The Institute of Technological Empowerment

Professor Opher Etzion

“If you're not making someone else's life better, then you're wasting your time. Your life will become better by making other lives better.” ― Will Smith

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The Institute of Technological Empowerment is a societal-academic initiative aimed to empower populations in the Israeli periphery and developing countries using advanced technologies The institute’s activity is

based on: multi-disciplinary research, implementation of projects in the field, and education program – both academic and popular

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Israel is known as high-tech stateHowever, in Israel there are gaps in technology use over geographies and populations

The combination of the abilities in Israel, the short distances within Israel, and the Israeli cooperative mentality makes Israel an ideal lab for technological empowerment in developing countries

Yezreel Valley College is the right place due to its location and mission

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The Technological Empowerment Institute stand on three legs

The research leg: multi-disciplinary research that focuses on making high technologies, especially based on Internet of Things, accessible and personalized for target populations

The implementation leg: realization of projects by students and technology partners to implement the stated goals

The education leg: through education establish technological leadership in the region, which can serve as a model for developing countries

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Example:Personalized aides for elderly to maintain independent life

Motion sensor

Door sensor

ChairSensor

Voice Sensor

Alert family member

Alerts example:Door was not locked within 2 minutes after entranceFalling event detectedVocal distress detectedNo motion for certain time period detected

While much technology exists, it is not widely used. It needs to be more personalized, more affordable, and much simpler…

The research required is multi-disciplinary:

Technology oriented, human oriented, economic oriented and particular domain oriented

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On Personalization

The industrial revolution opened the era of mass production, variety depends on the economy of scale .

Current technology such as Internet of Things provides the opportunity to enable everybody to create their own systems. This requires multi-disciplinary effort .

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Major tool: senior project of students in YVC, other Israeli academic programs, and developing countries (including mixed teams).

Based on infrastructure of hardware and software that will be contributed by technology partners

The projects will be synergetic with the research activities

Each project will generate a prototype that will be tested in the field. The aspiration is to productize each project by start-ups, technology partners, or the institute’s staff.

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Initial areas for projects :

Agriculture: with an eye to developing countries

Aging population: independent living, assisting nursing house caretakers, quality of life activities nursing People with disabilities: aides for blind people and more

Smart cities and government in the periphery: waste management

Traditional industries: TBD

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Major aim: technology leadership in the northern part of Israel.

Through academic programs – existing and additional ones

Through educating the community – in all ages and becoming a center of gravity for knowledge in the area

Working together with other peripheries in the universe.

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Creating academic partnership with researchers from various disciplines and domain experts

Creating partnership with technology companies: using technologies and technology transfer

Creating partnership with non profit organizations that can provide mission and guidance

Creating partnership with potential benefactors of our activities

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Goals for the first period

Establishment of the institute: building the infrastructure and partnerships, and establishing the steering and advisory committees

Posing the initial set of research challenges, and establishing international teams to work towards these challenged

Execution of at least six projects, within at least three academic institutes, at least one in a developing country

Last but not least: raising seed money for the institute and the various activities .

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My main motivation is to use the experience and knowledge I have accumulated over the years to make a better world