The Carasso and Hecht Centre’s will drive innovation, research, and industry collaboration in food production and biotechnology

These new centre’s established at the Technion, will promote education, research, and innovation in the food sector and strengthen the connection between the Technion and the entire food industry, from traditional to cutting-edge.

Eliminating hunger and improving food security are among the major challenges facing humanity in the 21st century, as defined by the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. The Technion houses the only faculty in Israel dedicated to food engineering, leading the Israeli food-tech industry.

Dean of the Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering, Prof. Esty Segal, added, “As dean, I see the establishment of these two centre’s as a clear manifestation of our vision—to position the Technion and the State of Israel at the global forefront of innovation in food. This field is not only an industrial growth engine—it is a profound scientific, environmental, and social challenge, integrating biotechnology, engineering, health, life sciences, and sustainability. Both centre’s were born out of a multidisciplinary pursuit of excellence, enabling us to develop breakthrough technologies, bridge basic and applied research, and lead food solutions for a world facing climate change, nutritional inequality, and resource depletion. It is also a commitment to Israel’s future, ensuring food security, advancing sustainability, and training the next generation of visionary, bold, and responsible scientists and engineers. This is a powerful link between science and purpose, between knowledge and impact—for Israel and the entire world.”

The new centre will support the Technion and the faculty in their mission—to bridge science, engineering, and technology in shaping the future of food production, preservation, and consumption, while advancing key goals such as waste reduction and environmental protection. We face major research challenges that intertwine health, sustainability, and innovation, alongside the educational task of training the next generation of scientists and engineers. This center will allow Technion researchers to translate ideas into real-world impact. We thank the Carasso family across generations, including the younger generation, for enabling the establishment of this important center. Let us celebrate this milestone—and now, to work.”

The Carasso family’s contribution, which will strengthen Israel’s footprint in global food research, is intended to support and realize their values and those of their company, emphasizing Zionism, excellence in science education, reducing disparities, and investing in infrastructure. The upgraded, expanded facility will be unique in Israel and among the most advanced in the world. It will include a research and development center for industrial-scale production, equipment for scaling lab processes to pilot scale, laboratories for food and biomaterials analysis, a fermentation lab, an industrial kitchen, and a tasting room—all designed to support teaching, research, and collaboration with industry and startups.

The Esther and Herbert Hecht Sustainable Protein Research Center is a multidisciplinary center that brings together approximately 50 researchers from various Technion faculties to develop food solutions for a better future. The center will serve as a model for sustainable protein research, promote collaborations within and beyond the Technion, and foster innovation, entrepreneurship, and the training of professionals in this field.

The centre is the world’s first academic centre in this field. Its vision is to serve as a multidisciplinary hub for researching and developing sustainable sources of protein. Its activities are grounded in Technion excellence and the rapid global development of this field. The center promotes research, attracts outstanding new researchers, trains graduate and postdoctoral students, and provides cutting-edge research infrastructure. It offers competitive research grants to launch initial interdisciplinary projects and holds conferences to strengthen connections between relevant researchers at the Technion and beyond.

Israel’s PillCam revolutionized GI imaging, and now others are following that success with other non invasive solutions that journey through the body.

Every list of the greatest Israeli inventions includes PillCam.

PillCam is a video camera swallowed like a vitamin pill. It travels through the gastrointestinal tract, sending clear images to the physician on its way out of the body.

Invented by an Israeli electro-optical engineer and his neighbor, a gastroenterologist, the camera-in-a-pill endoscopy device signaled a worldwide diagnostic revolution. Capsule endoscopy has been FDA-approved and in use since 2001.

Given Imaging, the Israeli company that commercialized the PillCam, was acquired in 2013 by Irish company Covidien. Following Covidien’s acquisition by US-based Medtronic, the PillCam platform has been further developed through the Covidien Minimally Invasive Therapies Division of Medtronic.

The PillCam capsule endoscopy platform now enables physicians to detect GI abnormalities, monitor disease (such as Crohn’s) and assess treatment efficacy for conditions in the esophagus, stomach, small bowel and colon (large intestine).

Pitch Night isn’t just a student competition — it’s a launchpad for the next generation of Technion innovators. By turning bold ideas into real-world solutions, these students are gaining hands-on experience in entrepreneurship, engineering, and impact. It’s a powerful glimpse into how the Technion is shaping Israel’s future, and the future of technology itself. Keep scrolling to see what innovation in action really looks like.

I think there’s something entrepreneurial in Israeli DNA. I feel beyond privileged to have listened to all the wonderful pitches tonight and hopefully follow up with them.” – ERIC BRANDON, STARTUP BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT

On June 18, 2025, Pitch Night brought together food, networking, and fierce innovation as Technion t:hub students took the stage to present the next generation of Israeli startups. From AI to sustainable solutions, each team unveiled their business plans, elevator pitches, and bold visions for the future.

An esteemed panel of investors and entrepreneurs challenged the students on everything from scalability to go-to-market strategy, culminating in the selection of a standout winner: Omer Sabary, whose pitch left the judges and audience inspired.

Whether you’re passionate about Israel, technology, or the future of global innovation, Pitch Night offered a front-row seat to what’s next from Startup Nation.

The crew of the cargo ship Eternity C could hardly believe their eyes – within minutes, their vessel was sunk in broad daylight in the Red Sea by an unmanned boat and RPG missiles, and they were taken captive by Houthi rebels. The next day, another container ship was attacked in the Red Sea – and it too was sunk. Just a few years ago, such a scenario would have sounded completely far-fetched. Yet these two alarming incidents occurred just this past month – and they are not the only ones. Worse still – they are only part of a growing wave of threats to the global supply chain, driving up the costs of production, transport, and logistics.

In recent years, the global supply chain has been severely shaken by a series of crises and events: the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, the Houthi attacks on the maritime route through which approximately 50% of global goods once passed, and the latest disruptive development – the U.S. administration’s new tariff policies.

Pickommerce CTO Amir Shapiro and Cybord Founder and CTO Eyal Weiss and CEO Oshri Cohen are both Technion alumni.

Michael Belkin is a serial entrepreneur of a particularly rare breed. Like other serial entrepreneurs, he never stopped developing, researching, and inventing throughout his life, but he did so not out of a pursuit of money, but primarily out of the joy of creation, curiosity, and a desire to bring medicine to the world. It so happened that he made his first exit when he was already 68 years old. At an age when most of his peers were retiring, Belkin sold a company he founded for $180 million. Even then, he had no intention of retiring, but continued to research and invent. Last year, when he was 82, the second exit came: one of his greatest inventions, an automated device for treating glaucoma, was sold for $466 million to the eye care giant Alcon.

And there’s still no talk of rest. Every morning, as he has for 30 years, Belkin shows up at the same office at the Eye Research Institute at Sheba Medical Center, turns on the fluorescent light above him, and begins his workday in a space that looks like a small museum. The room is packed with compact binders, framed certificates, photos, posters of organs of vision, and medical models collected over decades. It perfectly suits his image as a professor of ophthalmology at Tel Aviv University who has authored more than 500 scientific articles and holds over 40 patents.

In a year marked by war, political upheaval, and global economic volatility, Israel’s tech sector continues to defy the odds — and the Technion is once again at the heart of its resilience. Three of the standout companies on Calcalist’s 2025 list of the 50 most promising Israeli startups — Decart, ForSight Robotics, and OX Security — all trace their roots to the Technion, where bold ideas and deep scientific training are shaping real-world solutions. These startups aren’t just succeeding; they’re changing the game across AI, healthcare, and cybersecurity.

Decart: Accelerating the Generative AI Revolution

Just 18 months after its founding, Decart has raised $53 million, earned a half-billion-dollar valuation, and captured the attention of top-tier venture firms like Sequoia Capital and Benchmark. At its core is a powerful systems-level AI infrastructure that enables a tenfold improvement in training and inference speed for large generative models, unlocking real-time AI applications previously limited to tech giants.

The company’s momentum is fueled by deep academic and technical foundations. Technion alumnus Dean Leitersdorf, Decart’s CEO and co-founder, launched the company with fellow co-founder Moshe Sason during a period of reserve duty — building their team and vision under extraordinary pressure. Their platform dramatically reduces the resource load of generative AI, allowing them to train and deploy their own foundational models. It’s a leap forward in making powerful AI not only faster and cheaper, but more accessible to companies and creators around the world.

ForSight Robotics: Precision Eye Surgery for a World in Need

More than 2 billion people worldwide suffer from vision impairment, but there aren’t nearly enough trained eye surgeons to meet the growing demand. ForSight Robotics aims to bridge that gap with a robotic microsurgery platform that delivers 10x the accuracy of a human hand. Their technology integrates robotics, machine learning, and computer imaging to perform delicate eye procedures with unprecedented precision, starting with cataract surgery.

The company was co-founded by Technion alumnus and company President and Chief Medical Officer Dr. Joseph Nathan. A practicing ophthalmologist and engineer, Dr. Nathan helped launch ForSight alongside Technion Professor Moshe Shoham, a pioneer in medical robotics and founder of Mazor Robotics. Together with CEO Dr. Daniel Glozman, they’ve built a platform with the potential to democratize surgical care, especially in regions with limited access to specialists. With the world’s aging population and rising chronic disease rates, ForSight’s mission is not just to enhance surgical performance, but to make sight-saving procedures globally scalable.

OX Security: Cutting Through the Noise in Cyber Defence

In today’s cybersecurity landscape, overwhelmed teams are bombarded with alerts — many of them low-risk. OX Security takes a radically different approach, focusing only on the small percentage of vulnerabilities that could truly cripple a business. That philosophy, born in the wake of the SolarWinds hack, has resonated strongly with customers and investors alike. Since emerging from stealth in 2022 with a $34 million Seed round — one of the largest in Israeli cybersecurity history — OX Security has quickly amassed hundreds of paying clients.

The company was founded by Technion alumnus Neatsun Ziv, former VP of Threat Prevention at Check Point, alongside CPO Lior Arzi. Both are Unit 8200 veterans and cybersecurity experts with decades of combined experience. Their mission is to cut through the noise, reduce alert fatigue, and help organizations defend themselves more effectively against the threats that truly matter. With most of its early competitors already acquired, OX Security is now a standout in a space that demands clarity, speed, and precision.

Together, Decart, ForSight Robotics, and OX Security reflect the Technion’s role as a launchpad for ideas that matter — and for startups built not just to survive disruption, but to lead through it.

Outstanding Achievements for the Israeli Chemistry Team Trained at the Technion

The Israeli National Chemistry Team has won four Olympic medals — two gold and two silver — at the International Chemistry Olympiad held in the United Arab Emirates, with participation from 90 countries.

At the International Chemistry Olympiad (IChO), held this year in the UAE, 354 competitors from 90 countries around the world took part. The Israeli Chemistry Team proudly representing Israel:

  • Itamar Ben Shmuel – from Ramat Gan, 11th-grade student at the Kfar HaYarok School – Gold Medalist
  • Jonathan Gontmakher– from Rishon LeZion, 12th-grade student at the Krieger Real Gymnasium – Gold Medalist
  • Omer Zachary Ben-Ami – from Tel Aviv, 12th-grade student at Ironi Dalet High School – Silver Medalist
  • Yehonadav Marienberg – from Mazkeret Batya, 10th-grade student at the Har Etzion Yeshiva High School for Youth, Alon Shvut – Silver Medalist

The Ministry of Education and the Maimonides Fund’s Future Scientists Center lead the preparation of Israel’s national science teams for participation in international olympiads. The Israeli Chemistry Team was trained at the Schulich Faculty of Chemistry at the Technion, led by Academic Director Prof. Zeev Gross and Head Coach Dr. Reut Shapira. Accompanying the delegation were Prof. Gross, Dr. Eyal Barnea, and Dr. Zack Patrick Sarcel.

Minister of Education, Yoav Kisch: “Behind every medal stands an Israeli student with a spark in their eyes, curiosity in their heart, and a willingness to work hard – children like Itamar, Jonathan, Omer, and Yehonadav, who dared to dream big and saw it through to the end. Each one of them represents a story of persistence, talent, and educational support that believes in the student every step of the way. The achievement at the Chemistry Olympiad is not just a peak – it’s the result of daily quiet effort, a deep partnership between the Ministry of Education, the Maimonides Fund’s Future Scientists Center, and the Technion, and teams who never stop seeing the child, even when immersed in science. This is how we build an education system that moves forward: not waiting for success, but growing it. With consistency, humility, and deep faith in our children’s abilities.”

Technion President, Prof. Uri Sivan, thanked the Technion team that trained the delegation and said: “At the Technion, we are proud to train the next generation of Israeli scientists. The students competing in the International Chemistry Olympiads undergo screening and preparation in a special program that has been running for years at the Schulich Faculty of Chemistry at the Technion, under the direction of Prof. Zeev Gross. Winning the international competition is a major achievement. Jonathan, Itamar, Omer, and Yehonadav – I congratulate you. You reached the competition after much effort and have proven your excellence. I hope to see you in the future as students at the Technion – fulfilling your potential and bringing us academic pride.”

This milestone follows significant developments including the 2023 FDA clearance of ReWalk 6.0 for stairs and curbs usage, and the 2024 Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) national reimbursement policy approval for qualified beneficiaries. The company, which made history in 2014 with the first FDA-cleared exoskeleton medical device for SCI patients, will commence ReWalk 7 sales in the United States once the product becomes available.

The decision reinforces the medical necessity of ReWalk’s technology and is expected to influence coverage decisions by commercial insurers. The ReWalk 7, the company’s latest innovation and the only personal exoskeleton capable of navigating stairs and curbs, received FDA clearance in March 2025 and is now commercially available in the United States.

Insights

Medicare ruling establishes ReWalk exoskeleton as medically necessary, opening significant reimbursement pathways that should accelerate adoption and revenue growth.

The Administrative Law Judge ruling represents a landmark reimbursement victory for Lifeward’s ReWalk technology. This decision—coming at the highest level of Medicare appeals—establishes legal precedent that the exoskeleton meets Medicare’s critical “reasonable and necessary” standard for medical devices.

The laser missile defense system will be managed by the newly established Energy Warfare Administration in Rafael’s Land and Naval Systems Division.

With Israel’s Iron Beam laser missile defence system to become operational in the fourth quarter of 2025 Rafael Advanced Defense Systems today announced the establishment of a new Energy Warfare Administration in its Land and Naval Systems Division. The new administration will manage high-power laser systems projects.

The new administration head named only as Dr. Y. will serve under Rafael EVP & General Manager of the Land & Naval Systems Division Tzvi Marmor. Dr. Y., a graduate of the Technion with a Ph.D. in physics, joined Rafael about 12 years ago and has since held a series of senior positions in the engineering sector while leading the development and production of groundbreaking systems for national security. Among other things, she served as head of Israel’s Iron Dome production line and as head of electro-optics, which is integrated into most of the company’s advanced systems.

Rafael’s Land and Naval Systems Division at Rafael will continue to be responsible for the development, production and marketing of complete and integrative products and solutions in the areas of precision attack, including the Spike missile family, active, reactive and passive defense systems for tanks and armored vehicles, including Trophy, and Iron Beam.

The new administration will be responsible for Iron Beam in particular and the development and production of Rafael’s laser systems in general.

Rafael CEO Yoav Tourgeman said, “Dr. Y. brings with her extensive management experience of teams of hundreds of developers, as well as a deep understanding of technological needs and operational requirements. All of this will allow her to promote these flagship projects and realize the marketing and business potential in Israel and around the world.”

High-power laser system for ground-based air defense

Iron Beam is a high-power laser system for ground-based air defense, against aerial threats (rockets, mortar bombs, drones, and cruise missiles). The Ministry of Defense Directorate of Defense R&D (DDR&D) (MAFAT) is leading the project, along with Rafael, the main developer, and Elbit Systems.

Iron Beam be integrated into Israel’s multi-layered air defense system, alongside Iron Dome, which is an interception system for rocket threats within a range of 40 kilometers. Iron Beam will be a complementary system for intercepting rockets within a range of up to 10 kilometers, using a powerful 100 kilowatt laser beam. The major advantage of Iron Beam is in significant cost savings. While each interception with Iron Dome costs an estimated $30,000, each interception with Iron Beam will cost just $5-$10.

TEL AVIV, Israel, May 19, 2025 — Quantum Machines, the leading provider of advanced hybrid quantum-classical control solutions, announced today the release of QUAlibrate, an open-source framework for calibrating quantum computers.

The framework dramatically shortens calibration times and provides a comprehensive solution for creating, executing, and sharing calibration protocols across different quantum computing platforms. By creating an open ecosystem, QUAlibrate enables researchers and companies worldwide to build upon each other’s advances, accelerating the path to practical quantum computers.

“QUAlibrate has been transformative for our company,” said John Martinis, CTO and co-founder of Qolab. “Its automated calibration capabilities now complete full calibrations in less than 10 minutes – tasks that otherwise would demand up to two hours of manual work. This efficiency boost frees up our team to focus on accelerating our QPU development.”

Calibration has emerged as one of the most critical bottlenecks in scaling quantum computers. To properly initialize and maintain a quantum computer’s performance, calibration must be performed not just once, but frequently during operation to compensate for system drift. As quantum systems grow in size, the calibration challenge becomes exponentially more complex. For instance, calibrating a 100-qubit superconducting quantum computer from scratch can take up to two days, and even recalibrating an already-calibrated system can take an hour or more. This becomes impractical when scaling to future systems with hundreds of thousands of qubits.

“We care both about how long it takes to calibrate and about how good the calibration is, two things that sometimes collide, and this impacts the performance of the quantum computer as a whole,” said Dr. Yonatan Cohen, co-founder and CTO of Quantum Machines. “We built an open-source solution because we believe this is a challenge the community can solve together. Researchers in both academia and industry continuously develop new calibration algorithms and protocols. One day, a team in Boston might develop a protocol that increases quantum operation fidelity, the next day a European company might create a method to speed up calibrations. The path to solving this fundamental challenge lies in a collaborative approach where teams can instantly leverage each other’s advances and build on them.”

To address this fundamental challenge, Quantum Machines has developed QUAlibrate, an open-source calibration framework that transforms quantum calibration from a collection of isolated scripts into a modular, collaborative system. QUAlibrate enables researchers and quantum engineers to create reusable calibration components, combine them into complex workflows, and execute calibrations through an intuitive interface. The platform abstracts away hardware complexities, allowing teams to focus on quantum system logic rather than low-level details.

In a recent demonstration at the Israeli Quantum Computing Center (IQCC), QUAlibrate completed a multi-qubit calibration of superconducting qubits in just 140 seconds. The result demonstrates the system’s speed and efficiency in real-world conditions.

QUAlibrate’s open-source nature and modular architecture mean that when researchers develop new calibration protocols, these innovations can be immediately shared, validated, and built upon by the broader quantum computing community. Companies can also develop proprietary solutions on top of QUAlibrate that leverage advanced approaches like quantum system simulation and deep learning algorithms. This creates an ecosystem where fundamental calibration advances can be shared openly and enables specialized tools that push the boundaries of performance.

“It was fantastic to see QUAlibrate rapidly perform a complex, full tune-up on the Architect system, OQC’s partner system with OINS and Quantum Machines,” said Simon Philips, CTO of Oxford Quantum Circuits (OQC). “The results clearly demonstrated the power and efficiency of QUAlibrate’s automated calibration approach, as showcased by Quantum Machines.”

“At Quantum Elements, we see QUAlibrate as a meaningful step toward a more open and empowered quantum ecosystem,” said Izhar Medalsy, co-founder and CEO of Quantum Elements. “Calibration has long been a hidden bottleneck, often locked behind proprietary tools and inaccessible workflows. By making it open source, Quantum Machines is helping turn calibration into a shared foundation the entire field can build on. We believe this kind of openness not only accelerates progress — it also gives scientists the clarity and control they need to push quantum computing forward, together.”

“QUAlibrate has laid a vital groundwork for fast, reliable and efficient calibration on our QPU while we continue to scale up the size, connectivity and fidelity,” said David T. Lee, Research Scientist at Academia Sinica. “It’s definitely a game changer.”

Along with the framework, Quantum Machines is releasing its first calibration graph for superconducting quantum computers, providing a complete calibration solution that can be immediately deployed and customized. The graph leverages QUAlibrate’s parallel calibration capabilities to dramatically reduce calibration times. Looking ahead, Quantum Machines and NVIDIA are developing software libraries that will integrate QUAlibrate with accelerators like the NVIDIA DGX Quantum, enabling even faster calibration times and higher fidelity calibrations using machine learning models.

Quantum computing researchers and engineers can begin using QUAlibrate today by accessing the open source repository at: https://github.com/qua-platform/qualibrate or visit Quantum Machines’ website to learn more: https://www.quantum-machines.co/products/QUAlibrate.

About Quantum Machines

Quantum Machines (QM) is a leading provider of quantum control solutions, driving the advancement of quantum computing with its Hybrid Control approach. By harmonizing quantum and classical operations, Hybrid Control eliminates friction and optimizes performance across hardware and software, enabling researchers and builders to iterate at speed, resolve setbacks, and bring visionary ideas to life. Its platform supports any type of quantum processor, empowering the industry to scale systems, accelerate breakthroughs, and push the boundaries of what’s possible.