Dr. Amnon Shefi.                                                                  March 2021

Amnon, is a hi-tech executive with broad engineering experience in medical imaging, telecom, and underwater acoustic with a long-standing involvement in modern cross cultural, multi-disciplinary education.

Amnon is a retired navy captain who led engineering breakthroughs in underwater acoustics and medical ultrasound before serving as a CEO of public and privet hi-tech companies (Nexus, CMT). Amnon holds a B.Sc. Technion, (1971) and a Ph.D. NPS, (1988 EE & CS).

Dr. Shefi has been focused on education since, 1999 when he founded Hi-Teach aiming to address the challenge posed by the exponential growth of knowledge. The company pioneered and applied STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Math) education, with programs run in collaboration with leading industry, (Elbit, Philips, Applied Materials, Teva, Bermad, Dorad, EAPC, Bazan Group), academia (Technion, HUJI) and government (Ministries of Education, Economy, Energy, and the National Water Authority). All of which were successfully applied in hundreds of schools, with over 22,000 students over 22 years, around the country. The programs were applied jointly with all sectors of the diverse Israeli society, Jew, Muslim and Christian Arabs, Druze and Bedouins.

Rotary Hands Across Waters (RHAW) is one example of these programs, where Water & Sanitation challenges, and solutions developed and applied in Israel, are used to inspire cross cultural STEAM education. The project is joined by many (70) partners including more than 20 Rotary Clubs and four Rotary Districts in Israel (District 2490) and 16 Rotary Clubs from eight different districts around the world. The Rotary Fund (TRF) has recognized the program as a global Note Worthy Program in its centennial year (2016). RHAW has been practiced jointly over the last sixteen (16) years, collaboratively by students and teachers from all sectors of the local society. The program now promotes global awareness of the mounting water challenge and the potential solutions, through an international School Twinning program run jointly with the Rotary. Cross cultural collaboration in the address of the mounting water and environmental challenges, is now expanded to the international level cooperation, inspired by the cross-cultural cooperation demonstrated by RHAW in Israel