6 Michael G. Jesselson Chairman, Board of Trustees Shalom. It’s been another great year at Bar-Ilan. We are in the first year of the second Five-Year Strategic Plan, led by our President Arie Zaban. We continue to achieve great things. Here are just a few: • Alongwith theTechnion, wewere selectedby thegovernment to establish a National Center for the Promotion of Basic and Applied Academic Research on Energy Storage, Fuel Cell, and Hydrogen Economy. This will help Israel achieve energy independence, and help the world lessen its dependency on fossil fuels. • We established, as part of our Russell Berrie Galilee Diabetes SPHERE, partnershipswithmajor national healthcare providers andmunicipalities in five pilot cities in the northern periphery. These partnerships will provide education on pre-diabetic care and the management of diabetes and its dangerous complications among the diabetic community in the Galilee. • We were ranked highly among the world’s top universities for natural language processing and are the leading university in Israel developing technology, models, and algorithms for AI-based applications in Hebrew. This work will ensure that Hebrew remains a key part of the Jewish national identity in this new and changing world of “AI.” •We completed a newhome for our Department of Computer Science and renovated six classrooms for the new School of High-Tech and Cyber Security, both of whichwill provide Israel with the skilled professionals that its tech sector needs. • We were chosen to establish the Jonathan Sacks Institute at Bar Ilan, which will expose our undergraduate and graduate students to the values-based political science and theological teachings of the late Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks. It will also create an alumni network that will impact Israeli society with his teachings. • In the area of education, we hired new staff for the Division of Teaching and Learning. We also revamped 70 courses, the first of thousands that will eventually be modified to make themmore relevant and engaging. We also won a multi-year award from the Council of Higher Education to bridge the classroom environment to future careers that are in demand. •We launched two newprograms, a leadership training course for female researchers and a conference to encourage those researchers’ media presence. This will further improve our commitment to gender balance in the University’s leadership and encourage women to aspire to greater influence and involvement. • Of the eight lawyers involved in leading the negotiations for judicial reform under the auspices of President Isaac Herzog, four are renowned professors of law at Bar Ilan. • Two Bar-Ilan Professors were awarded the prestigious “Israel Prize”: Prof. Dov Schwartz for elucidating the development of Jewish philosophy and the worldview of religious Zionism, and Prof. Zmira Mevarech for her groundbreaking work in the fields of cognition and metacognition and her promotion of mathematics education in Israel. Again, all this would not be possible without everyone’s participation: the academic community, the administration, our committed Lay leaders, and the leadership of President Zaban. While we are living in difficult and trying times that are affecting our people and country, Bar-Ilan and its Jewish values can be both a beacon of light and hope to our nation, to the global Jewish community, and to all. Together we will do great things! With the blessing of Shalom Al Yisrael, בברכת שלום על ישראל, A Word from the Chairmen
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