Download the President Report
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
PRESIDENT’S REPORT 2016 Cover: Nanotechnology is revolutionizing medicine, promising life-saving treatments and a greater precision in treating chronic disease. At the laboratory of Prof. Ester Segal, silicon carriers of drugs are promising more eective, refined and focused treatments for cancer. Find the report online: http://report.technion.ac.il PRESIDENT’S REPORT 2016 Technion is a space where science and technology generate innovation beyond the frontiers of the known. © Annie Tritt AN open source OF Excellence Prof. Peretz Lavie, Technion President PRESIDENT’S REPORT 2016 3 ut of the mission to be of service to O the country and humankind for the global good, both the freedom of research, to advanced medicine, the game-changing institute in pure scientific thought and through to quantum mechanics. NYC, Technion conferred an the process of application are At the same time, this has been honorary doctorate on the critical. This requires moving a historic year in transcending project’s visionary, former NYC “Out of the from a living dimension of the limitations of national Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg unlimited unlimited potential through borders. In December, Technion at the Technion Benefit Gala in mind, new layers of limitation. In these and Shantou University New York City. ideas are born, processes of negotiating in Guangdong Province, which include time, space and speed, China, made history with the At home at Technion, we do new ways of innovation is born. Yet it groundbreaking of Israel’s first all we can to facilitate and thinking, new always starts with the ever institute of higher education promote collaboration and concepts and unlimited. in China: Guangdong Technion- research across the traditional new methods.” Israel Institute of Technology limits of individual disciplines. Here at Technion, innovation (GTIIT). Made possible through Research now and in the future - Prof. Peretz Lavie is in our DNA. It is encoded a magnanimous gift of the Li Ka will be done by people who can in our mission and purpose. Shing Foundation, GTIIT will offer bridge between different fields Through generations, we have high-level, innovative, research- of science. From high impact learned through experience the oriented undergraduate and research into energy science, depth of the wisdom of Albert graduate education. It represents technology and engineering Einstein, chairman of the first a portal of pure potential for at the Grand Technion Energy Technion Society, that: “We unlimited innovation, spanning Program, through to the nano cannot solve problems with the east and west and bridging the dimension at the Russell Berrie same thinking we used when academic map of today with the Nanotechnology Institute we created them.” academic needs of the future. (RBNI), and on to the frontiers of quantum science, we are Out of the unlimited mind, Across the globe in New York empowering research beyond new ideas are born, which City, this year also celebrated limits. As you will read in include new ways of thinking, the consolidation and flowering this report, the results are new concepts and new of the Joan and Irwin Jacobs tremendously exciting, giving methods. This requires Technion-Cornell Institute. The insight after insight into the way openness and overview, both Institute today promotes and in which the science of today will of which require some freedom leverages a synergy between impact our world tomorrow. in space and time. its parent institutions to offer a global perspective on technology This year has seen transfer, commercialization and breakthrough discoveries in entrepreneurship. To honor Prof. Peretz Lavie areas ranging from energy the momentous initiation of President Innovation THE DREAM FACTORY At Technion, there is a living spirit of entrepreneurship. The impact of the Technion OVER network worldwide is such that Technion’s name is today the brand of a new paradigm of $200 M innovation through the gateways of academia. INVESTMENT RAISED OVER 100 LEADING MENTORS Out of the Bronica Enretrepreneurship was established in 2004. Center, there is a perpetual flow Over 200 applicants, alumni, of events to inspire innovation, mentors and partners attended application and entrepreneurship. the keynote lecture, given by serial From BizTEC to 3 Day Startup (3DS) entrepreneur, Dov Moran, inventor of competitions, Hackathons, 3DS the Disk-on-key. 115 teams including Executive VP for Research Prof. Wayne Kaplan (l) Healthcare, the Dream Factory, 260 entrepreneurs have applied to with BizTEC 2015 winning team, Peekaboo: Janna mentoring, workshops, lectures, BizTEC 2016. 53% of all applicants Tenenbaum-Katan, doctoral student in the Faculty of Biomedical Engineering, Lior Har-Shai and Yoel and global events, education in are students or alumni from the Angel, Rappaport Faculty of Medicine graduates. entrepreneurship is embedded in Technion. 17% of applicants are all that is Technion. women; almost twice the average percentage of women-founders in OVER 130 BizTEC 2016 was launched during a the Israeli Startup ecosystem. START-UP COMPANIES grand opening event on April 4th at the Technion. This is the 12th year of BizTEC 2015 was won by Technion’s ESTABLISHED BY ALUMNI Israel’s leading annual technological Peekaboo Group, which developed a entrepreneurship competition, which technology for the non-invasive PRESIDENT’S REPORT 2016 5 115 TEAMS (260 ENTREPRENEURS) APPLIED TO BIZTEC 2016 17% OF 53% OF APPLICANTS APPLICANTS ARE TECHNION STUDENTS ARE WOMEN & ALUMNI TWICE AVERAGE PERCENTAGE OF WOMEN FOUNDERS IN 47% ARE APPLICANTS ISRAELI STARTUP ECOSYSTEM FROM 15 OTHER ISRAELI INSTITUTIONS AND ABROAD BizTEC gives real- collection of sterile urine from baby Other technologies that reached the time, nitty gritty girls. They received a 10,000 NIS finals: an app for locating products in experience in the prize from the Technion, the main stores; smartphone-controlled robots; blood, sweat, tears sponsor of the competition. home monitor for pulmonary and brilliance diseases; a non-invasive cardiac Second place went to DeepSense, monitor; a system for navigation demanded when which predicts and helps prevent inside buildings; a laboratory you want to get the failures in industrial machines; and management platform; a smart big idea inside your third place to SelfLift – a sustainable needle for tumor biopsies; and head, out to the big and inexpensive irrigation solution for a wearable system designed to world of commercial small-scale farms. shorten athletes’ recovery time. realities. Innovation Aerospace Engineering doctoral student Shani Elitzur won third place in the 2015 international Falling Walls Young Innovators competition in Berlin. FALLING WALLS Shani Elitzur a doctoral student at the demonstrated applied feasibility with Faculty of Aerospace Engineering, won commercial potential. third place in the international Falling Walls Young Innovators competition in Shani began her studies at Technion Berlin. Elitzur, one of the competition’s as a member of the IDF Academic 100 finalists from 44 nations, presented Reserve, and went on to earn a master’s an innovative technology for the degree. For her doctorate, under the production of hydrogen energy that guidance of Prof. Alon Gany and Dr. could reduce dependence on oil through Valery Rosenband, she is developing the use of hydrogen-based propulsion. an innovative technology for producing energy from hydrogen. Falling Walls Lab is an international competition held in Berlin since 2011. The method is based on the interaction Shani Elitzur, Falling Walls winner More than 1,300 young scientists between aluminum and water in the applied for the competition this year. presence of a very low dosage of The name of the competition an activating substance (2.5%). The is a tribute to the fall of the Elitzur recently received a grant from the electrical energy generated by the Berlin Wall, and the basic Ministry of Science for developments aluminum-water technology is higher idea is that contestants will in the field of alternative fuels for by an order of magnitude than the present breakthroughs that transportation – a NIS 300,000 grant electrical energy obtainable with the constitute breaking down that will enable her to continue her existing storage technologies, including ideological, technological research. According to the Ministry of lithium batteries. and other “walls.” Science, Elitzur’s research program has T-Factor in its new home PRESIDENT’S REPORT 2016 7 ENTERPRISE FOR ALL T³ is capitalizing on the Also this year, the Technion scientific and accelerator T-Factor was launched. technological T-Factor’s mission is to support impact of Technion students, faculty and alumni the Technion T³’s task is to open the doors to in ‘creating their jobs’; providing seed network. innovation, ushering new funding, a mentorship network, access technologies into world markets. to Technion labs and infrastructure, As part of Technion Research fundraising support and workspace. and Development Foundation Ltd. (TRDF), T³’s success in bridging The launch of T-Factor was swiftly laboratory and marketplace is critical followed by a cooperation agreement to Technion’s position as a global between the accelerators of Ecole leader of innovation. Polytechnique (l’X) and the Technion, signed during the State visit to Israel by Today, the Josepho Industrial French Minister of Economy, Industry Research Center is a hub for and Digital Affairs, Emmanuel Macron. entrepreneurship, company formation and commercialization. Under