Peretz Lavie President of the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology

Summary: Among other topics, Peretz discusses the following issues with Metis Strategy:<br> <br> * The Technion’s mission and its role in driving entrepreneurship and engineering success in Israel<br> * The innate entrepreneurial nature of Israelis as an immigrant nation and their unique geo-political context<br> * What degree entrepreneurship can be taught to students, and what innate traits future entrepreneurs bring with them to the Technion<br> * How alumni contribute in the classroom and providing business opportunities to Technion students<br> * The Technion’s successful partnership with Cornell University to establish the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute in New York City and the contribution of JTCI to the city<br> * Faculty’s involvement in the companies that Technion’s students develop, and how the Technion financially encourages faculty’s start-ups<br> * Lavie’s own research on sleep and an individual’s peak creativity and alertness<br> * Eye on trends: Nanotechnology’s role in monitoring health and automatic translations capacity to globalize education<br> <br> Peretz Lavie’s Biography<br> Peretz Lavie is the President of the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, the oldest university in Israel specializing in the sciences, engineering and medicine.  Throughout his six year tenure as president, Lavie has overseen the Technion’s 18 faculties, and lead international initiatives like the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute in New York and the institute for technology at Shantou University.<br> President Lavie has researched, taught, and worked as an administrator at the Technion since he returned to Israel from the United States in 1975 to found the Technion’s sleep laboratory.  He later opened a similar center affiliated with Harvard University, authored several books including The Enchanted World of Sleep and Restless Nights: Understanding Snoring and Sleep Apnea and served as President of the Israeli Society of Sleep Research.  He also has advocated for policy reforms in education, transportation safety, broadcasting and the military where those fields relate to sleep.<br> Peretz Lavie received his bachelor’s degree in Psychology and Statistics from Tel Aviv University, earned his PhD in Physiological Psychology at the University of Florida, and pursued post-doctoral research at the University of California at San Diego.<br>