Events

Students met with Uzi Cohen, software engineer and member of the Cortana team at Microsoft. At the meeting, students heard a lecture titled The Lifecycle of Modern Applications.

  The students met with Prof. Hossam Haick who gave a lecture on the subject of innovation and Entrepreneurship and examples of wearable sensory systems for disease diagnosis.Prof. Haick is a tenured professor in the Technion’s Faculty of Chemical Engineering and Russell Berrie Nanotechnology Institute and an expert in the field of nanotechnology and noninvasive diagnosis of disease.He completed his undergraduate degree in chemical engineering at Ben-Gurion University and then was admitted to the Technion’s direct doctoral program. He did a post-doctorate in molecular electronics at the Weizmann Institute and then continued at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), where he studied the fields of electrical devices based on nanomaterials and electronic noses.Prof. Haick’s breakthrough innovations, which are at the center of his work, focus on rapid diagnosis of cancer and other diseases based on analyzing the patient’s breath or chemical indicators emitted through skin pores.Prof. Haick holds more than 28 patents based on his inventions and has published more than 170 papers in international journals in the area of nanotechnology. His inventions and scientific work have earned him numerous awards and prizes, among the most prestigious in the world – grants from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, excellence grants from the European Union, and places on MIT’s list of the Worlds’ 35 Leading Young Scientists in 2008, on ’50 Brilliant Minds’ in the country list in 2013, on the 100 Most Influential Persons in the World in Digital Technology list for 2015 (Nominet Trust – London) and the 100 Influential Figures in 2016 list published by the American GOOD Magazine (Los Angeles). He received the Knight of the Order of Academic Palms (Chevalier dans l’Ordres des Palmes Académiques) award from the French government and the Herschel Rich Innovation award three times, the Tenne Prize for Excellence in the Science of Nanotechnology, the Harvey Prize for Applied Sciences and many others.    

The students in the program met with Einat Livne, a clinical and occupational psychologist and experienced entrepreneur, for a two-meeting workshop. The workshop objective was to provide knowledge and skills for coping with the process of establishing an entrepreneurship project, in a way that will minimize the room for mistakes and maximize the chances of success. The workshop covered the following topics: What makes an entrepreneur? Characteristics of an entrepreneur ,Types of entrepreneurs, Self-characterizing yourself as an entrepreneur Finding partners: Expectations from partners, The right partnership for me,  Business partners / strategic partners / mentors

The students met with Guy Azrad, general manager of Marvell Israel, who began his professional career in the company while a student at the Technion. He filled, for over ten years, a series of management positions in the area of engineering development at Marvell sites all over the country. After leaving Marvell, for a number of years, he was involved in setting up and running two startups specializing in the area of chips – Ocean Technologies and DensBits Technologies. In 2012, he joined Ericsson’s development center in San Jose, California, where he served as director of engineering and later on became the senior director of engineering in the company’s R&D center in Beijing. In 2015, Azrad returned to Marvell as the vice president of the global company and deputy director general of development for its global switching division. Today, Guy serves as the company’s general manager in Israel.

Uri Kolodny is co-founder and CEO of StarkWare, which develops zero-knowledge proof technology for permissionless blockchains, based on technology developed by Prof. Eli Ben-Sasson and Michael Riabzev at Technion. He’s been an entrepreneur for the past 18 years, in optical communications, medical devices, cleantech, and software. Uri has a BSc in CS (Magna cum Laude) from the Hebrew Univ., and an MBA from MIT Sloan. He is also an alum of 8200’s Haman Talpiot program.

The students met with Eran Shir, CEO of start-up Nexar, for a meeting on entrepreneurship, autonomous vehicles and futuristic roads Eran Shir, who holds a master's degree in physics from the Technion. He founded Dapper, which provided advertising services based on the user's surfing history. In 2010 he sold it to Yahoo. For the next three years he served as director of its development center. In 2015, he founded Nexar. Prior to that, he served as the "home entrepreneur" of the Alef venture capital fund and assisted the fund's portfolio companies in establishing them

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The students were hosted at Intel's production plant in Kiryat Gat, During the tour, they visited the Intel Visitor Center, heard a general lecture about Intel and the manufacturing plant and took a look at the clean room at Intel

The students met with Itzik Fried, managing partner of Takwin Labs, a fund that invests in companies belonging to Arab hi-tech entrepreneurs. The fund was founded by industrialist and entrepreneur Imad Talhami, in partnership with Hemi Peres (Pitango Fund) and Erel Margalit (JVP). Prior to joining Takwin, Itzik was CEO of Playscape, a partner in Argoquest Holdings, VP Business Affairs of AOL, and a senior advisor to the finance minister.

The students from the Lapidim program were hosted at Check Point's offices in Tel Aviv. The students met with Gil Shwed, an Israeli high-tech entrepreneur, founder, chairman and CEO of Check Point. The students were exposed and learned first-hand about entrepreneurship, managing a global company and the vision of Israeli high-tech. In addition, the students met with Nissan Chesler, who is responsible for technologies at Check Point.