Speakers

Dafna Meitar Nechmad is a TAU alumna and longtime social investor with extensive philanthropic experience. She manages the Zvi and Ofra Meitar Family Fund, established by her parents Zvi and Ofra Meitar, which supports cultural and educational projects in Israel and overseas. Following a flourishing law career she turned her time and attention to the nonprofit sector. Since 2003, Ms. Meitar Nechmad has served as President of Meitar Collection, a private company with an archive of more than 150,000 photographs taken by photographers in Israel since 1940. The company preserves and catalogues photographs, and makes them available to museums, publishers and producers. Her various additional roles include, member of the Managing Committee of the Zvi Meitar Center for Advanced Law Studies at TAU’s Buchman Law School; board member of JFN – Jewish Funders Network; a member of Committed to Give, and a Governor of Tel Aviv University. Additionally, she is a board member of the Metropolitan Opera in New York and the Herzliya Interdisciplinary Center. From 1989 to 2006, she was a partner at Meitar Liquornik Geva Leshem Tal, the largest law firm in Israel, where she specialized in commercial, telecommunications and corporate law. Ms. Meitar Nechmad holds an LLB, a BA in political science, and an MA in political communications, all from Tel Aviv University. She lives in Tel Aviv and is married with three daughters and one grandson.

Prof. Ariel Porat was elected the ninth President of Tel Aviv University in May 2019. After receiving his LLB degree and direct JSD degree at TAU, he performed post-doctoral studies at Yale Law School. In 1990, he joined TAU’s Buchmann Faculty of Law, where he is the incumbent of the Alain Poher Chair in Private Law. He is a member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities. Prof. Porat’s main research interests are torts, contract law and the economic analysis of the law, with many books and articles published in these areas. He served for 15 years as an Associate Member and Fischel-Neil Distinguished Visiting Professor of Law at the University of Chicago (2003-2019). He was also Visiting Professor at Stanford University, and at the Universities of New York, Columbia, Berkeley, Virginia and Toronto. He was a member of the Board of the American Law and Economics Association for three years, and is a member of the American Law Institute. From 2002 to 2006, Prof. Porat served as Dean of the Buchmann Faculty of Law, during which he introduced joint LLM programs together with UC Berkeley and Northwestern University. He also founded an admittance program for students from Israel’s geographic and social periphery, which was initially at the Law Faculty and thereafter adopted throughout the University. Prior to his appointment as Dean, Prof. Porat was Director of the Cegla Center for Interdisciplinary Research of the Law (1997-2002), where he founded the journal Theoretical Inquiries in Law, today ranked as one of the world’s leading journals in the field of law theory. Prof. Porat has been the recipient of numerous honors, among them the EMET Prize, Chesin Prize, Zeltner Prize and Zusman Prize.

Prof. Fatina Abreek-Zubiedat is an Assistant Professor (Senior Lecturer) at the Azrieli School of Architecture, Tel-Aviv University, and heads the research lab Spaces-in-Transition. She currently serves on the editorial team of the peer-reviewed International Journal of Islamic Architecture. Prof. Abreek-Zubiedat completed her postdoctoral studies at ETH Zurich and earned her doctorate with outstanding distinction in 2018 from the Technion-IIT, Haifa. Her research focuses on aid development and humanitarianism in the Global South, spatialities and cross-cultural materialities of forced migration of both human and non-human species, infrastructures of poverty, and food insecurity including wheat in the Middle East and North Africa. Her studies have been published in leading peer-reviewed journals and book chapters, and her work has been recognized with receipt of several prestigious awards and grants, including The Rothschild fellowship; The Neubauer fellowship; The ISF grant; VATAT fellowship for Arabs; and the Azrieli Award. Her new published book A Territory in Conflict: Eras of Development and Urban Architecture in Gaza has been awarded the Graham Foundation.

Tami Bronner has been a General Partner at Vertex Ventures Israel, since 2019. She is a seasoned leader with over 20 years of experience in software development, product management, and project leadership, and is an active board member in several Israeli startups. Previously, Tami was VP of Product Management at Varonis, where she played a key role in its growth from a startup to a Nasdaq-listed company. She founded and served as CEO of a mobile platform startup and managed big data and cybersecurity projects in Unit 8200 of the Israel Defense Forces. Tami holds a BA and MSc, summa cum laude, from the Coller School of Management.

Dr. Anita Friedman has a distinguished record of public service, both as a professional and as a volunteer leader. Her roles in the Jewish and general communities extend from the Bay Area to the national and international arenas. Professionally, Dr. Friedman heads Jewish Family and Children’s Services (JFCS) in the San Francisco Bay Area, one of the largest and oldest family service institutions in the United States. JFCS programs are internationally distinguished for their excellence, innovation, and compassion. As a speaker, lecturer, and author, Dr. Friedman’s expertise includes social policy and programming for diverse populations that include children, youth, families, and the aged; the financing of health and human services; and the development of innovative business and social enterprise models. Dr. Friedman’s expertise also includes Holocaust and genocide education. She is the editor of the recently published Rywka’s Diary (Harper), now translated into 15 languages and the subject of a forthcoming film. Dr. Friedman has served on various local, state, national, and international commissions, including as a longtime Commissioner of the San Francisco Human Services Commission, overseeing the City and County of San Francisco’s social welfare budget. As a policy consultant to the State of Israel Ministry of Social Affairs, she has advised on effective policy strategies for human service provision and immigrant absorption. She is currently a trustee on the national boards for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the University of Southern California’s Shoah Foundation, the Taube Foundation for Jewish Life & Culture and the Koret Foundation, where she serves as President of the Board. Dr. Friedman’s numerous awards include the 2015 San Francisco Business Times’ “Most Influential Woman in Business Award,” the State of California’s Family Service Council Distinguished Leadership Award, the International Louis Kraft Award, the National Myrtle Wreath Award, Jewish Community Federation’s Professional of the Year, the Raoul Wallenberg Club Public Service Advocate Award, and A Wider Bridge’s Leadership Honor.

American political commentator and author. He is a three-time Pulitzer Prize winner and weekly columnist for The New York Times. He has written extensively on foreign affairs, global trade, the Middle East, globalization, and environmental issues. Friedman began his career as a reporter and won two Pulitzer Prizes in the 1980s for his coverage of the conflict in Lebanon and politics in Israel, followed by a further prize in 2002 for commentary on the war on terror.

Jeff Hart is a graduate of the Wharton School of Business. A serial entrepreneur, he started his first business at 16, he was Executive Vice President of Canada’s largest network of technology retailers and resellers, and co-founded Victoria Park, Cosmetic Physician Partners, and Cosmetic Physician Partners Europe which together have over 75 leading medical aesthetic clinics across the world. The environment became Jeff’s priority after watching An Inconvenient Truth and understanding that all our efforts on making the world a better place might be for naught if we did not solve the climate crisis. Jeff worked with JNF Canada to create the Climate Solutions Prize to support breakthrough research to solve the climate crisis. The initiative has distributed over $6m US in prizes to Canadian and Israeli researchers and entrepreneurs in Israel and Canada and has created Climate Solutions Festivals in Tel Aviv and Montreal, hosting over 3,000 attendees.

Mr. Holzmann is a Swiss entrepreneur, real estate investor, property developer, and sports management executive. He was born in Tel Aviv, in 1971, and moved with his family to Basel, Switzerland, at the age of eight. After attending the boarding school “Ecole d’Humanite” in Hasliberg, he studied at Basel Business School (KV Basel) and received his management education from “Höhere Wirtschaftschule Wiedemann”. Dan started his business career at 19 when he co-founded Switzerland's first pizza delivery service in Basel. In 1993, he joined the nutraceuticals company The Juice Plus+ as Country Manager for Switzerland and Germany, He later expanded his business and established the European headquarters of the Company and in 2012 he became the President and Chief Executive Officer of the global Company at the time operated in 23 countries around the globe. In 2018, Juice Plus+ was acquired by Altamont Capital Partners. Following his career with Juice Plus+, he created the Holzmann Group AG - a private investment firm headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland, with holdings in multiple companies committed to sustainability and longevity. Dan is a generous philanthropist; he established the Holzmann Foundation in 2016 and has contributed to more than 50 charities worldwide, many of them in Israel. In 2022 he made a significant donation to Tel Aviv University towards the Dan Launchpad for Startups – a new venture enhancement program at TAU. The Dan Launchpad accepts innovative early-stage ventures of TAU students, faculty and young alumni in all industry domains and crafts an individual growth plan for each participating startup . He also serves as a member of the Board of Governors

Ziv Koren has been a professional photojournalist for over 25 years. He began his career as a photographer in the Israeli army. Today, Koren works for the Hebrew daily "Yedioth Ahronoth" and represents "Polaris Images" photo agency in Israel. Koren's documentary-projects focus mainly on humanitarian issues in Israel and around the world such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Covid-19 pandemic, the tsunami in Southeast Asia, the earthquake in Haiti, AIDS in South Africa and more. In addition, he has documented the Israeli Defense Forces for more than two decades including military operations such as October 7 War, the withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, the Second Lebanese War, military operations "Cast Lead", "Pillar of Cloud", "Protective Edge" and more. His award-winning photographs have contributed to many solo and group exhibitions worldwide at the Metropolitan Museum of Tokyo, the Memorial Museum in Spain, and the War Museum in Croatia, in the project 'War/Photography: Images of Armed Conflict and Its Aftermath," at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, to name a few. Koren's photographs have been widely published in the international media including Time Magazine, Newsweek, The Sunday Times Magazine, Stern, Der Spiegel, Paris Match, Le Figaro, Corriere Della Sera Magazine and others. In 2000, Koren’s 1995 photograph of an exploded Israeli bus was selected as one of the 200 most important images in the last 45 years by World Press Photo. He is also the frequent recipient of prestigious prizes such as the "Photo District News Award" (4 times), "Yann Geffroy Award", "International Color Award" (twice) and "Picture of the Year" (POYi). *photo by Hadas Ruso

Head of the New Environmental School at TAU, head of the Ecological and Environmental Physiology Laboratory at the School of Zoology, and adjunct professor at the Faculty of Medicine Nursing and Health Sciences, Monash University. She is the Chair of Israel’s National Council of Research and Development, and until recently served as the Chief Scientist of the Israeli Ministry for Environmental Protection. She holds BSc, MSc, MHA and PhD from Tel Aviv University, and Post-Doctorate at Boston University. She served as a member of the board of Israel's Nature Reserves Authority, Board of the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel, member of several committees of The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Board member of the European Biological Rhythms Society, member of the Multi-stakeholder Advisory Group (IMAG) of UNEP Global Environmental Outlook 7 (GEO 7), was Israel’s representative to the UN food systems summit and more. She published ca 150 papers which were cited ca 7500 times and mentored over 50 graduate students and post-docs.

In my last position, I served as Deputy Director of the Natural Resources and Climate Resilience division at the Ministry for Environmental Protection. Before taking on this role, I served as the CEO of the Israeli Society for Ecology and Environmental Sciences, where I worked to promote environmental and sustainability issues among government officials, industry, and academia. I hold a BA in Political Science and Geography, a MA in Political Science (with honors), and a PhD in Environmental Justice from Tel Aviv University. My knowledge and experience come from a place of commitment to public engagement and are built on my belief in the power of research, science, technology, and reason to change reality and improve the world. I know that this will only happen if the knowledge reaches decision-makers, key players in the economic arena, and the general public in the appropriate way. As the director of the School of Environmental Studies at Tel Aviv University, I see my mission as leading environmental education that is directly connected to contemporary challenges in the field of sustainability and ecology

Independent Filmmaker Yariv Mozer is an Israeli Film Academy Award Winner for his Documentary Ben-Gurion, Epilogue (2017) and an Israeli TV Academy Award Winner for Amazon Prime’s TV series, The Devil's Confession: The Lost Eichmann Tapes (2022) co-produced-with KAN11 & MGM Television. Recently Winner of the New Zealand DocEdge Film Festival for his new documentary, We Will Dance Again (2024), co-produced by Paramount Plus, Hot8, Sipur, MGM Studios, Bitachon 365, and BBC; Mozer is a Board member of The Israeli Academy of Film & Television and a Teacher at Tel Aviv University Tisch Film School. * photo by Angel Chai Arviv

Guy Morad is an illustrator and comic artist who has served as the political cartoonist of the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper for the past 17 years. The Tel Aviv-Yafo Municipality recognized his work and awarded him the Dosh Cartooning Award for 2021.

Prof. Uri Obolski is an associate professor of Epidemiology, in the School of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine, Tel Aviv University. He obtained a BSc in mathematics, and an MSc and PhD in computational biology from Tel Aviv University. He conducted his postdoctoral research at the University of Oxford as an EMBO Research Fellow. Prof. Obolski is interested in infectious diseases and their interactions with the environment. Specifically, his group analyzes the dynamics of mosquito-borne diseases with respect to climate, and patterns of antibiotic resistance and their relation to antibiotic usage. They develop and apply mathematical models as well as machine learning and advanced statistical techniques to electronic medical records and other disease-related data.

Hilla Ovil-Brenner is a renowned serial entrepreneur, investor, and mentor, with a wealth of experience and a proven track record in fundraising, fostering innovation, and entrepreneurship. She is the founder and CEO of Yazamiyot, Israel's largest platform for female entrepreneurs operating various international programs. As a prominent leader in the startup ecosystem, she is committed to nurturing diverse talent and creating inclusive opportunities in the tech industry. Previously, Hilla successfully founded three companies, including WhiteSmoke, which was listed on the TASE. In her previous role, she was the Managing Director of Techstars Tel Aviv, leading multiple investment processes. Holla sits on the board of many startup companies and was named one of the top 100 influential leaders and one of the 10 entrepreneurs to watch in 2025 by the magazine “times of Israel”.

Prof. Dan Peer is Vice President for Research and Development as well as Director of the Laboratory of Precision Nanomedicine at Tel Aviv University. He is the Founder and Managing Director of the SPARK Tel Aviv, Center for Translational Medicine. Moreover, Prof. Peer is on the Scientific Advisory Board of numerous international companies and an invited keynote speaker at many conferences. Prof. Peer’s work was among the first to demonstrate systemic delivery of RNA molecules using targeted nanocarriers to the immune system and he pioneered the use of RNA interference for drug discovery in immune cells. In addition, his lab was the first to show systemic, cell- specific delivery of modified mRNA expressing therapeutic proteins that has enormous implications in cancer, inflammation and infectious diseases. Prof. Peer is one of the pioneers in the use of molecular medicines (gene silencing, gene expression and gene editing) for therapeutics and diseases management.

Prof. Mark Shtaif is the Rector of Tel Aviv University. After completing his BSc, MSc, and DSc degrees in Electrical Engineering at the Technion in 1997, he joined the research team of AT&T Labs in New Jersey as a senior and then principal member of technical staff, studying communication technologies. In 2002 he joined the Faculty of Engineering at Tel Aviv University and served as the head of the School of Electrical Engineering from 2017 to 2020. Prof. Shtaif is a communications scientist working mostly in the fields of fiber optics and optical communication systems, focusing on the integration of optics, quantum theory, nonlinear systems, communications theory, information theory, and signal processing. Over the years he has contributed to a variety of topics including optical amplification, analysis of nonlinear propagation, polarization-related phenomena, analysis of noise and signal detection, quantum information in fiber systems, and fundamental limits to optical communications. Most notable of late is his contribution to the analysis of polarization-dependent loss in fiber communications, to the nonlinear-noise model in fiber-optic transmission, to the theory of space-division multiplexed communications, and to effective phase reconstruction by means of the Kramers-Kronig receiver. Professor Shtaif is a Fellow of the Optical Society of America and of the IEEE.

Prof. Marcelo Sternberg is an experimental ecologist specializing in the impact of human activities on natural and agricultural ecosystems. His research spans global climate change, biodiversity, plant ecology, ecosystem functioning, and agro-ecology. He is particularly focused on using experimental approaches to address the challenges posed by global climate change. Prof. Sternberg currently oversees one of the world's longest-running climate change experiments, which manipulates rainfall in Mediterranean shrublands in Israel. This research examines the effects of extreme drought and altered rainfall patterns on ecosystem functioning and soil nutrients, employing state-of-the-art methodologies. Additionally, he collaborates on international projects investigating invasive species expansion and soil carbon dynamics in drylands, leveraging remote sensing tools. In 2021, Prof. Sternberg was appointed as a Changjiang Chair Professor at Ningxia University in China, the most prestigious academic honor awarded by the Chinese government to scientists. He has authored over 100 scientific publications in leading peer-reviewed international journals. His impact factor H-index is 46, and his i10-index is 91, with more than 9,600 citations. Over his career, he has supervised 48 students who achieved various academic degrees in his laboratory. Prof. Sternberg's public contributions include serving as Chairman of the Israel Society of Ecology and Environmental Sciences (ISEES) from 2010 to 2012. In 2018, he received the RAICES (Roots) Prize from the Argentinian government for International Cooperation in Science, Technology, and Innovation. This prestigious award, the highest recognition for Argentinian scientists abroad, honored him for advancing scientific collaboration. Prof. Sternberg was the first Israeli scientist to receive this distinction. He is currently leading the Carbon Neutral Initiative at Tel Aviv University, which aims to reduce the university's ecological footprint, and serves as the Head of the Institute of Cereal Crops Research at the School of Plant Sciences and Food Security.

Iftach is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Life Sciences, School of Plant Sciences and Food Security, where he shares his passion for photosynthesis and microbial diversity with the next generation of scientists. Beyond the classroom, he leads a dynamic research lab focused on harnessing the power of photosynthetic organisms to produce sustainable energy and high-value compounds. His team’s groundbreaking work has led to the development of a unique microalgal mutant that can continuously produce clean hydrogen fuel using a remarkably simple, agriculture-friendly method. This innovation is currently advancing through scale-up studies, bringing it closer to real-world impact. Since launching his lab in 2012, Dr. Iftach has published over 40 scientific papers in top-tier journals and remains deeply committed to both scientific excellence and hands-on mentorship. With your support, his research is helping to shape a cleaner, greener future through cutting-edge bioengineering

Daniel Zilber has been actively involved in the Tel Aviv University Students Union for the past three years, having recently assumed its leadership as Chairwoman. Previously she held the titles of Coordinator, Deputy Head, and Deputy Chairperson. She studies philosophy and psychological sciences at the Gershon H. Gordon Faculty of Social Sciences.

Moshe Zviran is a chair Professor of Information Technology at the Coller School of Management School and served as Dean of the School from 2014 through June 2022. He is currently the Chief Entrepreneurship and innovation officer of Tel Aviv University and Head of the Bloomberg Sagol Initiative for City Leadership at Tel Aviv University. He is the incumbent of the Isaac Gilinsky Chair of Entrepreneurship, Technology, Innovation, and Management. Also, he serves as the academic director of the Eli Hurvitz Institute for Strategic Management and the Coller Institute of Venture. He received his B.Sc. degree in mathematics and computer science and his M.Sc. and Ph.D. in information systems from Tel Aviv University, Israel, in 1979, 1982 and 1988, respectively. He held academic positions at the Naval Postgraduate School, California, the Claremont Graduate University, California, and Ben-Gurion University, Israel. His research interests include entrepreneurship and innovation, information and cyber security, and information systems planning and policy. Prof. Zviran has published numerous articles in leading academic journals and authored two books in information systems. He is also a consultant for leading organizations in Israel and abroad and serves as a board member in several companies and organizations.