Ambassador Richard H. Jones
US Ambassador to the State of Israel

Ambassador Jones, a career member of the Senior Foreign Service. Jones had been serving as the Secretary of State’s Senior Advisor and Coordinator for Iraq Policy He also led U.S. diplomatic efforts on Iraq with the international community. Prior to assuming Jones served as US Ambassador to Kuwait from September 2001 until July 2004. From November 2003 until June 2004 he served concurrently as Chief Policy Officer and Deputy Administrator for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad. Jones has also served as US Ambassador to Kazakhstan (from December 1998 until July 2001) and as US Ambassador to Lebanon (from February, 1996 until July, 1998. Previous postings include Director of the State Department’s Office of Egyptian Affairs (1993-95) and Director of its Division of Developed Country Trade (1987-89). He was twice posted to the US Embassy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and has served in Paris and Tunis. Jones has Masters and Doctoral degrees in Business/Statistics from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and a Bachelor of Science degree with distinction in Mathematics from Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, California. He has been awarded two US patents and served two terms on the board of the Saudi Arabian International School in Riyadh.

Ambassador Bob Hiensch
Netherlands Ambassador to the State of Israel

Ambassador Hiensch has been employed by the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs since 1976 and was posted in the junior ranks in Kinshasa (1977-1979), Hong Kong (1979-1982), Paris (1983-1986) and at the Ministry in The Hague as Head of the Southern Africa Department (political affairs, 1986-1990). Previously, Mr. Hiensch served in the Dutch army from 1968 to 1969. He worked from 1970 till 1973 for KLM Royal Dutch Airlines. In 1974 Mr. Hiensch was elected city councilor in the town of Loosdrecht and served in that capacity till his departure to his first diplomatic assignment in 1977. Ambassador Hiensch hold a Political Science (Doctoral Degree) from the University of Amsterdam (1976).

Ambassador CHEN Yonglong
China Ambassador to the State of Israel

Ambassador Yonglong started his political career in 1972 as a staff member of the Consulate General of the People’s Republic of China in Dacca, Bangladesh. In 1974 he served as a staff member at the Chinese embassy in Uganda. Though the years he also served as Third, Second and First Secretary in the People’s Republic of China. Ambassador Yonglong also represented China in the UN and as a Minister Counselor in the US. Prior to his last appointment Mr. Yonglong served as Ambassador to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Ambassador Yonglong graduated from Beijing Foreign Trade College and from London Ealing High Education College of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Ophir Pines-Paz
Minister of Science and Technology, The Goverment of Israel

Ophir Pines-Paz

Ophir Pines-Paz completed his army service with the rank of Staff Sergeant. He holds a B.A. in International Relations from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and an M.A. in Public Policy from Tel Aviv University. He served in the past as Deputy Director-General of the Immigration and Absorption Department of the Jewish Agency, Chairman of the Authority for Rehabilitation of Prisoners, and Secretary General of the Israel Labor Party. A Member of Knesset since the 14th Knesset (1996), Ophir Pines-Paz most recently served as a member of the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justic, State Control, and Science and Technology Committees, as well as a member of the Municipal Lobby. In the 15th Knesset he served among others as Chairman of the Constitution, Law and Justice Committee and as Coalition Chairman, and in the 14th Knesset as Chairman of the Committee for Foreign Workers. In January 2005, Ophir Pines-Paz was appointed Minister of the Interior. Ophir Pines-Paz served as Minister of the Interior from January to November 2005, when Labor resigned from the government. In May 2006 he was appointed Minister of Science and Technology.

Avshalom (Abu) Vilan
Israeli Parliament Member

Avshalom Vilan

Avshalom (Abu) Vilan is the co-founder of the internationally acclaimed Israeli peace movement, PEACE NOW, is a veteran Israeli peace activist, kibbutz manager and educator, as well as a former campaign director for the "Mapam" and "Meretz" parties. Vilan is a member of Knesset from Yachad party. Between 1977 and 1980 Vilan served the Kibbutz Artzi Federation of Kibbutzim as director of the Kaf's Young Adults Division. He also was an educator and secretariat member for the federation. In 1984 he graduated from Hebrew University of Jerusalem with a B.A. in Economics and Philosophy; and from 1984 to 1988 he served as Economics Manager for Kibbutz Negba, directing all economic enterprises and educational services, and overseeing the establishment of "Hamei Yoav", a hot spring resort.

Adrie Reinders
CEO, OHM Inc.

Adrie Reinders

Adrie Reinders began his entrepreneurial career in the I.T. field in 1975 when he founded Microlife B.V., a company specializing in customer related services and training for mainframe environments. In 1987, Adrie sold the business he had grown to 500 employees with annual revenue of 22.5 million euro. In 1989 Adrie founded I.C.T. Rijnhaave, an I.T. firm specializing in systems integration. After selling the company to Syntegra (a subsidiary of British Telecom) in 1996, he served on the Syntegra Board of Directors until 2001. Adrie founded his third I.T. business, Plus Integration Supply Chain Solutions B.V. in 1997. Over the course of his professional career Adrie has served as an advisor and board member for numerous successful private and public companies including Residex Ventures, as Chairman. In 2004, Adrie founded Sales Performance Inc. – now OHM Inc. and as the CEO, he remains committed to assisting technology companies by offering his considerable expertise, experience and access to his global network of high level business contacts.

Alfred M. Bruckstein
Distributed Robotics and Search, Technion

Alfred Bruckstein

Professor Alfred M. Bruckstein research focuses on mathematical aspects of image processing, image analysis and robotics. In 1980, he joined the Information Systems Laboratory at Stanford University where he received his doctorate. Bruckstein has conducted research at world-class universities and research institutions including Groningen University’s in Holland, where he analyzed the responses of movement sensing neurons in the visual system of the fly; MIT’s Man-Vehicle Laboratory and Information and Decision Systems Laboratory in Boston, Mass., where he did research on signal processing and estimation theory; and AT&T/Lucent Technologies’ Bell Laboratories in New Jersey where he worked on the development of special purpose omniviewing cameras that are useful in robotics and surveillance devices. He also spent a few months at Tsinghua University, in Beijing, China’s main Institute of Technology, teaching and conducting research.

Amos Barzilay
Venture Consultant, Walden International and Astra Venture Partners

Amos Barzilay

Dr. Barzilay is a former Managing Director of Walden International a Venture Capital firm with approximately $2.1 billion in assets under management. Amos was responsible for identifying investment opportunities in the software and IT services industries. Prior to joining Walden he was Vice President & General Manager, Content and Supplier Solutions in Commerce One. Dr. Barzilay joined Commerce One as part of Commerce One's acquisition of Mergent Systems in January 2000. Dr. Barzilay was a co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Mergent Systems, a business-to-business e-commerce infrastructure start-up. Amos holds a B.S. in Engineering from Technion in Israel and a Ph.D. and an M.B.A. from the University of Pittsburgh.

Atiq Raza
Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, RMI

Atiq Raza

Mr. Raza was the President and Chief Operating Officer of Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) prior to RMI. Mr. Raza was responsible for laying the foundation of AMD's processor roadmap and brought the AMD-K6 and Athlon family of processors to the market. Mr. Raza also served on the Board of Directors of AMD. He became part of AMD's management team after the merger with NexGen, Inc. in January 1996. At NexGen, he was the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer prior to the merger.

Mr. Raza also serves on the board of directors of MetaRam, AMI Semiconductor, Mellanox Technologies, Inc., eASIC and TRG.

Avi Katz
Head of Corporate and Business Development, Symphony Group

Dr. Katz is responsible for accelerating Symphony’s global reach through M&A and expansion into new markets. He has spent the last two decades guiding technology companies from initial growth stages to successful, globally recognized market leaders. Dr. Katz brings to his role not only the financial and transaction experience, but also the operational expertise necessary for success. Most recently, he was president and CEO of Intransa Inc., a privately held provider of information storage area network systems over the Internet. Prior to Intransa, he was president and CEO of Equator Technologies Inc., a privately held video and media system-on-a-chip fabless semiconductor manufacturer. Dr. Katz has also held executive positions at ASTeX Technologies Inc., WJ Communications Inc. (NASDAQ: WJCI), Standard Motor Products and AT&T Laboratories. Dr. Katz is a serial entrepreneur and chairman of the board of directors for several of the companies he co-founded as well as the Israel-Venture-Network (IVN). In 1998, he initiated a scholarship fund at the Technion University in Israel, awarded annually to exceptional Ph.D. graduate students. He is a graduate of the Israeli Naval Academy and has served active duty as a naval officer. He holds a B.S. and Ph.D. in semiconductors materials engineering from the Technion in Israel.

Batya Feldman
Hi Tech and Venture Capital correspondent, Globes

Benjamin Soffer
Head of the Technology Transfer Unit, Technion

Mr. Soffer serves as head of the Technology Transfer Office at the Technion Research and Development Foundation (TRDF). Prior to the Technion, Ben served as Managing Director at TopNotch Capital – a leading life sciences investment banking boutique. During the years 1999-2003 Ben served as Israel's Economic Attache` in New England and as representative of the Bi-National Industrial R&D (BIRD) Foundation, and the Israeli Industrial Cooperation Authority (ICA).
Prior to his tenure in Boston, Ben served as special advisor to Israel's Chief Scientist at the Ministry of Industry and Trade. Prior to joining the private sector Ben has worked as a legal advisor to one of Israel's leading investment and real estate groups. Ben is a gratudate of the Tal Aviv University and is certified as a lawyer in Israel and the state of New York.

Boaz Dinte
Managing Partner, Evergreen

Mr. Dinte joined Evergreen in 1996. He is a Managing Partner and focuses on Evergreen's investments in the communications and semiconductor sectors. Prior to joining Evergreen, Mr. Dinte was a Corporate Business Development Manager for M-Systems Ltd., a global leader in flash-disk memory Boaz initiated and was responsible for Evergreen's investments in Exalink which was acquired by Comverse, Metalink, P-cube that was sold to Cisco and Envara that was acquired by Intel. Boaz is currently acting as a board member in BigBand Networks, Etagon, Pontis, Montilio, Exanet, and Xcitel.
He holds a B.Sc. in electrical engineering, specializing in computer design and communications, from the Technion, and has an MBA, Magna Cum Laude from Tel Aviv University.

Dan Maydan
President Emeritus, Applied Materials

Dan Maydan

Dr. Maydan is President Emeritus of Applied Materials and a member of the Board of Directors, an appointment he has held since 1992. He has been President of the company from 1994 to April, 2003. At Applied, Mr. Maydan spearheaded the innovation and commercialization of critical processing technologies for semiconductor manufacturing. His work has been inducted into the Smithsonian Institution as part of its collection of breakthrough technologies, which have helped shape society and the modern world. Dan Maydan received his Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees in electrical engineering from Technion, the Israel Institute of Technology, and his Ph.D. in physics from Edinburgh University in Scotland. He is also a recipient of Honorary Doctor degrees from both the Technion and Edinburgh University.

Dov Moran
Founder, President, CEO and Chairman, M-Systems

Dov Moran

Mr. Moran. Mr. Moran is a founder of M-Systems and has been a director and President, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board of Directors of M-Systems since 1989. Mr. Moran also serves on the board of directors of some of our subsidiaries. From 1984 to 1989, Mr. Moran was an independent consultant in the computer industry. Prior thereto, Mr. Moran served in the Israeli Navy for seven years and was director of its microprocessors department. Mr. Moran received a B.Sc. in Computers and Electronic Engineering (with honors) from the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, in Haifa, Israel in 1977.

Ed Mlavsky
Chairman and Founding Partner, Gemini Israel Funds

Dr. Mlavsky is widely recognized as one of the founding fathers of Israeli high-tech and venture capital. Prior to founding Gemini, Ed served as Executive Director of the Israel-U.S. Bi-national Industrial Research and Development Foundation (BIRD). During his tenure, he was responsible for investments of $100 million in more than 300 joint projects between U.S. and Israeli high technology companies. Previously Ed was Executive Vice President of Mobil Tyco Solar Energy Corporation, a joint venture created by Mobil Corporation and Tyco Laboratories Inc. now Tyco International (NYSE) Until 1974, Dr. Mlavsky was a member of its Board of Directors and its Chief Technical Officer; in 1973, he became President and Chief Operating Officer. Ed has a First Class Honors B.Sc. degree in Chemistry (1950) and a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry (1953) from Queen Mary College, University of London. His publications include 53 scientific and technical papers, and 24 patents (plus many foreign applications).

Eitan Yudilevich
Executive Director, BIRD Foundation

Dr. Yudilevich joined BIRD with vast international experience after a varied career in Israel and the U.S., including management of Rafael's operations in the U.S. In his last position at Rafael, Dr. Yudilevich served as Vice President of Marketing and Business Development. Previously, he was in charge of Rafael's missiles division, the company's largest division which also develops various technologies which have civilian applications, such as Given Imaging's unique capsule. Dr. Yudilevich has been member or chairman of numerous boards of international joint ventures. He was also chairman of the board of Opgal, an electro-optics company, and served as director of RDC, a business development company jointly owned by Elron and Rafael. Dr. Yudilevich completed his doctoral studies in computers and systems engineering in the field of medical imaging at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York. He earned his Master's Degree in mathematics at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and his Bachelor's and Master's Degrees in electrical engineering at Haifa's Technion.

Eli Hurvitz
Chairman, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, Ltd.

Mr. Hurvitz has been working with Teva, since 1968, during that period he has served as the President & CEO of the company as well. During his career, Eli Hurvitz was nominated for nomerous key rolls in the Israeli industry such as, Chairman of the board of The Israel Democracy Institute, NST (NeuroSurvival Technologies Ltd.), The Israel Democracy Institute, The Coordinating Bureau of Economic Organizations, Israel Export Institute, The Jerusalem Development Authority, The Jerusalem Development Authority and Bank Leumi Le'Israel Ltd. He also serve as Member of the Board at Tel Aviv University, Koor Industries Ltd, Vishay Intertechnology, Magal Security System Ltd. In addtion, he served as Chairman of the Executive Committee and Council of The Weizmann Institute of Science. He was a member of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs an the John F. Kennedy School of Government Harvard University. Mr. Hurvitz was nominated Honorary Doctorate of Philosophy from the Tel Aviv University, The Weizmann Institute of Science and the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. He was also received the Israel Prize for Lifetime Achievement. Honorary Doctorate of Technological Science from the The Technion Israel Institute of Technology

Haim Sadger
Partner, Sequoia Capital Israel

Mr. Sadger is a Sequoia Capital Israel Partner and focuses on components, software and systems investments in Israel. He is currently a Director of Traiana, Sanrad, Followap, Kontera and the Chairman of Bitband, Jajah and Upsteed . Previously, he was a Director of Pentacom (acquired by Cisco Systems, CSCO), and the chairman of Actona (acquired by Cisco Systems, CSCO). Before joining Sequoia Capital in 1999, Haim held senior engineering and management positions at Intel corporation. Haim received an EE from the Technion- Israel Institute of Technology- in 1983.

Jonatan Altszul
Chairman and Co-founder, Core Security Technologies

Mr. Altszul is the co-founder of Core Security Technologies and the Chairman of its Board of Directors. Core Security Technologies develops strategic security solutions for Fortune 1000 corporations, government agencies and military organizations. The company, founded in Buenos Aires and now headquartered in Boston, created the first-to-market automated penetration testing product for assessing specific information security threats to an organization. Prior to founding CORE, Mr. Altszul was a member of the Special Projects Group at the Argentine tax agency. This elite group evaluated and developed critical hardware and software security products for the agency in projects with budgets of up to $500MM. Before that, in 1989 he founded and, until 1992, served as the CEO of Datyl Systems, a company that developed the first commercial Geographical Information Systems software in Latin America. Also, in 1999, he co-founded Movilogic, a mobile solutions company based in Buenos Aires. In 2000, while leading CORE as its CEO, Endeavor Global, Inc., a non-profit supporter of entrepreneurship in emerging markets, selected Mr. Altszul as a top entrepreneur of the year. Jonatan Altszul actively supports the development of the High Tech Sector in Argentina.

Joseph Bach
Partner, Sughrue Mion, PLLC's Silicon Valley office

Mr. Bach has more than a decade of legal experience in all aspects of intellectual property law, including patent prosecution and litigation. Joseph has developed methodologies for, and counsels clients on, efficiently building and managing effective patent portfolios. Joseph has successfully handled and managed cases in a broad range of technologies and has litigation experience before the International Trade Commission and federal courts. Joseph was formerly Senior Director of Intellectual Property at Applied Materials, where he was responsible for all aspects of the company's intellectual property internationally. He hold a law degree from the Duke University School of Law and a B.S. Engineering and Applied Science from California Institute of Technology (Caltech).

Kevin Matsushita
Emerging Technology Practice, Silicon Valley Bank

Kevin Matsushita

Mr. Matsushita is a relationship manager in Silicon Valley Bank's Emerging Technology Practice. In this role, Matsushita manages a portfolio of early-stage technology companies and works closely with SVB's network of angel and venture capital investors and strategic partners. When Matsushita joined SVB in 2001 he served large private and public companies as part of SVB's Corporate Technology Practice. Prior to joining Silicon Valley Bank, Matsushita held various business development positions at MediaOne and Gig.com. He also worked in strategic planning at Universal Studios, where he focused on mergers and acquisitions and business development. Matsushita began his career in banking at Continental Bank and the Long Term Credit Bank of Japan, where he was responsible for Industry Advisory Services and entertainment lending. Matsushita earned a bachelor's degree in economics from University of Illinois and an MBA from Pepperdine University.

Lior Gepstein
Department of Physiology & Biophysics, Faculty of Medicine, Technion

Lior Gepstein

Professor Gepstein’s research focuses on generating human heart tissue from embryonic stem cells. The tissue could be used for testing and creating new drugs, for genetic studies, for cell replacement therapy, for tissue engineering, and for studying the effects of various stresses on the heart. Prof. Gepstein’s other research interests include the mechanisms underlying cardiac arrhythmias and devising new therapeutic strategies for heart rhythm disorders. He received his B.Sc. degree in medical sciences (summa cum laude), a M.D. degree (summa cum laude) and a Ph.D. degree from the Technion Faculty of Medicine. He was trained in both internal medicine and cardiology at the Rambam Medical Center in Haifa. The author of more than 40 scientific papers and chapters in books and two patents, his work has been published in the leading scientific journals Nature Medicine, Nature Biotechnology, Journal of Clinical Investigation, Circulation, and Circulation Research.

Moshe Eizenberg
Executive Vice President for Research, Technion

Moshe Eizenberg

Professor Eizenberg spent two years as a post-doctoral research associate in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering of Cornell University, and one year as a visiting scientist at IBM - T.J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights. In 1980 he joined the Department of Materials Engineering at Technion. He was a visiting scientist at IBM T.J. Watson Research Center - Yorktown Heights, N.Y., Bell Laboratories - Murray Hill, N.J., The University of Paris (XI) - Orsay, and at Applied Materials - Santa Clara, Ca. He is a member of the Israeli Vacuum Society, the American Vacuum Society and the Materials Research Society. Prof. Eizenberg has served on both national and Technion committees. In the years 1998-2001 he served as Dean of the Faculty of Materials Engineering at the Technion.

Nir Zuk
Founder and CTO, Palo Alto Networks

Mr. Zuk is the Founder and Chief Technology Officer at Palo Alto Networks - a Silicon Valley startup, funded by Greylock and Sequoia. Previously, Zuk has served as Chief Security Technologist at Juniper Networks where he was responsible for the technology in Juniper's security products. Zuk has joined Juniper through the $4B acquisition of NetScreen Technologies where he was Chief Technology Officer. Zuk came to NetScreen through the acquisition of OneSecure, the inventor of Intrusion Prevention, where he was co-founder and CTO. Prior to OneSecure, Zuk was Principal Engineer at Check Point Software Technologies. Throughout his career, Zuk has invented numerous network security technologies that today can be found in most network security products. These include the flow-based stateful-inspection firewall, high-availability for firewalls and stateful-signatures for intrusion detection and prevention.

Professor Oded Shmueli
Dean of the Computer Science faculty, Tecnion

Oded Shmueli

Professor Shmueli's research interests are in Database Systems: Theoretical aspects of query processing in relational databases, XML databases and logic based databases (Datalog); System issues: Physical storage, concurrency control, recovery, replication and distribution; Querying the WWW; Electronic Commerce; Automated Negotiation. Hr wrote numerous publications among them:GOODMAN, N., and SHMUELI, O., "Tree queries - a simple class of relational queries", ACM Transaction on Database Systems, Vol. 4-7, pp. 653-677, 1982. GOODMAN, N., and SHMUELI, O., "The tree projection theorem and relational query processing", Journal of Comp. and Syst. Science, Vol. 28-1, pp. 60-79, 1984. SHMUELI, O., and ITAI, A., "Complexity of views: tree and cyclic schemas", SIAM Journal of Computing, Vol. 16-1, pp. 17-37, February 1987.
BEERI, C., NAQVI, S., SHMUELI, O., and TSUR, S., "Set constructors in a logic database language", Journal of Logic Programming, Vol. 10-3\&4, pp.181-232, 1991.

Orni Petruschka
Partner, Prologue

Mr. Petruschka was co-founder and CEO of Chromatis Networks, a company he started in 1997 to develop optical equipment for the telecommunications market. Chromatis was sold to Lucent in May 2000, for $4.75 billion after establishing itself as a world leader in its field. Prior to founding Chromatis, Orni served as CEO of Scorpio Communications Ltd. Orni co-founded Scorpio in 1993 and managed it until it was sold to US Robotics in 1996 for $72 million. Prior to founding Scorpio, Orni served as the head of Systems Engineering at ECI Telecom optical communications line, and prior to that he held various positions at Telcordia (formerly Bellcore). Orni holds a Bachelor of Science degree from the Technion in Haifa and a Masters degree from Cornell University, Ithaca, NY.

 

Paul Schröder
CEO and Founding Partner, Residex Ventures

Mr. Schröder has 25 years of international experience in the Venture Capital World. Previously he was senior investment manager at Atlas Ventures and after that Managing Partner at Inter Crown Investments (Corporate Venture Capital Company of the Royal Dutch KPN). Paul started in 1997 with Residentie Investments putting over 400M to work over the years in direct and indirect funds. Until 2005 he was the CEO and President of Residex Venture Capital Network and until July 2002 he was chairman of the Dutch Venture Capital Association (NVP).
He served as a Supervisory Board Member for Life Sciences Partners Funds and the P3 Technology Fund and was in the board of former portfolio companies like SNT and Bibit. Paul Schröder holds a degree in Business Administration and Civil Law.

Ram Banin
Entrepreneur-in-Residence, Global Catalyst Partners

Dr. Banin was a co-founder and executive of several companies in Silicon Valley. Since 2000, he is providing Israeli technology companies ‘hands on’ management coaching and international business development. Ram is also an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Global Catalyst Partners, an early stage venture capital fund. In 1992 Ram joined TCSI, a diversified software public company, as general manager of its Telecom division, becoming president and CEO in 1997. In 1980 he co-founded Daisy Systems, which pioneered the Electronic Design Automation (EDA) industry. In a bold move for a young company, Ram opened Daisy’s R&D center in Israel that employed 150 engineers at its peak and became the model for future Israeli startups. In the early 1970s he participated in the development and deployment of the Arpanet, the ‘Granddaddy’ of today’s Internet. Banin holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley, M.Sc. in Nuclear Physics and B.Sc. in Physics and Math from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel.

Sam Hadad
President and Principal Consultant of HTCS

Dr. Sam David Haddad has evaluated 42 start-up and early stage companies for venture capitalists and angel investors to determine pre-IPO funding. Dr. Haddad is a Consulting Professor of Electrical Engineering at Stanford University since 1990 and he served as president of Silicon Valley Engineering Council for two years and for 4 years as chairman of Silicon Valley Engineering Hall of Fame. Formerly, he occupied executive positions at Solectron WW NPI, Lucas CAV Fuel Injection, EPRI, Anatrol Noise & Vibration Corp., Cummins Engines and at Daura Oil Refinery. Dr. Haddad has over 30 years experience in engineering R&D, management consulting, new product development and in leading training courses for major Fortune 500 companies. These include Applied Materials, IBM, nVidia, SAIC, NASA Ames, EPRI, US Navy & Army and several multinational companies. Since 1974, Sam has consulted in noise and vibration control, diagnostics, electronic cooling, predictive maintenance and coaching CEO’s and entrepreneurs of start-up companies. Sam serves on boards of directors and Advisory boards for several organizations and companies in Silicon Valley. Dr. Haddad holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering with honors and a Ph.D. in Engineering from Southampton University in UK.

Shmulik Aran
VP, Ofer Hi-Tech

Mr. Aran has led several investment deals, performed a complete turnaround in a portfolio company, and acts as a chairman, board member or observer in several public and private IT, communications and life science portfolio companies, including NextNine, CogniFit, and Kailight. Shmulik has more than 22 years of experience in the telecommunications marketplace in sales, pre-sales, product marketing, product management, and R&D management positions. As a Sales Development Director at Comverse, he played a major role in increasing regional sales from $2 to $17 million in two years. At NSC (Natural Speech Communication) he formed and managed the sales and marketing activity, tripling yearly sales.
Shmulik is a graduate of the prestigious Talpiot program, and has MSc in Electric Engineering from Tel Aviv University and a BSc in Mathematics and Physics from Hebrew University. Shmulik has won several prestigious awards for education and work related achievements.

Tom Baruch
Founder and Managing Director, CMEA Ventures

Tom Baruch

Mr. Baruch founded CMEA Ventures in 1989 as an affiliated fund of New Enterprise Associates (NEA) and was one of the original investors in Aclara BioSciences (which merged with Virologic – NASDAQ: VLGC), Flextronics (FLEX), Netro (NTRO), Silicon Spice (acquired by BRCM), and Symyx Technologies (SMMX). He is currently Chairman of the Board of Directors of Alien Technology and Codexis, Inc., and also serves on the boards of ChemConnect, E-Markets, Entropic Communications, Foveon, Intermolecular, NewPath Ventures, Physiometrix, Raven, RF Magic, Symwave, Symyx, and Virologic. Tom's investment interests include the semiconductor, wireless and life sciences industries. Before starting CMEA, Tom was a founder and CEO of Microwave Technology, Inc. Just prior to that, he managed a dedicated venture fund at Exxon, and was President of the Exxon Materials Division. Earlier in his career, Tom worked as a patent attorney. Mr. Baruch holds an engineering degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a Juris Doctor degree from Capital University. Tom is also a member of the Board of Trustees of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Uri Sivan
Director of the Russell Berrie Nanotechnology Institute, Technion

Professor Uri Sivan, who holds the Bertoldo Badler Chair in the Faculty of Physics at the Technion, is the Head of the Russell Berrie Nanotechnology Institute at the Technion. Prof. Sivan and the center he heads have been carving out a world-class position for the Technion in research into nanoelectronics, which is replacing microelectronics in the quest for molecular scale electronic devices and circuits. The center team has taken a giant step forward in that quest. Using coded DNA molecules to form a connection with two coded electrodes, they produced a conductive wire 1000 times thinner than a human hair. That was the first-ever successful harnessing of biological molecules for the creation of a working electronic component. That work, published in the prestigious journal Nature, was extensively cited also in the media including the BBC, Los Angeles Times, and many other newspapers and TV programs. In his internationally noted career, Prof. Sivan has been invited to present his works at more than 50 major international conferences and has published more than 50 articles in leading professional journals.

Uzia Galil
Founder, Elron Electronic Industries Ltd

Mr. Galil, a graduate of the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology and Purdue University in the USA was the founder of Elron Electronic Industries Ltd., and served as Chief Executive Officer of the company from 1962-1999. In 1999, Uzia Galil founded Uzia Initiatives and Management Ltd. and is presently the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the company, with the mission of helping regional innovations to become a global success by leveraging the experience and the global network of its management team and its partners worldwide. Uzia Galil has been awarded Honorary Doctorate degrees from Technion, The Weizman Institute of Science, Polytechnic University New York, Ben Gurion University, Solomon Bublick Prize Laureate from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Outstanding Electrical and Computer Engineer Award by the Purdue University, USA and the Israel Innovation Award). In 1997 he was awarded the prestigious Israel Prize for his contribution to the development of the Israel hi-tech industry.

Yigal Erlich
Founder, Chairman & Managing Partner, The Yozma Group

Yigal Erlich

Yigal Erlich is the founder and managing partner of the Yozma Group The group manages over US $ 200 million and has invested in over 45 Portfolio companies. Mr. Erlich is considered as the founding father of the Israeli venture capital industry and one of the most prominent figures in the Israel high-tech arena. At the beginning of 1993, Mr. Erlich established Yozma which was the first VC fund, sponsored by the government of Israel. Within a period of three years, the Yozma Group established 10 venture funds, which are the backbone of the Israeli venture capital market and invested directly in 15 companies. Between 1984 and 1992, Mr. Erlich served as the Chief Scientist of Israel's Ministry of Industry and Trade. During his eight-year tenure as Chief Scientist, Mr. Erlich commanded an annual budget of $200 million, primarily directed at research and development projects of high-technology companies. Mr. Erlich also started the Technology Incubator Program that led to the creation of 24 Incubation Centers throughout Israel, and was instrumental in the establishment of several bi-national industrial and technology R&D cooperation agreements with other countries.

Yitzhak Apeloig
President, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology

Yitzhak Apeloig

Professor Apeloig is one of the most popular and respected academic figures on campus, he served as dean of the Faculty of Chemistry from 1995 to 1999, holds a prestigious academic chair since 1993 and was named Teacher of the Year on three separate occasions by the Technion Student Association. A co-founder and co-director of the internationally renowned Lise Meitner Center for Computational Quantum Chemistry, Prof. Apeloig has been a research fellow and visiting professor at numerous universities on four continents, including Princeton, Cornell and the University of Utah in the United States, the Technical University in Berlin, Kyushu and Tohoku Universities in Japan and the National Australian University in Canberra. He is a world-renowned leader in organosilicon chemistry, computational chemistry and mechanistic organic chemistry. He is the author of more than 170 papers in leading international scientific journals and an editor of several books.

Yoram Baram
Head of Intelligence Systems Laboratory, Technion

Professor Yoram Baram, Ph.D., earned his BSc degree in Aeronautical Engineering from the Technion in 1972, his MSc degree in Aeronautics and Astronautics from MIT in 1974 and his PhD degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT in 1976. During 1974-1975 he was a Senior Research Engineer at the Draper Labs in Cambridge, Massachusetts, designing a state estimator for the space shuttle autopilot. During 1976-1978, he was a Senior Research Engineer at the Analytic Sciences Corporation in Reading Massachusetts, designing inertial navigation systems for submarines and missiles. During 1978-1983 he was a faculty member at the Department of Electronic Systems at Tel Aviv University. Since 1983 he has been a faculty member at the Departments of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the Technion, teaching courses and conducting research. Since 1986 he has been a Senior Research Associate at the NASA Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California.

Yossi Vardi
Principal, International Technologies Ventures

Dr. Vardi is one of Israel’s high-tech veterans, with 35 years experience of founding and participating in building over 30 high-tech companies, in the fields of Internet, software, telecommunications, electro-optics, energy, and the environment. Several companies Yossi Vardi founded eventually went public, among them Advanced Technologies (Tekem - which became at the time the largest software company in Israel), International Technologies (Lasers), Granite Hacarmel and others. He is the principal of International Technologies, which engages in private high-tech investments for its own account. Yossi is the founding investor and the former Chairman of Mirabilis Ltd, the creator of the highly popular instant messaging program ICQ, which pioneered the internet-wide instant messaging phenomena, making it one of the most successful and popular Internet products of all times, with currently close to 400 million downloads. The company was acquired by AOL, to which he still serves as an advisor. He also serves as a strategic advisor to Amazon.

Zohar Gendler
Managing Director, Technion Incubator

Zohar Gendler

Mr. Gendler is the CEO of the Technion Entrepreneurial Incubator Co. Ltd. (TEIC). Mr. Gendler brings wide-ranging experience in identifying new technologies and establishing, directing, and creating value to start-up companies. He has extensive experience with raising funds to early stage companies and mentoring TEIC's entrepreneurial subsidiaries and affiliates. Prior to his appointment as the CEO of TEIC in 1995, he served as the incubator's vice president for business development for two years.
Mr. Gendler was the business manager of TAN Ceramic Ltd. He also held a post at Israel's Ministry of Defense. He has been a member of the Technion's Patent Committee since 1998.
Mr. Gendler earned his master's of science degree in material engineering (laser surface treatment), a bachelor's degree in physics, and a certificate in business management from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology.

Zohar Zisapel
Chairman, RAD Data Communications

Mr. Zisapel is Chairman of RAD Data Communications, which he founded in 1981 together with his brother. Since then, RAD has grown into a group of 15 companies with aggregate sales of $640 million in 2005. Six of those companies are traded on Nasdaq.

Prior to founding RAD Mr. Zisapel served as head of the Electronic Research Department of Israel’s Ministry of Defense. He received bachelors and masters degrees in electrical engineering from the Technion and an MBA from Tel Aviv University. From 1998 to 2000, Mr. Zisapel served as Chairman of the Israel Association of Electronic Industries.