Events

In this first meeting of the year—a face-to-face meeting (after a long period of only seeing each other on screens)—veteran students met the new students who joined the program this year. During the meeting, students were presented with challenging thinking activities in the form of an escape room. They had to work together as a team and received tools to help them develop creative and innovative thinking.

The students met with Prof. Oren Salzman who spoke to them about algorithmic motion planning meeting analysis. Prof. Salzman is a faculty member and researcher in the fields of Oren gave students an introduction into algorithmic motion planning in the context of robotic analyses and described the journey that led him to this field and its challenges and unrealized potential. Prof. Salzman received his PhD from the School of Computer Science at Tel Aviv University, under the supervision of Prof. Dan Halperin. He subsequently completed a post-doctoral fellowship at Carnegie Mellon University, in the labs of Siddhartha Srinivasa and Maxim Likhachev. Prior to joining the Technion as a Senior Lecturer, Oren worked as a researcher in the National Robotics Engineering Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His research focuses on re-examining classic computer science algorithms, tools and paradigms in order to cope with the computational challenges that arise when planning robotic movement. By combining techniques from a range of fields such as computational geometry, graph theory and computational learning, he aspires to provide efficient algorithms for complex robotic systems. He graduated with a BSc with honors from the Technion and an MSc with honors from Tel Aviv University.

During the meeting, Shaul shared with the students the story of his journey after graduating and up until today, the link between founding a business and the Lapidim program, a few things that he learned along the way, and some things he would have been happy to have known at the beginning of his journey. Shaul is a graduate of the Lapidim program who completed his studies in 2013. In the eight years since, he founded three startup companies in Israel and the U.S. Today Shaul is the CTO of Digital Asset, which he established in New York in 2014. The company employs about 170 people spread over five continents and to date has raised approximately 300 million dollars.

The students met with Prof. Yoav Shoham, Faculty graduate and professor emeritus of computer science at Stanford University. His research focuses on artificial intelligence in the field of multi-agent systems and game theory. During the meeting, Prof. Shoham spoke to the students about academia, industry and life itself. He told the students about his academic path and his research, and also described his entrepreneurship and the companies he established that deal with online businesses. The most well-known of these is Trading Dynamics, involved in online tenders. Prof. Shoham is the CEO and co-founder (with Prof. Amnon Shashua and Ori Goshen) of AI21 Labs, which deals with AI applications.

Students met with Prof. Ada Yonat, the Israeli biochemist who specializes in crystallography of proteins. Her research deals with the structure and function of ribosomes. Yonat is the 2009 Nobel laureate for chemistry, together Venkatraman Ramakrishnan and Thomas A. Steitz, “for studies of the structure and function of the ribosome” (https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/2009/press-release/, accessed 8 April 2021). During the meeting, Prof. Yonat told the students about her pioneering research about the structure of ribosomes and spoke about her personal story and the challenges she had to surmount on her way to success.

Students met with Anat, a Lapidim alumna, online and heard her personal story—“my journey to Princeton”—from her. Anat spoke about her decision to do her doctoral studies abroad and told the students about the application process for U.S. doctoral programs and life and studies in an American university. She also told them about her research in the field of computational biology.  

Students met online with David Sokolic, managing partner at OurCrowd Pandemic Innovation Fund. The meeting focused on crowdfunding as a method for funding initiatives.OurCrowd, one of the worlds’ leading crowdfunding platform for investing in startups, is managed by serial entrepreneur, Jon Medved. Since 2014, OurCrowd has invested over 220 million dollars in 93 portfolio companies.  

Students met online with Dr. Naama Geva-Zatorsky who developed a rapid-test kit for COVID-19 that analyzes a saliva sample abd that can be used by anyone in their own home, easily and efficiently. The kit she developed allows individuals to check whether have been infected, using a simple and rapid process that does not require dangerous materials. Because of its simplicity and speed, the kit will be suitable for home use and rapid testing in workplaces.

Students met online with Dr. Adam de la Zerda, graduate of the Faculty and founder of Visby Medical. Adam, who also is also a professor at Stanford University, has a long list of awards and commendations for his work in research and development. Visby Medical, which he founded, developed a personal single-use device for fast COVID-19 testing, which has recently received FDA approval

Students gathered online for the opening meeting of the year and got acquainted by participating in an online cooking class led by two contents from the “Winning Kitchen” television program, Oshri and Yarden, and joined by chefs from Eyal Shani’s “Malka” (Queen) and “Salon” restaurants.