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Technion Opens International School of Engineering In a ceremony held Wednesday, August 5, the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology officially launched the first phase of a new International School of Engineering. The program offered by the Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering, is focused on infrastructure and environmental engineering. Conducted entirely in English, the program was created specifically for students from abroad. The curriculum is identical to that already used by the Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering. “This is the nucleus for attaining a vision of setting up an international school in all engineering fields at the Technion,” said Prof. Arnon Bentur, dean of the Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering. “Within a decade, more than 1,000 students from all corners of the world will be studying under this framework.
The first 23-student class is already in the midst of a four-month preparatory program, in which they will also learn Hebrew. Among the ranks of the inaugural class are four women and 19 males from 14 countries on five continents North America (the US and Canada), South America (Uruguay and Peru), Europe (Italy, Denmark, France, Spain and Albania), Africa (South Africa, Ghana and Guinea) and Asia (China and India). And 30% of the students in the Technion’s new International School are from developing countries. “I have come to learn from those who have done so, those who have already built a country,” said Akashai Gifai, a student from India. “I chose the Technion because I heard about it in India and I know that here I will learn from engineers who really built a state. In India, Israel is considered a dangerous country but when I came here I found a nice, safe place even more so than India. The way people relate to us is simply amazing.” Bentur says that upon completion of their studies, the students will be ambassadors of goodwill for Israel in their countries and some will even be representatives of Israeli companies abroad. The recruiting of students for the new school relied heavily upon the Technion’s international reputation and extensive marketing efforts to targets that included leading high schools in the US and Europe, international student fairs and Internet advertising. “There is tremendous value in this new Technion school and we are pleased to cooperate with it,” said Israeli industrialist Uri Dori, a graduate of the Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering. “We will offer training for students and will mentor them so that they will be able to work with us in the future, when they finish and return to their countries.” Technion President Prof. Yitzhak Apeloig said that the event is a milestone in the annals of the Technion. “You will be proud to be the first class of this school,” he said to the students at the opening ceremony. “You are pioneers.” The Technion-Israel Institute of Technology is Israel's leading science and technology university. Home to the country's winners of the Nobel Prize in science, it commands a worldwide reputation for its pioneering work in nanotechnology, computer science, biotechnology, water-resource management, materials engineering, aerospace and medicine. The majority of the founders and managers of Israel's high-tech companies are alumni. Based in New York City, the American Technion Society (http://www.ats.org/) is the leading American organization supporting higher education in Israel, with offices around the country. |
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