Sami Shamoon to host EU educational project

Engineering college chosen to take part in TEMPUS project.

By BEN HARTMAN
One of the country’s largest engineering colleges has been chosen to take part in a multinational English-language project to develop, modernize and disseminate new curricula, teaching methods and materials, and boost quality assurance and management, as part of an EU initiative.
The Sami Shamoon Academic College of Engineering was selected from 450 applicants to host the TEMPUS project, which is meant to help students develop the innovative tools needed to succeed in a world economy defined by globalization. The selection also includes a grant of €1 million from the EU.
Nineteen foreign partners will take part in the program, including 11 European academic institutions and eight governmental agencies and private companies such as Apple Inc. and SIT (Systematic Inventive Thinking).
A number of Israeli academic institutions will also be partners in the project, including the Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya; Sapir Academic College, near Sderot; the Holon Institute of Technology; and the ORT Braude College of Engineering in Karmiel.
Dr. Miri Yemini, head of Sami Shamoon’s entrepreneurship and innovation center, said she was excited that her school had been chosen to participate in the program, saying on Sunday that she expected “people to come from all over Europe to study at the institution. Students from the EU and the college will come together and study in a real, interactive way, through which they will develop innovative technologies.”
Yemini, who submitted the college’s proposal for the project and will serve as its director, said the TEMPUS program would also bring much-needed benefits to Israel’s periphery.
The college’s campuses are in Beersheba and Ashdod.
“We feel in a national sense that it is important that this sort of funding and opportunities in Israel are not only based in north Tel Aviv and Herzliya. We want the whole of Europe to participate in this process of helping socially excluded populations,” she said.
In a statement issued earlier this week, the college’s president, Prof. Jehuda Haddad, said, “The seeds of innovation that have been sown at SCE [the Shamoon College of Engineering] and the application of the program developed here will bear fruit throughout Europe. We are proud to be part of the TEMPUS project and will continue to train tomorrow’s leaders in technology.”