The Technion’s story has been intertwined with Israel’s for more than a century, from laying the foundations for a new nation to shaping its future.
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Prof. Hossam Haick of the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, one of Israel’s most successful scientists, is really a frustrated karate fighter. As a boy in Nazareth, he joined a karate class and seemed to have found his calling. “I was incredibly competitive,” he says. “I went from one achievement to the next.” But in 10th grade, with a black belt around his waist, he reluctantly decided to quit and concentrate on his studies. “I regret it to this day,” he says, entirely seriously. “I could have had a great career in karate.”
Haick, 51, a professor of chemical engineering and nanotechnology, remains a fighter at heart. In the laboratory, too, he gives everything he has, sometimes to excess, to achieve his goals. Giving up on an idea is simply not an option. During our nearly four-hour conversation, he keeps returning to projects that should have fallen apart. But like a bulldog, Haick sinks his teeth into his goal and refuses to let go. Even when he fails, even when a technology he has worked on does not prove itself, as has happened along the way, he does not throw up his hands. Instead, he redoubles his efforts and pushes harder. He has no choice. It is his curse and his blessing.
“It probably comes from my childhood,” he says in a moment of self-reflection. “I grew up feeling that I had to win because, if I failed, there would be no one to back me up. That I had to succeed or I’d collapse. It was a matter of survival.”
