Minister Majadala: "The ministry's investment in funding research in the field of optical communication turned out to be a hen that lays golden eggs. We will continue to fight for increasing research budgets"
The annual conference of the Department of Electro-Optics and Lasers at Bar Ilan University, under the auspices of the Ministry of Health and Welfare, will be held today, Thursday 27.3.08/300/XNUMX, with the participation of Minister Ralav Majadala and the Chief Scientist of the Ministry of Health and Welfare, Prof. David Mandelovich, who will open the conference. More than XNUMX people are expected to participate in the conference, most of them from the industrial sector, and it will serve as a showcase for infrastructure research funded by the Ministry of Transport and Communications in the field of optronics, in order to illuminate the practical opportunities inherent in this field.
The Ministry of Science, Culture and Sports was a pioneer in financing internet and bioinformatics technologies, which laid the foundations for innovative industries in Israel. In the field of optical communication, the Ministry operated research infrastructure programs that for the first time encouraged scientists in the field of optics to work with scientists in the field of communication and computing. About 50 companies arose as a direct result of the ministry's infrastructure project in this area, while raising over a billion dollars from investors.
Prof. David Mendelovich was recently appointed the Chief Scientist of the MTS Ministry and the Head of the Science Directorate, by Minister Ralav Majadala, with the aim of promoting the ministry's plans in the field of groundbreaking scientific research and significantly increasing the budget for this field.
According to Minister Majadala, the large erosion in the science budgets in recent years was due to a lack of understanding by the decision-makers of the great contribution of infrastructural research to the growth of the Israeli economy. "The ministry's investment in funding research in the field of optical communications, turned out to be a hen that lays golden eggs, and proved that we must continue to increase investment in infrastructural research," said the minister, adding that "greater investment in the ministry's infrastructural research will also help absorb declining scientists and prevent "brain drain" from the country."
The chief scientist, Prof. Mendelovich, who curtailed a prosperous career in academia and industry, in order to contribute to the firm from his rich experience, is himself one of the firm's success stories: he began his path in science with the firm's prestigious scholarship program - the Eshkol scholarship. In the 90s he coordinated 2 infrastructure projects with 4 other research groups with the aim of developing generic technologies in the field of unconventional optics and as a result of these 10 projects 4 new companies were established, 27 of which he was involved in. Recently, the last company founded by EYESQUAD, was sold about a year ago to the American company TERSSA in the amount of XNUMX million dollars.
*The conference was also sponsored by the Bureau of Engineers and Architects, the Faculty of Engineering at Bar Ilan University and LEOS - the Israeli optical branch of the international organization IEEE
