and information they acquired during the consultation.”

Prof. Stavit Shalev

The two students selected ten relevant topics within genetic counseling and made an animated video for each one containing information and guidance on the specific content. Altogether they produced 20 videos – each topic in both Hebrew and Arabic. “The need for early preparation for counseling has been made clear to us by the people who come to the Genetics Institute for advice,” said Zoabi. “We all know that knowledge is power, and the knowledge relevant to the important decisions related to pregnancy and birth allows people to make more informed decisions in line with their worldview. Furthermore, it is now clear to us that knowledge may help alleviate the concerns associated with the process.”

The trial involved 1,380 patients, some of whom came in for counseling due to abnormal findings during pregnancy and some on other issues, such as genetic screening tests, advanced age of the mother, conditions of family members, and fertility defects. Gafni-Amsalem explained that “although reading explanatory pamphlets has been found to be effective, the animations have been found to be much more effective, especially among less educated populations with poor understanding on genetics.”

“We expect people to make informed decisions about their health,” said Prof. Baram-Tsabari, “but that moment of receiving surprising news in the genetic counselor’s office is probably not the best time to learn the basic concepts of genetics. Making the relevant science accessible, and only the relevant science, in a clear and non-threatening way at a time convenient for the patient to digest, makes it easier for them to make an informed decision.”

Prof. Ayelet Baram-Tsabari

Gafni- Amsalem agreed. “The importance of accessing information digitally is particularly relevant today, after a long pandemic that has made it difficult to hold in-person consultations,” she said. “Using animation as a preparatory stage for genetic counseling has many advantages such as being consistent, accurate and reliable, and can be consumed at a time, place – and pace – comfortable to the user, to ensure optimal user experience. Today, digital tools are part of our daily personal and social behavior and digesting the material on a phone prior to a hospital appointment is very normal for our patients.”

Chen Gafni-Amsalem

“In the experiment, we showed the patients the videos while they were with us at the Institute of Genetics, but following its success, we began to routinely send the digital files to patients’ phones before genetic counseling,” Prof. Stavit said. “Considering the success of the intervention, we plan to roll-out this approach to all patients as part of the general health service in Israel.”

The videos (in Hebrew) can be viewed here.

Researchers from Maccabi KSM Research and Innovation Center, in collaboration with researchers from the Technion, found that the effect of the COVID-19 booster shot on lowering the viral load is waning, similar to the second dose of the vaccine

A new study by Maccabi KSM Research and Innovation Center (Kahn-Sagol-Maccabi), headed by Dr. Tal Patalon, and the Technion, shows that the effectiveness of the coronavirus booster vaccine in lowering the viral load, is similar to the second vaccine dose – reducing the viral load within months. Previous studies have found that the viral load is most likely related to the chances of infecting others, so the lower the viral load, the lower the chances of infection.

According to Dr. Tal Patalon, Head of Maccabi Research and Innovation Center: “In light of the spread of the Omicron variant, it is highly recommended that at-risk populations follow the recommendations of the Ministry of Health. We researchers, along with healthcare policy representatives, have to continue monitoring the spread of the virus; its short- and long-term implications, and to manage this global epidemic wisely.”

“The results suggest a significant decrease in the effectiveness of the vaccine against the transmission of the virus, and this decline may be affecting the spread of the virus in the community”

According to Prof. Roy Kishony from the Technion’s Faculty of Biology: “In previous studies, we have seen that the vaccine and the booster not only reduce the chances of getting the disease but also reduce the viral load in the body of those who are infected, thus apparently reducing further infections in the population. However, during our current work, we have seen that the protection of the vaccine against a high viral load decreases within a few months after the booster, similar to the decline we saw after the second dose. These results suggest a significant decrease in the effectiveness of the vaccine against the transmission of the virus, and this decline may be affecting the spread of the virus in the community.”

Prof. Roy Kishony

This is the sixth study on coronavirus as part of collaborative work between the researchers. The study was led by Dr. Tal Patalon and Dr. Sivan Gazit from the Maccabi Research and Innovation center together with Prof. Kishony, Matan Levine-Tiefenbrun and Dr. Idan Yelin from the Technion Faculty of Biology and the Lorry I. Lokey Interdisciplinary Center for Life Sciences and Engineering.

The study was carried out on anonymized data with the approval of the IRB Committee and included over 21,000 positive tests from Maccabi members over the age of 20. The period studied was between June 28 and November 29, 2021 – five months during which Delta was the dominant strain in Israel, prior to the onset of Omicron.

The researchers note that the study has some limitations. Firstly, the study refers solely to the effect of the booster on the viral load and does not examine the efficacy in preventing the disease; that is, it does not determine if the protection against infection is similarly waning. Secondly, although viral load is a common indication of the presence of the virus, the correlation between the viral load and infection is not fully established. Thirdly, differences in public behavior may affect the timing in which people are tested, and since viral load is associated with the time after infection, such differences may skew the results of the study.

The researchers plan to continue tracking real world data and conducting followup studies in different populations.

The MindState ideation competition, which harnesses scientific and technological knowledge for improving healthcare, will take place online on January 11-12. Approximately 70 students from the Technion and Cornell Tech will participate in the ideation sprint, working in mixed groups of students from both institutions with support from medical teams and leading designers. The winners will receive monetary prizes – $5,000 for 1^st place, $3,000 for 2^nd place and $2,000 for 3^rd place.

During the event, student teams tackle challenges of developing innovative technologies that have business potential and can improve the future of medicine. In past years, the winning teams proposed unique and innovative solutions for a wide range of medical problems. Last year, the team that won 1^st place later received the top prize in the BizTEC entrepreneurship competition: https://www.technion.ac.il/en/2021/02/time-to-care/.

The annual ideation event is organized by the Technion, Cornell Tech, the MindState company and two leading hospitals, Rambam and Sourasky. The competition presents real challenges and real problems, and some of the solutions developed by the students during the ideation become actual inventions and sometimes grow into start-up companies.

Senior doctors have been extremely helpful in formulating the challenges: Prof. Lior Gepstein of the Technion Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, director of the Rambam Department of Cardiology and director of the Research Division; Dr. Yona Weissbuch, director of the National Center for Medical Innovation Studies in partnership with Rambam and the Technion; and Prof. Eli Sprecher, deputy director of Research & Development and director of the Department of Dermatology at the Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center (Ichilov).

This is the hackathon’s third year, and this year 35 students from seven different Technion faculties will participate – compared to only six students who took part in the first year, 2020.

This year, the event will focus on the connection between climate and medicine, with a special emphasis on challenges in three categories: Planet Earth, hospitals, and patients. The teams will confront a range of subjects, such as air pollution and respiratory disease, early detection of skin cancer, preparedness for natural disasters, improving hospital processes, ‘green’ hospitals, reducing the psychological impact of isolation, and dealing with fatigue of medical teams due to lack of sleep.

The competition is the conclusion of a unique class offered at the Technion by Dr. Joachim Behar, director of the Artificial Intelligence in Medicine Laboratory (AIMLab) in the Faculty of Biomedical Engineering, and teaching assistant Sophie Segal. Together with Dr. Behar, the ideation sprint is led by Prof. Ron Brachman, Director of the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute; Prof. Ariel Orda, Jacobs Program head at Technion; Michael Escosia, Libby Budashev and Lucie Milanez of the Jacobs Institute; and Tamar Many and Henk van Assen, founders of MindState. According to Many, “the previous ideation sprints clarified the importance of the direct connection between the multidisciplinary students, the designers and the medical teams who cope with real problems. The enthusiasm can be seen from all sides, and I am delighted that the medical teams and the hospital management are fully committed to our initiative in such difficult times.”

The student teams are accompanied by mentors from the Rambam and Sourasky medical centers and by professional designers from the leading companies Designit, Monday, Google, Melio, Wix and Lightricks. The concluding ceremony, during which the winners will be announced, will take place in April.

Learning to communicate: Technion students develop an app for the “Madrasa” project in honor of International Arabic Language Day

The UN’s International Arabic Language Day is commemorated each year on December 18, which is the anniversary of a resolution passed by the UN General Assembly making Arabic one of its official working languages. Students from the Henry and Marilyn Taub Faculty of Computer Science at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology recently developed an app for the Madrasa project to help people learn Arabic. The app features a voice recognition component that will support tens of thousands of students as they work to develop Arabic pronunciation skills.

Madrasa is a social, technological, community-oriented initiative that advocates for better communication in Israeli society through spoken Arabic courses. It promotes language learning through a platform that includes free online courses, extensive activity through digital channels, and many other collaborations. There are currently more than 100,000 students enrolled in Madrasa courses.

According to Gilad Sevitt, founder and director of Madrasa, “During our seven years of operations, we have seen the need for people to practice their speaking proficiency while learning, while hearing the same question from students over and over again: ‘What about an app?’”

This question led to the recent collaboration between “Madrasa” and the Taub Faculty of Computer Science, as part of an “Industrial Project” course under the guidance of Professor Alex Bronstein. The course is focused on cooperation with industry and in the future will also lead to collaborations with various social organizations.

The project was aided by students Mahmod Yaseen and Rajeh Ayashe, who focused on developing the voice recognition components. Students Noor Hamdan, Rina Atieh, Lina Mansour, and Wadad Boulos, worked on developing the app itself. “Working with the students was very effective and helpful,” Sevitt said. “They came on board and contributed greatly to our project and we enjoyed working together on both the linguistic and technological levels.”

Mahmod and Rajeh created an effective infrastructure for bots to have conversations with students. The bot (voice recognition component) creates a conversation in spoken Arabic and teaches new students to pronounce words and have conversations on various topics. The conversations are written by Madrasa’s pedagogical team, and the students developed an editor that directs the level of conversation and content according to the knowledge gained by each student in the online courses.

IBM has been enthusiastic about the development and is considering moving forward with it. “With the help of Technion students, we were able to develop a voice recognition component that will finally allow tens of thousands of students in our online courses to practice their pronunciation in Arabic and speak while learning,” Sevitt said. “The component will be integrated as soon as possible in the courses alongside all videos, games, and exercises, and will be a kind of conversation bot through which students can practice their proficiency of spoken Arabic.”

This project, in which Noor, Rina, Lina, and Wadad are partners, includes the initial development of the app, as well as making various adjustments and solving any glitches that come up in the future.

The app will upgrade the students’ learning experience, provide alerts, and serve as the basis for many other developments, such as mobile games and more. It is expected to be released on Beta in the coming months.