Press Release From 2018

The problem with creativity is related to the ability to perform it effectively, says Prof. Shlomo Maital, a researcher in the field of high-tech and innovation. His new book "Dismantle" offers a way to build a personal ideas machine that will never be turned off. "It's much more interesting and fun than doing the same thing over and over again," he says in an interview in which he explains how to organize creativity without hurting it.
"The human brain is inherently creative and creative talent never becomes extinct, but it does grow rusty and therefore we must act to reduce rust and to renew the idea machine," says Prof. Maital.

Prof. Manuel Trajtenberg believes that it is still possible to solve our big problems, and that the new signs of the protest miss the point. "What happened is that we have become entrenched in the 'Gaza syndrome'," says Manuel Trajtenberg, a professor of economics at Tel Aviv University, a senior researcher at the Samuel Neaman Institute at the Technion, until a year ago a member of the Knesset (on behalf of Hamahaneh Haziyoni party), prior to that head of the Committee for Social and Economic Change following the 2011 protest.

How should European educational institutions deal with Muslim immigration?
What is the right way to promote women in the science fields? How do we fight a boycott against Israel, and why do Jews get so many Nobel Prizes? The women at the head of the national academies of science in France and Israel, physicist Prof. Katherine Barshiniak and law professor Prof. Nili Cohen, met this week to discuss the "France-Israel season" beside the mutual compliments and co-work they also manage to argue.

Prof. Ofira Ayalon was awarded the Mifal Hapais, 'Michael Landau Prize' for the Sciences and Research. This award is considered one of the most prestigious awards in the field of art, science and research.

Beyond the high monetary prize, it is an appreciation, recognition and appreciation to scientists and artists for their contribution and their influence on research and cultural life.

Among the judges' reasons for the winning of Prof. Ayalon was that she contributed "significant contributions to a wide range of subjects related to sustainability issues in Israel and globally.

It seems that until recently, the cloth diaper was a mythological symbol of asceticism that should be admired from a safe distance.

But lately something has moved. The reusable diaper became an option for the option, and in some circles an obsession. The trend is getting bigger. Recently, Kfar Saba has completed distributing more than 1,000 cloth diapers to residents in the impressive "Zero City Waste" project.
Prof. Ofira Ayalon, who, as far as is known, does not receive a salary from any diaper manufacturer, believes that we shouldn’t go obsess with cloth diapers. "It may be a kind of cleansing from the conscience," she says, explaining that there are many studies on "environmental moral licensing," that is, individual environmental actions, which, in the eyes of the doer, do damage to other areas.

Flexible bus routes and pricing of trips in private cars according to time, route and number of passengers: innovative solutions to the endemic traffic congestion in Israel.
Can new technologies help ease the transportation crisis that costs 40 billion NIS a year, and robs Israelis’ precious time? The key: Smart management of public and private transportation, and shared rides for commuting. Prof. Manuel Trajtenberg, a former Knesset Member, presented at the Science Committee of the Knesset a comprehensive plan to reform transportation policy, that he developed at the Samuel Neaman Institute at the Technion together with Shuki Cohen, Alon Pardo and Nir Sharav. The plan focuses on short- and medium term policy steps, whereas for the long run what is needed is investment in mass transport.

computers are already smarter than humans in various fields. However, it doesn’t mean that we should fear AI and compete against it. Instead, we should collaborate to make further advancements in the future.

Last week’s local elections were marked in Israeli Arab communities by greater violence, mainly but not entirely on social media.
Turan, Sakhnin, Tuba-Zangaria, Kafr Kana, Lakiya and Hura all experienced violence that included gunfire and property damage.
In Kalansua, the leading mayoral candidate even quit the race due to death threats against himself and his family.

Dozens of vacant, dilapidated and disintegrating buildings are scattered throughout Tiberias, crying out for someone to rescue them. Uninhabited residential buildings, public institutions and precious historical sites.
Is it any wonder that Tiberias is not a thriving tourist city?
The Council for Preservation: "The buildings belong to the local authority or to private homeowners."
The municipality: "We monitor all the buildings, and check the work of private entrepreneurs, conduct a conservation survey and approve building plans in accordance with the law."

Professor Rachelle Alterman:  Deserted buildings are a syndrom of a weak urban economic base.

Until the early 1990s, Israel was ranked first in the per capita publications index, but fell to 14th place, while the number of Israeli publications remained almost identical, while other countries made a quantum leap. The good news: Israel continues to appear in the top ten in publications per capita in fields such as mathematics, neuroscience and physics.

The Ministry of Science & Technology will invest NIS 15 million in encouraging scientific and engineering research in the field of Artificial Intelligence, in order to strengthen knowledge and manpower in the field. The ministry will also award 5 million NIS in grants to students in the field, and another 20 million NIS will be awarded to robotics research. The ministry published a call for researchers to submit pre-proposals for 2019.

The Carmel Tunnels project, which allows residents of Haifa and the North to cross the Carmel mountain in just a few minutes, is considered one of the most complex and groundbreaking projects in the State of Israel. A joint study by SNI and Eco-Finance shows that travel in the tunnels saves time, fuel, improves air quality as well as improves the quality of life in the area and reduces traffic congestion.

According to a new study by the Samuel Neaman Institute, which deals with future charging stations in Israel, in 7 years the market share of electric vehicles (EVs) is expected to reach about 5% of the total Israeli car fleet. By 2025 there will be a demand for about 150,000 private charging stations for EVs throughout Israel, and about 13,000 public charging stations.

The research was conducted by the Samuel Neaman Institute and the Dutch consulting company EVConsult with the support of the Ministry of Energy and the Fuel Choices and Smart Mobility Initiative from the Prime Minister's Office, and its predictions are based over the global distribution between public and private charging.

A new of Report written by researchers at Samuel Neaman Institute finds that universities are not properly advancing in the education of engineers the development of special soft skills like teamwork, innovativeness and communication.

Israeli graduates lack vital skills for the high-tech world: They have narrow vision, have difficulty communicating and have no idea of ​​regulation and budget, according to research conducted by the Samuel Neaman Institute. In order to curb the erosion of the relevance of academia to the field, the researchers propose a series of changes in training, arguing: "The time of the front staff, resources and expertise are the main obstacles to educational reform".

Intel publishes a corporate responsibility report with data from the Samuel Neaman Institute study, which presents its impact on the Israeli economy and high-tech over the years. In the wake of the forced resignation of the company's CEO Brian Krzanich following an affair with a worker, Krzanich has led extensive investments in the development and manufacturing center in Israel, with Intel and the government expecting to see who will be the new CEO.

About 80 percent of the waste in Israel is transferred to landfills, where it emits greenhouse gases, pollutes soil and groundwater, occupies large tracts of land, damages the landscape and creates odor hazards.  A new program should reduce the problem but Prof. Ofira Ayalon says that budgeting alone is not enough for the program to be successfully implemented and that there are many legal processes that must be completed to establish waste treatment plants.

When it comes to a shortage of engineers, it is important to be precise, since many people report that it is difficult for them to integrate into high-tech after school. Not only Arabs and ultra-Orthodox and adults and people with disabilities, but also young university graduates, another study by Professors Dan Peled and Benjamin Bental from the University of Haifa and the Samuel Neaman Institute at the Technion, says that the shortage is focused on very few engineers. What is lacking in this industry are experienced workers.

Research by the  Smuel Neaman Institute, (Technion) finds that the neglect of the traditional industry in Israel is liable to harm the Israeli economy as a whole, as well as the high-tech industries. "If we do not invest in workers in the classical industries, but only in high tech, 95 percent of the economy will be left behind, with all the risks," said Dr. Gilead Fortuna, a senior research fellow at the Samuel Neaman Institute at the Technion.

The question of the integration of the ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) sector into Israeli society does not disappear, and the stormy discussion of the problem requires careful examination. Events like the recent lecture by retired judge Aharon Barak to Haredi students, in which men and women were separated by a partition, or the CSC's decision to open a Civil Service Cadets' course for ultra-Orthodox men only -- created a wave of criticism and protest especially from secularists who are afraid, perhaps unjustly, of the growing dominance of "ultra-Orthodoxy" in Israel.  The article analyses the roots of these fears and illuminates the fast-paced changes occurring within the Haredi society, faster, in fact, than their demographic pace of growth.    

THE STATISTICS are appalling. According to the United Nations refugee agency, there are 66 million displaced persons in the world . And every year that number grows.Israel wanted to dump asylum seekers (illegal infiltrators, the government calls them) on Uganda. Uganda already has a million refugees.  Migrants all over the world risk their lives to flee the country they have come from and most of them live in extreme poverty.  The Israeli psychiatrist Dr. Essam Daod rescues migrants off the coast of Libya – making them whole in spirit. 

Chatbots and artificial intelligence are already changing the world of learning, education and teaching, says Prof. Sheizaf Rafaeli, a senior research associate at the Samuel Neaman Institute at the Technion, and head of the Internet Research Center at Haifa University. “Today the rules are being created by machine learning, and this is without human intervention. Those who wish to be frightened can write apocalyptic SciFi literature, and those who wish to be Luddites may do so.”

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced yesterday a new possibility on the world's largest social network - erasing our browsing history. Mark Zuckerberg says many websites need information such as cookies, cookies and browsing history to operate, but you should have the option to delete your browsing history at any time! We're working on a similar version on Facebook. This is a simple setting to delete your browsing history, what you clicked, the sites you visited, and so on. Call it simply cleaning history. But of course do not rush now to try to erase your Facebook history because this tool will be launched in just a few months.

Because of Russian involvement in the US presidential election in 2016, where she bought political ads on Facebook, among others. Facebook will now give us, users, tools for transparency in publishing political messages. We'll know who posted the ad, how much money was invested in the campaign, and which ads are shown to other people on the social network.

Listen to the interview here

The demands presented this week by the Defense Ministry as a condition for transferring the IDF's intelligence units to the Negev have raised again the question of the utility of relocating military camps to the south.

A new study by researchers from the Samuel Neaman Institute at the Technion, in cooperation with Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, published in recent months, found that there is a disturbing gap between optimistic forecasts and reality. While the state estimated a potential of about 6,000-7,000 career soldiers, from which only 2,500 to 3,600 would actually move to the Negev, the projection of the research team stands on a few hundred permanent service men and women only.

How many Israelis would choose to live in a country where overcrowding permeates all areas of life, open spaces are in short supply, and large parts of the population live in towers that suffer from maintenance problems and take hours to get to work? How many Israelis are prepared to live in a country where infrastructure is on the verge of collapse and the construction of schools lagging behind the number of children? There is such a place in the world, or rather such a place is emerging. This is the State of Israel, 2048.

The way to deal with this issue is, on the one hand, to reduce fertility and on the other hand, to increase the area, which is already limited, by building artificial islands and exploiting the subsoil.

Car manufacturers worldwide are preparing to produce millions of electric cars a year, but in Israel the government has not adapted the market to change and thus contributes to the continued air pollution.
The Ministry of Energy: The Ministry has worked to formulate standards for charging an electric vehicle, and the Electricity Authority is currently completing regulation
According to data compiled by Ofira Ayalon and Idan Liebes of the Samuel Neaman Institute, the cost of driving an electric vehicle is about sixth of that of a gasoline or diesel-powered vehicle. At the head of the recommendations formulated at the end of the discussion at the Technion's Energy Forum, it was proposed to formulate a national plan for the assimilation of public and private electric transportation in Israel. Public transportation, especially urban, should be electric, clean and efficient. Integration with interurban transportation e.g. electric trains can even obviate the need for two vehicles per family. According to the recommendations, the plan should include quantitative targets, indicators of success and appropriate budgeting.

In the five years that have passed since the collapse of Better Place, the automotive world has shown renewed interest in electric vehicles over gasoline/ diesel cars. Many countries invest in public charging stations, tax benefits, purchase assistance and even monthly basis grants, directly to the driver's salary. And in Israel there is a significant lack of public charging infrastructure and low awareness of electric vehicles. The environment and energy team of the Samuel Neaman Institute passed on updated data to the Knesset Information Center.

Ministry of Environmental Protection is satisfied with the carrier-bag law, which came into force last year and prohibits the free distribution of plastic bags in retail chains. The numbers show a sharp decline in the use of bags in retail chains. In addition, the "Clean Coast Index" also improved, according to the Ministry's 2017 report, which was the cleanest year for beaches in the last 12 years, and the carrier- bag law has a significant impact on the index.
However, the number of bags consumed by the public can not be a measure. This is because the purpose of the law is not to reduce the number of bags consumed, but to reduce the damage that the legislators believe us caused by these bags.
The work done at the Samuel Neaman Institute shows that carrier bags are not such a significant environmental nuisance, and that there are other policy means (instead of such a high tax) that can be used to reduce the use of bags.

A new study by Prof. Rachelle Alterman of the Technion proves that the rural agricultural sector in Israel is discriminated against in land-related issues, as no rural sector in any developed country. Kibbutzim and moshavim suffer from deliberate governmental discrimination that stems from prejudice and a distorted image. The language and images used when referring to kibbutz or moshav members use is reminiscent of the language in which the anti-Semites attack the Jews. They are described as being the rich people of the country who squeeze the public coffers and steal privileges at the expense of others - while the reality is the opposite.
The rural sector in Israel, composed mainly of communal kibbutzim and cooperative moshavim, is trampled by a land policy promoted by government authorities which was suitable for the initial years of the State of Israel but which has been frozen since then, and even regressed, so as to weak these exemplary communities socially and economically. The study has found that the "basket of property rights" for land and housing of farming communities in Israel is 50 to 80 percent lesser than the "basket of rights" of farmers in several OECD countries, including Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland and Hungary.

The year 2017 has broken records with regard to the sale of fuel-efficient hybrid vehicles. Will the year 2018 be the year of the breakthrough of the electric vehicle?

According to Prof. Ofira Ayalon of the Samuel Neaman Institute, the state provides two benefits for hybrid vehicles: "The first is a low purchase tax, the second is validated when it comes to a car that is leased from a leasing company.

"Hybrid vehicles are approaching their maximum efficiency potential" says Idan Liebes, also from the Samuel Neaman Institute. "The hybrid is only a stage on the way to the electric vehicle". Where 2017 was the year of the hybrids, according to Liebes the current year will be a transitional year for electric vehicles. "In 2018 we will see a shift is the market offering, characterized by the debut of multiple mainstream models".

According to a new study, the mobilization of IDF bases southwards will have no Socio-economic impact on the Negev: The bases will be cut off the neighboring communities and the career soldiers and their families will live in affluent suburbs or in separate settlements that will be built for them.
This is the third study that arrives at similar conclusions.

The soul-searching of the research community in mathematics education: This is how the summation of the conference can be defined Annual research in mathematics education held last week at the Lev Academic Center in Jerusalem. Prof. Nitsa Movshovitz-Hadar of the Technion, Senior Research Fellow at the Neaman Institute for Policy Studies And former director of the National Museum of Science (Madatech), emphasized to hundreds of participants the urgent need to update the mathematics curriculum in Israel. In lectures and discussions, the researchers referred to the changes required in mathematics studies from preschool age until the end of high school. Movshovitz-Hadar's soul-searching was indeed directed at her colleagues the researchers, but it should be heard well among decision makers.

The TA-35 and the TA-125 – the indexes with the most highly capitalized companies on the stock exchange – were up 0.52% and 0.66%, respectively, as of closing.

“Israel needs foreign investment,” said Shlomo Maital “The pervasiveness of high-level corruption is growing and must be of concern to those who might consider sending their money to Israel.”

Israeli urban designers differ on whether condominium towers are the solution for land shortage or actually create new problems, such as disconnection from street life.

The days of the storm last week required the local authorities to prepare. In the moment of truth, the pictures of cars driving rain-fed lakes have also returned, due to lack of preparedness, lack of understanding of climate threats and lack of budgets.

Teva is a corner stone of the high technology industry which integrate the research, development and production. The Israeli government should try to motivate the company to keep most of the Israeli based infrastructure and implement its productivity enhancement in Israel. It is crucial and should be tried in spite of previous benefits given to the company

A study conducted by the Eco-Finance in cooperation with the Samuel Neaman Institute, found that traveling in the Carmel Tunnels produces a positive benefit compared to any alternate route, due to time and money savings, fuel, vehicle wear and pollution. The work showed that the value of the benefits to the users of the tunnels, certainly at peak hours, but  not only, is due to the savings in fuel and time, which is higher than the tariff. The work also showed that traveling through the tunnels saves more than 5 million liters of fuel annually and more than 2 million hours of work in the economy. Using the tunnels saves more than NIS 5.5 million to Haifa residents from reducing air pollution.

This story covers the changes (and the reasons for this change) in the civic protests in Israel against real-estate urban development - from protests mainly carried out by environmental activists, to protests by large groups of citizens who are concerned about the impacts of the massive construction due to housing shortage.

The state's assessment of the mass movement of combat personnel to the south is too optimistic: a study by researchers from the Samuel Neaman Institute at the Technion and Ben-Gurion University states that there is a potential for up to 3,000 people and that only a few hundred may actually move their residence. To meet its goals, the state will have to lure the soldiers tens of thousands of shekels a year. According to the study, permanent personnel are not expected to contribute significantly to the development of the region.

The dismissal of employees in Jerusalem was postponed for two years and employees of the company's headquarters could voluntarily retire and benefit from increased severance pay. However, there is concern that the fall of Teva will harm other companies in the economy.

At the same time, in the United States, Teva was declared a local company.

This report covers the agreement between Teva and the company's workers committee, in which some of the layoffs will be delayed, so that some of the employees who are at risk of being fired will be guaranteed work for the next two years.

In addition, this report also details the Samuel Neaman Institute's report on the impact of Teva on the Israeli economy