10 September 2025

Our Technion UK Israel Tour - 4. Haifa

We are currently on our coach, heading back to Tel Aviv from a Druze village, 14 km from the Lebanese border. We were hosted by the members of the smallest Druze village in Israel. Our host is a graduate of The Technion and we heard from and met both him and his young friends. These are extraordinary people in every sense of the word.

To be honest, we are still trying to absorb the horrific reports about the situation at Suweida concerning the  recent massacre of the Druze by the Syrians and their current precarious state, all of which bears an uncanny resemblance to what happened in Gaza nearly two years ago. 

Our speaker was a former psychologist and current lecturer at the Technion who is a Druze lady with two young daughters.

It is truly barbaric. 

We drove there from the Haifa Dan Panorama where we attended fascinating lectures about technology to create alternatives to meat and an ingenious research project that is investigating the technology of using DNA to store data,  replacing current hardware such as DVDs, Blu-ray and other physical media. Extraordinary stuff.

We travelled there from the Rambam Hospital which was built the world's largest fortified underground car park which is also fully functional hospital ward on three levels and was built precisely for this purpose. This has to be seen to be believed! It was last converted from the former to the latter over the Iran War in June. 

We descended there having been entreated to a demonstration on how the hospital (and its Technion trained graduates) are creating 3D models to train surgeons to carry out complex operations. 

This was preceded by a fascinating talk by Professor Aaron Ciechanover who won the 2004 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his research on uncovering new ways of understanding the way in which proteins work. 

And I haven't even talked about the fascinating lectures at lunch regarding the use of AI in medical research. 

We travelled to the hospital from the Technion where we watched an incredible presentation regarding its history and the scientific successes its graduates and professors have developed. 

And to think that we awoke this morning and made our way from Tel Aviv. 

Another extraordinary day on this extraordinary trip. 



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