Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Inaugurates "Ben-Gurion Award" on Ben-Gurion Day

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Ben-Gurion University of the Negev bestowed the inaugural Ben-Gurion Award on eight distinguished individuals for their contributions to the University,​ the community and the Negev on Wednesday. Five more were honored with the Alumni Recognition Award.

"I believe with all my heart, that Ben-Gurion, if he were to visit, would leave with a rare smile on his face…

"His vision lives on our campus! His spirit beats within us, and his spiritual heirs live and work here. We have chosen to recognize those who walk in his footsteps in the jubilee year of the University," he declared.

Rector Prof. Chaim Hames also reflected on the meaning of the University's 50th anniversary.

"Fifty years in the life of the University is definitely the appropriate moment to appreciate what came before while attempting to lay out the directions for the future. The University is not a collection of buildings but rather generations of people, academics, administrative and operations staff, who strove, sometimes under difficult conditions, to transform the University to what it is today. Who could have imagined 50 years ago that Ben-Gurion University of the Negev would be a research university with the ability to attract young researchers who completed their studies at the finest institutions in the world?

"In recognition and appreciation of our past, we are looking forward to the next 50 years to position ourselves among the leading research universities in the world. We are striving to bring the best researchers here, who will choose BGU because of its excellent research, intellectual environment, and involved and active academic community and infrastructure suited to 21st Century needs," he said.

Orly Ben-Hamu Lahav, manager of Intel's Kiryat Gat plant, spoke on behalf of the recipients of the Alumni Recognition Award, noting some of the values she had internalized at BGU and then implemented at Intel.

"I absorbed certain values during my years at this institution that guide me to this day as a sort of moral compass. One of the main values is that of diversity and inclusion. At Intel, this value is part of our organizational culture and is reflected in practice on a daily basis.

"As a woman making her way in a large multi-national corporation, I internalized the need and even the responsibility of organization and institutions to offer equal opportunities and to emphasize the advantages and potential profits from expanding the envelope and the inclusion. It requires a lot of openness, shedding of prejudices and a true ability to include the different in all its shades.

"If we teach and adopt these values, we will reap the rewards, we will feel the value added and the great contributions that come from innovation, original ways of thinking and constructive conflicts," she said.

​Ben-Gurion Awar​ds ​​​

(in alphabetical order)

Breakthrough Researcher- Prof. David Faiman​

Pioneering solar energy researcher, founder of the solar energy and environmental physics department and the Ben-Gurion National Solar Energy Center

Quote from Award Certificate: "In recognition of a brilliant and groundbreaking physicist in the field of applied solar energy." 

 

Lifetime Achievement Award, Medicine - Prof. Shimon M. Glick

One of the founders of BGU's medical school, founder of the internal medicine department at Soroka University Medical Center, former dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences and renowned medical ethicist

Quote from Award Certificate: 

"In appreciation of his significant contribution to forming the "Spirit of Beer-Sheva" and educating generations of doctors in accordance with a philosophy that emphasizes the doctor's humanity and his communication with the patient, which is what makes the study of medicine unique at the University and places the person as a person in the center." 

 

Lifetime Achievement Award, Academics and Sport - Prof. Shaul P. Ladany

Leading operations research scientist and legendary Olympic race walker, child survivor of the Holocaust, survivor of the 1972 Munich Massacre of Israeli Olympic Athletes

Quote from Award Certificate: "Whose persistence and strength of spirit redefine the boundaries of what is possible and exemplify the power of the human spirit" 

 

Contribution to the Negev - David Merage 

Philanthropist and founder of the Merage Foundation, which supports many community action projects in the US and Israel

Quote from Award Certificate: "With appreciation for a visionary philanthropist, founding president of the David and Laura Merage Foundation, who has generously dedicated his time and energies to supporting early childhood education, arts and culture and Jewish life, as an expression of the traditional family values he acquired as a child and his belief that investment in empowering people will enrich the society in which they live." ​

 

Educational-Social Initiative - Ibrahim Nsasra 

Bedouin entrepreneur and philanthropist, founder of Tamar Center to promote education

Quote from Award Certificate: "In appreciation of a successful social and economic entrepreneur, who constantly combines his business activities with significant community action, to a man whose guiding principle is equality among people and who bravely creates a new path in the Negev the view from which is a future of growth, peace and prosperity."

 

Public Service and Young Leadership - Tal Ohana 
Head of the Yeruham Local Council

Quote from Award Certificate: "To an inspiring public servant, who devotes her life to public service for the benefit of society and the State of Israel; in appreciation of a social leader and energetic entrepreneur who has succeeded in forging an impressive path in just a few years." 

 

Contribution to Israeli Culture - Kobi Oz 

Famed singer-songwriter/producer, lead singer of Teapacks and solo artist

Quote from Award Certificate: "To an exceptional artist and gifted songwriter, whose unique style captures better than any other the cultural mosaic that comprises Israeli society."

Inspirational Public Service - Aviva Segev 

One of the founders of the Faculty of Health Sciences, Kaye College, and Ma'agan, Edy's House to support those suffering from cancer

Quote from Award Certificate: "In honor of her deep commitment to creating a supportive and loving community and to improving the society in which we live, for everyone." 

Alumni Recognition Awards 

​(in alphabetical order)​

 

​​Eyaid Ahmad

Serves as accessibility supervisor for Arab students at Sapir Academic College and volunteers with dozens of organizations in the community. A founder of Hagar: Jewish-Arab Education for Equality

Quote from Award Certificate: "In honor of a successful economist and accountant, who devotes his life to social justice to reduce the financial and social gaps and strengthening Israel's social fabric." 

Orly Ben-Hamu Lahav

Intel plant manager in Kiryat Gat. Worked her way up over 22 years with the company

Quote from Award Certificate: "To a supervisor of thousands of employees, many of whom are residents of the South, and the fact that the factory she manages contributes greatly to the growth and development of Kiryat Gat in particular and the Negev in general."

Sigal Regev Rosenberg

Director-General of the Meuhedet Health Fund. First woman to hold such a position among Israel's four health funds

Quote from Award Certificate: "In honor of a woman with a wide breadth of vision, responsible for the health of more than a million Israelis, who firmly and decisively climbed to the top of the health system, and serves as a role model to her colleagues and to women everywhere." 

Shira Salzer

Hi-tech entrepreneur in Yeruham. Founder of Cambium, a software development company that now employs 42 residents of the city and the Negev

Quote from Award Certificate: "In recognition of someone who bravely and decisively acts to transform the employment map in Yeruham and the Negev through her personal faith and initiative; in appreciation of a woman with a vision who wrote another chapter in the story of making the Negev bloom, by establishing a software and applications company and thus proved that the South is an inextricable part of the technological future of the State of Israel."

Moshe Vigdor

Director-General of the Jack, Joseph, and Morton Mandel Foundation-Israel. Former director-general of the Council for Higher Education, the Jewish Agency for Israel and former VP and D-G of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Alumnus of the first graduating class of BGU's Department of Industrial Engineering and Management

Quote from Award Certificate: "For his many efforts to promote academic excellence, research and teaching and to make higher education accessible to all."

Click here to view the album from the ceremony »​