Dear Technion Family,

Once again, spring has arrived in full bloom, with intoxicating scents and a sense of renewal. In a few days, we will gather with our families around the holiday table, read the story of the Exodus, and celebrate ancient freedom. However, our hearts will remain firmly in the present, with our kidnapped brothers held in the tunnels of Gaza, with their families, and with the families of those murdered and killed on October 7 and in the war that followed. Together, we continue to pray and hope for the return of the hostages, and to the ancient Haggadah, we will add our heartfelt call: bring them home now.

The past year has been difficult and bitter for Israeli society as a whole. It should have been a time for healing and unity; instead, we find ourselves in a deep crisis that shakes the foundations of the partnership between the diverse streams that make up Israeli society.

Today, our role is more important than ever, not only because we educate Israel’s elite engineers, physicians, architects, scientists, and educators, not only because Israel’s security and economy rely on us, but because of the values that have guided us for a hundred years. Inclusion, pursuit of truth, moderation, and equality have served and will continue to serve as our moral compass. Now, it is our duty not only to live by these values but to spread them.

In December 2024, exactly 100 years after the first classroom opened at the historic building in Hadar, the moving documentary Technion 10² premiered. The film tells the story of the Technion’s first hundred years, which we will mark with a series of celebratory events culminating in the Board of Governors meeting this June.

During the meeting, we will inaugurate the Carasso FoodTech Innovation Center, the Linda and Don Brodie Floor, and the Esther and Herbert Hecht Sustainable Protein Research Center. We will lay the cornerstone for the Shillman Family Computer Science Building in the Taub Faculty of Computer Science and the Stephen and Nancy Grand Aerospace Building in the Stephen B. Klein Faculty of Aerospace Engineering. We will unveil the new Technion Scientific Pinnacles Wall celebrating Technion’s Nobel and Israel Prize laureates and inaugurate the Centennial Time Capsule that will tell the Technion’s story to future generations when opened 100 years from now. Later this year, we will break ground on the D. Dan and Betty Kahn Human Health Building in the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, which will house the Bruce and Ruth Rappaport Cancer Research Center.

As we celebrate the Technion’s centennial year, we take pride in our resilience, in our academic and administrative staff, in our 100,000 alumni who drive the country’s economy and security, in our 15,000 students, and our friends and supporters in Israel and around the world. We are all links in a long and glorious chain that began over a century ago, and whose future knows no bounds.

Happy Passover,

Prof. Uri Sivan
President of the Technion