With climate change accelerating faster than previously imagined and policy makers unable to stem the tide, Israeli innovators are seeking out of the box solutions.  And fast.  To help them along, Sapir Academic College will host the Western Negev Eco-Thon at its Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (HIE Sapir) on March 18th and 19th.

Students, innovators and entrepreneurs from around the region will join forces with professional mentors and industry experts in an effort to hack the challenges of environmental survival facing us all.  Participants will build prototypes for innovative solutions on challenges such as recycling hot water from data farms, predicting weather changes that produce flash floods, and bridging the digital divide for the some 3.7 billion people who live in places without internet access.

Sapir’s mission is to combine the highest standards of academic research with the human potential and entrepreneurial initiative of the Negev.  HIE Sapir utilizes innovative, customized, interdisciplinary teaching methods to help students learn and develop their ideas into entrepreneurial ventures. The center is located in the eXlab, an expansive technologically equipped open space on the first floor of the library, established with the generous support of Sau Paulo Women's Division-Keren Hayesod and the ICA Foundation.

Sagit Paltin Yifrach, director of innovation at Sapir, is inspired by the ingenuity she encounters every day in the Negev. “We’re bringing everyone together – Agro-tech, hi-tech startups and our students and faculty to reimagine how innovation can build sustianbility.  Sapir is at the nexus of it all.  Folks down here have uniquely practical sense about them.  So when students ask what I really want to see coming out of this event, I just tell them ‘surprise me.  We have a planet to save!’.

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