Social Activity

Social activity

The Faculty of Data and Decision Sciences attaches great importance to encouraging the involvement and social contribution of the faculty and all of its students and works to deepen their socio-technological commitment, as agents of change, opinion leaders and future leadership.

In close cooperation with the social hub of the Technion, we are working to expand research in relevant fields, offer courses enriched in social action, and in addition hold annual extra-curricular activities. These are designed to generate social and ethical awareness in students, with the understanding that their professional occupation in the future will require access to data that expresses social issues (e.g. social media, health data and more).

Social action in research

The research work of the Faculty of Data and Decision Sciences combines a significant social contribution with doctoral students and researchers who lead innovative projects that influence Israeli and global society; for example, Shir Lissak’s research on mental health and Atar Herziger’s research on environmental behavior.

Innovative methods in mental health with emphasis on suicidal tendencies

The research of Shir Lissak, an outstanding doctoral student in the faculty, deals with the meeting between natural language processing (NLP) and mental health and focuses on developing methodologies for predicting risks, identifying risk factors and providing emotional support in the field of mental health. Shir won the President of Israel’s Scholarship for Excellence in Science and Innovation. She will receive the scholarship in a festive ceremony to be held at the President’s House on October 10. The doctoral research was carried out under the supervision of Prof. Roi Reichart.

Research that discovers how to change our behavior for the environment

The research of Atar Herziger, a senior lecturer in the faculty, focuses on positive environmental and social behavior. It examines the psychological and social factors that motivate or prevent us from making decisions related to sustainability. Her research deals with a variety of areas, such as energy saving, waste reduction, minimalism and transportation services in smart cities. Atar uses experimental approaches to understand these behaviors, both in the laboratory and in the field.

Courses that incorporate social action

Courses that incorporate social action enable students to contribute to the community while learning meaningfully for a degree. As part of the final project course for the degree in Information System Engineering in the Faculty of Data and Decision Sciences, led by Dr. Hanan Kohen and Dr. Niva Wengrowicz, the students presented an impressive combination of technological innovation and social commitment. The closing conference included a display of diverse projects, the aim of which is to combine advanced technological solutions with a response to social and community challenges.

Rock4Life is one of the main projects.

This system was developed for the Rock4Life organization in order to organize volunteers to collect and transport saliva and blood samples for the purpose of locating suitable bone marrow donors for cancer patients. Two student teams developed different applications designed to improve the volunteering process: one based on a Telegram chatbot, which enables simple management of tasks, and another with more advanced tools, which includes filtering by location and the use of AI. The solutions contribute to improving the efficiency and speed of the process of connecting donors and volunteers, thus saving lives and reducing the waiting time for donors.

Social action in extracurricular activities

Every year, the Faculty of Data and Decision Sciences holds a Datathon for Good – an artificial intelligence (AI) development competition focused on big data and its analysis – three busy, sleepless days.
The goal of the datathon is to introduce the students to the real world, with real data and social challenges. This is their first experience in significant work with data, both in the technological aspects and in ethical issues related to the use of artificial intelligence. The students come to the datathon from different academic years and from different tracks in the faculty. Each team sets up a kind of virtual startup company which it presents to the judges on the last day.

The datathon that reduced food waste in Israel

As part of the datathon, in collaboration with Leket Israel and Data for Good Israel. About 70 students developed methods to predict the amount of harvest available for Leket Israel, the National Food Bank, which is the leading food rescue organization in Israel. This will allow the association to plan an efficient collection of agricultural produce, reduce food waste and increase donations to those in need. The competition exposed the students to social action and emphasized the importance of reducing food waste and social disparities.

Datathon for saving lives with data: preventing suicide on social networks

In the Technion’s Faculty of Data and Decision Sciences, a Datathon was held in collaboration with the ERAN (Emotional First Aid) and Gila’s Way associations, with the aim of developing tools for monitoring suicidal tendencies on social networks. The students received access to information and support from experts in the field, thus not only gaining knowledge, but also opening an important dialogue about suicide prevention and ways to identify early signs – a step that can save lives in Israel.