Director General

Ministry of Science and Technology

After years in key positions in the Israeli High-Tech industry, Shai-Lee has chosen to use the experience and knowledge she had gained for the advancement of the Government and the public sector in Israel.

Shai-Lee currently serves as Director General of the Ministry of Science and Technology. As part of her role, she leads the formulation of the Government’s national long-term strategy in science, technology and innovation and its implementation. This is achieved through investments in groundbreaking research and technologies, management of an extensive system of international scientific collaborations, integration underprivileged communities in STEM research activities and studies, and the creation of an interface between the Government and the Israeli innovation industry.

In her previous role as Head of the Israeli National Digital initiative, Shai-Lee led the formulation of the Government’s National Digital Plan, and its implementation in collaboration with various government Ministries, in the areas of digital education, digital health, smart cities, data, digital inclusion and many other fields.

Shai-Lee has extensive experience in the High-Tech world, and has served in her last position before entering the Government as VP of Marketing at Microsoft’s R&D Center in Israel and was jointly responsible for building relations with the start-up industry in Israel. She has also previously served as Director of Regulation and Corporate Affairs in Microsoft Israel.

Shai-Lee has a Bachelor’s degree in Law from Tel Aviv University, and a Master’s degree in Public Policy from Harvard University in the United States.

Graduate of the Ecole Supérieure des Travaux Publics in Paris and a PhD in Physics from the University of Paris, France.

From 1970 to 2009 during his professional career with Israel Aerospace Industries. he developed the field of unmanned aircraft systems in Israel and abroad.

Co-chairman of the High Council Israel-France for Science and Technology.

In 1998, he has been listed by the “Industries et Technique” French magazine as one of the scientist that has most influenced the scientific world in the last decades and in 2015 he has been listed by the French Economist Magazine “Challenges” as one of the 100 personalities who change the world.

Laureate of the Israel Prize, the Israeli Defense Prize and the Israeli Marketing Prize.

Laureate of the US Prize Pioneer, for its contribution to the development of unmanned aircraft systems.

Knight of the French National Order of Merit.

Knight of the French Legion of Honor.

Dr. Chassagnon is a thoracic radiologist at Cochin Hospital in Paris (AP-HP Centre, Université de Paris). He obtained a PhD in mathematics and computer science at École CentraleSupelec (University of Paris Saclay) in 2019, with a PhD thesis entitled “AI-driven Detection, Characterization and Classification of Chronic Lung Diseases”. His main research topics are machine learning, interstitial lung diseases and bronchial diseases.

Fernando Garlin Politis, Institut Covid Ad Memoriam, is a PhD candidate at the Centre Population et Développement of the Institut de Recherche pour le Développement. His research interests and experiences relate to humanitarian crises, sanitary crises, political discourse and social media.

Avner Halperin is an entrepreneur and executive in the fields of Digital Health and Big Data Analytics.

He is Chairman of the Board at EyeControl and leads innovation initiatives at Sheba Medical Center.

Previously he was CEO of EarlySense: bringing the company from idea stage to raising close to $200M, developing a breakthrough sensing and predictive technology, over one million patients served and tens of thousands of lives saved.

Prior to that, Avner was CEO of Emmunet, VP Marketing at Radcom (NASDAQ: RDCM), and R&D team leader at Eldat Communications (acquired by Pricer (PRIC.ST)). He was also a Department Head of an R&D Unit in the Israeli Defence Forces Intelligence Corps where he won the Intelligence Innovation Award.

Avner earned an M.Sc. in Applied Physics from Tel Aviv University and an MBA from the MIT Sloan Fellows Executive MBA Program. He has been teaching courses on economy and entrepreneurship in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv University. His research papers and 32 US Patents have been cited over 3,000 times.

Maya Orlicky is a seasoned executive, experienced in shaping business strategies and operations for global companies with sector expertise in the medical and healthcare industries.

Currently, Maya is the Vice President of Strategy and Operations at Diagnostic Robotics where she leads the team responsible for the company’s growth strategy, business development, and product roadmap.

Prior to joining Diagnostic Robotics, Maya was Chief Operating Officer at Travelsuit, where she built the company’s operations and support team and designed a lead generation pipeline that led to a 40% increase in sales.

She has served as Strategy and Analytics Manager at Bluevine, a leading fintech company, and as a management consultant for Boston Consulting Group (BCG) working mainly in the healthcare and the financial services spaces.

Maya holds an MSc in Biomedical Engineering and a BSc in Biomolecular Science from New York University.

Jean-Louis PÉPIN, is Professor of Clinical Physiology at university Grenoble-Alpes (UGA).

He is head of the Clinic of Physiology, Sleep and Exercise at Grenoble University hospital (CHUGA). He is director of the HP2 Laboratory (Inserm U1042, UGA: Hypoxia Pathophysiology), vice-Dean of the Faculty of Medicine in charge of research and scientific director of clinical research at CHUGA.

He is the director of the UGA Chair of Excellence in e-health and integrated care and the Artificial intelligence Chair “Trajectories Medicine” (2018-2021).

He graduated as MD in 1987 (University of Montpellier), MSc in 1990 (biophysiology, University Claude Bernard, Lyon) and PhD in 1998 (cardiovascular adaptations induced by chronic hypoxia, University Joseph Fourier, Grenoble).

In 1999, he was visiting Professor at the Laboratory of Pulmonary Physiology of Harvard University, Boston, MA.

He is ranked by Expertscape as the 3rd highest expert worldwide in the field of sleep apnea.

He has experience in innovation (> 10 patents), in clinical trials and in industrial partnerships.

Quentin Perron is a medicinal chemist by training.

He holds a PhD in organometallic chemistry from the University of Geneva. During his post-doc fellowship at UCLA he worked on the total synthesis of Brasillicardin A, a complex natural molecule known for having a potent immunosuppressive activity.

After working as a medicinal chemist in CNS indications at Laboratoires Servier, he switched to data science and chemoinformatics at Quinten, a company specialized in data science services.

In 2016, with his business partners Yann Gaston-Mathé and Nicolas Do Huu, he co-founded Iktos, a start-up company developing AI technologies for new drug design.

He is now the CSO of the company.

Dr. Tammy Riklin Raviv is a faculty member at the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering of Ben-Gurion University (BGU) since 2012.

Her main research interests are Biomedical Image Analysis, Computer Vision and Machine Learning. She is an associate editor of the IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging (TMI) journal, a handing editor of the NeuroImage journal, and a TC member at the IEEE Bio Imaging and Signal Processing (BISP) Committee.

She holds a B.Sc. in Physics (since 1993) and an M.Sc. in Computer Science (both magna cum laude) from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

In 2008, she received a Ph.D. from the School of Electrical Engineering of Tel-Aviv University (2008).

Prior to establishing her group in BGU she was a research fellow and a post-doctorate associate at Harvard Medical School and CSAIL, MIT (2008-2012).

Melissa Roy, Institut Covid Ad Memoriam, is a PhD candidate at the School of Social Work of the University of Ottawa. Her research interests and experiences relate to epidemic narratives, otherness figures, health communication strategies and social media.

Professor Ilan Shelef is a radiologist and Vice Dean of the Health Sciences Faculty at Ben-Gurion University (BGU).

He is the Head of the Diagnostic Imaging Institute at Soroka University Medical Center Beer-Sheva. He is also, the president of the Israel Radiological Association (ISRA) since 2020.

His main research interests are Biomedical Image Analysis, neuroradiology, metabolic syndrome imaging and cyber & imaging.

Professor Shelef published more than 140 articles.

He graduated from the Medical School Ben Gurion University, Radiology residency at Soroka University Medical Center and Neuroradiology Fellowship at the University of Toronto Medical School.

Sharon Shiovitz-Ezra, Ph.D is an associate Professor at the Paul Baerwald School of Social Work and Social Welfare at the Hebrew University.

Prof. Shiovitz-Ezra heads the Israel Gerontological Data Center at the Hebrew University. She serves as the Country Team Leader of Israel in the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE).

Loneliness experienced in old age is continuously at the focus of her scientific work.

Prof. Shiovitz-Ezra studies have pursued identifying risk and protective factors for loneliness and addressing mental and physical health consequences of loneliness.

Recently, she explored the bio-physiological pathways by which loneliness affects health in later life.

Two stress-sensitive systems, the immune system and the metabolic system were found to be affected by loneliness.