Minister of Science Ofir Akunis: "Israeli advocacy at its best"
The first new exhibition of its kind by the Ministry of Science will present about 60 developments and discoveries from Israel that have influenced the world. The exhibition will be displayed at Ben-Gurion Airport starting today and for a year on a huge wall in the area after the passport control, with the potential of exposure to about 8 million passers-by during the year. The exhibition will be launched in Israel on March 7 in a festive ceremony in the presence of Minister of Science Ofir Akunis and Minister of Transportation and Intelligence Israel Katz.
According to Science Minister Ofir Akunis, "The exhibition is a tremendous informational asset for Israel. We present the tremendous contribution of Israeli science and technology to the world and to humanity as a whole. We have a stage and we have someone to be proud of. Israel is a pioneering and innovative country. All over the world, our great achievements are looked upon with astonishment and appreciation, therefore it is fitting that they should be displayed at Israel's entry and exit gate."
The purpose of the exhibition is also to inform and make science accessible at home. A new survey by the Ministry of Science paints a worrisome picture regarding the Israeli public's familiarity with the subjects of science and the personalities central to it. The survey shows that 43% of Israelis did not know how to state that former President Chaim Weizmann's original occupation was a chemist, and that about half of Israelis do not know how to state even one of the Nobel Prize-winning Israeli scientists. As part of the activities of the Ministry of Access to Science, the Ministry initiated, in cooperation with the Young Academy of Sciences, the exhibition that will present science in Israel and the prominent people in it at eye level and in a visual form.
The exhibition will feature about 60 discoveries and developments from Israel that were chosen by the selection committee, which was made up of representatives of the Young Academy of Sciences and the Chief Scientist's Office at the Ministry of Science, due to their innovation, the breakthrough they made and their impact, direct or indirect, on the lives of millions of people around the world. Along with the more well-known developments of cherry tomatoes, disk-on-key, "PillCam", "Copaxon" for the treatment of multiple sclerosis, a robot for back surgery, a system to prevent accidents by "Mobilay" and Intel chips developed in Israel, developments less well-known to the general public will also be presented whose contribution is enormous: a method to activate immune cells to treat cancer, technology for the early diagnosis of diseases using the oral cavity, drugs for the treatment of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, the discovery of mushroom species in the Dead Sea, the development of vine varieties without germs, the development of algae to heal heart tissue, the discovery of the form of self-organization of bacteria, the development of a muon detector that is used by The particle accelerator at CERN, the "Venus" satellite for environmental monitoring and more.
A significant part of the exhibition will be dedicated to 8 Nobel Prize brides and grooms from Israel, to 3 Turing Prize winners in computer science and to the winner of the Fields Medal, the equivalent of the Nobel Prize in mathematics. At the beginning of the exhibition, well-known historical figures who contributed a lot to the field of science related to the country will be presented, such as Chaim Weizman, the discoverer of the wheat, Aharon Aharenson, Maimonides, Albert Einstein and more. The exhibition deploys developments from various fields of science: medicine, agriculture, environmental sciences, archaeology, chemistry, social sciences, exact sciences and more.
Over the years, exhibitions in the field of science have been presented in Israel that dealt with inventions, patents, general science or another specific field, but so far no such large exhibition has been presented that encompasses developments and discoveries that are the flagship of science and technology in Israel. A special challenge in working on the exhibition, which lasted more than 8 months, was locating suitable images and photographing areas that are difficult to give visual expression to and explain only in a picture. The firm, together with the curator of the exhibition Doron Pollak and the photographer Roy Greenberg, produced and photographed especially for the exhibition about 40 new photos of developments and discoveries with artistic interpretation and images that illustrate and make the development accessible to the general public.
In addition, a number of experiential displays in the field of science will be placed throughout the city, including: a light pendulum and a "droplet race" from the Bloomfield Science Museum will be placed in the playground area, and the SpaceIl spacecraft model will be displayed at the Duty Free entrance.
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It's a shame they didn't give Dr. Anna Heller the credit for the student satellite Dokifat 1 and also for the beginning of Dokifat 2, but listed as the main researcher the director of the current technology center in Herzliya. It took more than a decade for Dr. Anna Heller to mature the project, which started at the Tel Handaim School in the early 2000s, until the launch in 2014.
A great idea to tell us all
Sounds really interesting
Even better, we will be given an air ticket for every citizen to the exhibition so that we can pass passport control and also have fun and our hearts will be filled with pride. And came to Zion a redeemer. And also in the Zion Nanochem building.
Perhaps an effort will be made to upload the exhibition to the website for the entire public?
Definitely extremely important and can make an additional contribution to the international recognition of Israel, although the book Startup Nation has already done a significant part of the work.