The Technion and its national mission

 In preparation for the open day that will take place this Thursday, we bring you things that the Technion's president said on various occasions in the past year.

This coming Thursday there will be an open day at the Technion for the next school year, watch the videos about the Technion and the various faculties and study options 

The article groups together three lectures by the Technion president at various ceremonies during 2012, from issues of the Technion magazine in the past year,

The Technion and its national mission

In preparation for the open day that will take place this Thursday, we bring you things that the Technion's president said on various occasions in the past year. From the issues of the Technion magazine in the past year

This coming Thursday there will be an open day at the Technion for the next school year, watch the videos about the Technion and the various faculties and study options

http://digiproduct.co.il/technion/openday2013/new_full/?ref=%D7%94%D7%99%D7%93%D7%A2%D7%9F&ref2=MEAH47

"Each university is tested and judged based on the quality of the research and teaching that takes place there. This is what determines the excellence of the university, and this is what places the Technion at the top of the scientific-technological universities in the world. But we have another task - our national mission. No one assigned us this task. We took it upon ourselves, willingly, without questions, without complaints and without answers. The Technion's contribution to the country, since its founding and throughout its glorious history, is so great that the heads of state and France have become accustomed to the presence of the Technion at every intersection of the country's life - in security, infrastructure and economy.

"Within this framework, in recent years the Technion has been engaged in an extremely important national task - reducing the social gap in the State of Israel. In a long line of unique projects, the Technion was a pioneer in opening the gates of the academy to populations that had not previously reached it. I recommend to the entire Technion house to visit our pre-academic center and see the thousands of young men and women, who have a sparkle in their eyes, who are exposed to science and engineering and work hard on their studies in order to receive the coveted entrance ticket to the Technion. You will see there ultra-Orthodox young men next to young Arabs, residents of the periphery next to women fighters and fighters released from the IDF. See the social mosaic of the State of Israel there and leave there, like every visitor to this center, with much more optimism and faith in a better future in our country."

"The Technion was the first to open the "Futures" program and gave a ticket to life to talented young men and women from the periphery, who didn't even dare to dream of a degree in engineering or medicine before the Technion showed them that this dream was within their reach, if they would only commit and work hard to achieve it. The Technion was the first to open the "Horizons" project, which allows female and male fighters released from the IDF, who come from a difficult socio-economic background, to be admitted to the Technion if they successfully pass the preparatory course of our pre-academic center. We were also among the first in training ultra-Orthodox youth, some of whom were accepted to the Technion after completing for about a year study material that they had missed throughout their childhood and election years. As part of the "Noam" (excellent Arab youth) project, the pre-academic center trains young Arab women and men, who also saw studying at the Technion as an unattainable vision, until the industrialist Eitan Wertheimer arrived and helped them achieve it."

"The pre-academic center at the Technion is proof that the combined hands of private donors (Yehuda Zisafel, Eitan Wertheimer and other friends of the Technion), government officials and government ministries, together with the quality of teaching and research at the Technion, can yield effective and quick results. Together we are working to neutralize the ticking time bomb - the growing social gap in the State of Israel."

"At the same time, the Technion continues to adapt to changing needs and is prepared to solve problems arising in a world that looks with concern at the changes in the earth, at the increase in energy consumption and the depletion of minerals (mainly oil), at the rising cost of food and increasing unemployment in Western countries. In this context, we recently established our energy program and the center for autonomous systems. We are working to formulate a plan for drilling engineering, storage and transportation of gas and oil, and we continue to work to encourage initiatives in the field of scientific education, such as the project of retraining hi-tech people to teach science in schools. Our graduates also carry with them the burden of contributing to the community when they graduate from the Technion. Technion graduates teach math and science to hundreds of students throughout the country, as part of the "Working from three to five" project, and of course are at important crossroads in the Israeli and global economy. A special survey that we commissioned from the "Naaman" institution, and was conducted by Professors Shlomo Mittal and Amnon Frankel, shows that our graduates founded or lead 59 companies out of 129 Israeli companies traded on Nasdaq, and more than fifty percent of the high-tech companies in Israel."

"To serve the State of Israel and Mishka by providing advice, in research and in other appropriate ways, to serve the population of the country by conducting study series and lectures, publishing books and other activities..." - so states section 2.3 in the "Goals of the Institution" chapter of the Technion's constitution. These days, a fascinating exhibition documenting the founding of the Technion is opening at the Haifa Museum, and thus we mark the opening of the centennial events for the laying of the cornerstone for the Technion in April 1912. In this historical period, we can be proud of the works of our hands and say to those giants and visionaries who laid the cornerstone for the Technion about a century ago: We did not disappoint you. We continue to bear the burden, fulfill your vision and fulfill our national mission.

Anos Mirabilis of the Technion

A wonderful year has come to an end, which was nicknamed the Technion's "Annus Mirabilis (Year of Miracles), a year in which the name of the Technion was carried by everyone, and a variety of modest events marked the 100th anniversary of the laying of the cornerstone for the Technion's historic building.

Many times during this year, the image of the giants who initiated and established the Technion on the arid slopes of the Carmel stood before my eyes, and again and again I asked myself: did they too - when they stood there embalmed in their European suits in the heat of the Middle East - imagine that when we mark 100 years of this historic status , will the Technion become a world-renowned scientific-technological university, with three Nobel laureates and a win, together with Cornell University, in the prestigious tender to establish a scientific-engineering-applied research center in the heart of Manhattan? When they founded a technological university in a remote port city, with thousands of single Jews, did they imagine that its graduates would build a modern, dynamic country, with research and developments that would make waves in the entire world?

The best universities in the US and abroad participated in the competition in New York, which was held at the initiative of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Cornell, one of the ten leading universities in the United States, joined the Technion and submitted to the City of New York a revolutionary plan to establish a research institute for the development of innovative technologies, where the divisions between the traditional areas of knowledge will be eliminated. The new institute - "The Technion and Cornell Institute for Innovation" - will be managed by Professor Haim Gutesman from the Faculty of Computer Science, and will focus on research and teaching in three areas: Connecting media, Built environment and Healthier Life. Each of these areas will affect our lives and the lives of our children in the 21st century.

In the field of communication, the future is already here. Today it is hard for us to imagine the world without smart phones, e-mail and Facebook, but until two decades ago, it is hard to believe, we managed without them. What can we expect in the future from research institutes such as the Technion Institute and Cornell? time will tell.

Medicine, without a doubt, will change its face. It will transform from reactive medicine to personalized medicine that predicts, initiates and prevents. The personal genetic code of each and every one of us will allow us to know what the future holds for us. Have we suffered from heart disease, or God forbid, kidney disease, or are we in for a degenerative disease? This information will allow us to take various measures in order to prevent the worst from happening.

The environment will also change, and more resources will be directed to its protection. Technion researchers and its graduates will play an important role in this field as well. They are already working on finding energy substitutes, partly within the framework of the Grand Energy Program at the Technion. I dare to predict that even nowadays we will see cheaper and cleaner energy, with cars that run on electricity (today such cars are already moving on the roads of the country, at the initiative of Technion graduate Shay Agassi), with long-lasting batteries and with energy coming from the wind and the sun.

There is no doubt that the researchers of the Technion and its graduates left their mark on the hundred years that have passed since the foundation stone was laid for the institution, and their fingerprints are evident in all areas of our lives. The comprehensive research of Professors Shlomo Mittal and Amnon Frankel, which was compiled and compiled in a book that is currently being published, shows that the total annual output of Technion graduate engineers in the hi-tech and computer services, communications, research and development sectors is estimated at 21 billion dollars (minimum estimate), which is about -20% of the total annual gross output of these branches. These engineers also contribute to the creation of 78,000 high-paying high-tech support jobs. The contribution of Technion graduates is also reflected in the annual income for the government - taxes estimated at approximately NIS 16.6 billion - approximately 13% of all state revenues from direct and indirect taxes.

I am not taking any risks if I predict that the Technion's researchers and graduates will continue to contribute to the State of Israel even in the next hundred years. I cannot predict what the State of Israel will look like in a hundred years, but I have no doubt that the Technion will continue to contribute greatly to it in all areas of our lives. This is the task that those giants undertook when they set out on an unknown path a hundred years ago, and this is the task that rests on us for the next hundred years. This is the will of those visionaries who founded the Technion. Today we know that they were indeed contracts and not delusions, and we are here to fulfill their will.

The end of the lost decade

Anyone who has not experienced the joy that erupted on the Technion campus when it was announced that research professor Dani Shechtman won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry - does not know what joy is! And not for nothing; It is rare for universities to be blessed with the fact that three of their faculty members, who have grown and developed in content, win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in less than ten years. Professor Shechtman was preceded by Professors Avraham Hershko and Aharon Tschanover from the Rapaport Faculty of Medicine, who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2004.

Professor Shechtman began studying at the Technion in 1962. Here he received all his academic degrees and conducted all his research. He will receive the 2011 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discovery of the quasi-periodic crystals, and for his firm stand on his scientific truth against the scientific establishment of the XNUMXs, which completely denied his observations. It is no small thing to stand firm in front of scientific giant Kleinus Pauling, winner of two Nobel prizes, in chemistry and peace, who stands at the head of the camp that denies the discovery of quasi-periodic crystals and claimed that Danny Shechtman "we don't know what he is talking about." Danny stuck to his truth and thus broke new scientific ground.

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry is a spectacular closing chord to a summer that was unusual in its events. There is no better gift than this for the centenary of the laying of the cornerstone for the Technion's first building, in Hadar, in Haifa, which will take place in April 2012.

Last summer, an unprecedented social protest broke out in the history of the country, and in it, perhaps, there was a shift in the priorities and the social order in the State of Israel. We must be happy for the honorable place given to the issue of education in all the protests and demonstrations. Indeed, the people demand social justice, but the people also understand, finally, that investment in education is an investment in our future. We all fought for this understanding, in the academy, for ten whole years - aka the "lost ten years", as Professor Manuel Trachtenberg, chairman of the OT and chairman of the Committee for Socio-Economic Change, called them.

Above every public stage we shouted that the issue of education must keep sleep from our eyes and the eyes of our leaders. Who like us knows how true this definition is. In this "lost decade" the ranks of the faculty members thinned, laboratories became obsolete without renewal and growth, the number of students in the classrooms swelled to dimensions we did not know, and Israel's position as a world power of scientific research was significantly damaged. I hope that the reforms in elementary and secondary education, about which we were informed recently, and the five-year plan of the OT to strengthen the institutions for higher education, herald the long-awaited change.

If so, then the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, which will be awarded to Professor Dan Shechtman on December 10 in Stockholm, will mark the end of the lost decade and the beginning of a new period in education in the State of Israel - a period characterized by a breakthrough, creation and renewal.

Prof. Peretz Lavi, president of the Technion