Theme: Communication: what's it to you?

As the Western world becomes increasingly infatuated with refreshing their facebook pages and following the tweets of superstars, it gives us pause to reflect: what is communication? How does it play out in our daily lives?

Beer Sheva, 84105
Israel

Anna Therese Day

Anna Therese Day is an independent journalist and social media researcher, specializing in Middle East politics. With extended time in Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, and the Palestinian Territories, her portfolio includes the 2011 Libyan War, unrest in Bahrain, the Gaza Strip after Operation Cast Lead, post-election violence in Lebanon, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict generally, and the 2011 Egyptian Revolution. Her coverage focuses on American foreign policy in the region, women’s issues, and regional youth movements and has been translated into Arabic, English, Hebrew, and Spanish. Her work has been featured in a variety of media outlets, including CNN International, the BBC, Al Jazeera English, The Huffington Post, The Nation, Ms. Magazine, and numerous blogs.In 2011, Ms. Day was selected as one of Google Zeitgeist’s top 30 Great Young Minds of Our Time for her exploration of social media and democracy. In February and March of 2012, she begins an American speaking tour entitled “Social Media & the Revolution: The Arab Spring & Beyond,” in which she combines her new media research with stories of grassroots innovation from the Arab Spring.

Amir Grinstein

Amir Grinstein is a Senior Lecturer at the Management Department, the Guilford Glazer Faculty of Business & Management. Amir’s research interests are focused on two core issues: (1) the interface between marketing and society/public policy in various social and environmental contexts such as the enhancement of “green” behavior and the effectiveness of demarketing; (2) marketing strategy, including the study of strategic orientations and international marketing topics. His work has been published in the Journal of Marketing, Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, International Journal of Research in Marketing, Journal of International Marketing, European Journal of Marketing, and Research policy. Amir serves as an Associate Editor for the European Journal of Marketing and as a reviewer for the Journal of Marketing. Amir has a B.A. in Economics and Business from the Hebrew University, and a Master’s and PhD degrees in Business Administration both from the Hebrew University. Before joining Ben Gurion University he was a post-doctorate fellow at Harvard Business School.

Zahy Ben-Zion

Dr. Itzhak ‘Zahy’ Ben-Zion MD MHA is a Psychiatrist and sex medicine specialist. He was born in Bat-Yam, Israel, in 1964. After completing high school, at the age of 16, he studied Philosophy and Mathematics, and served in the IDF in the intelligence forces. Dr. Ben Zion graduated from the BGU School of medicine and began an internship in Urology until he then transferred to Psychiatry in order to practice sex medicine. He was one of the first researchers on the, then new, erection pills such as Viagra, Cialis and Levitra. Dr. Ben-Zion is a certified sexologist and Psychotherapist specializing in couple sexual and marital dysfunction. He became known for his lectures in his fields of expertise, in which he uses stand-up humor techniques to try to teach the audience how to become a better lover and loved one. Married for more than 25 years and father of four—he tries to behave in accordance with his inelegant offers…

Arnina Kashtan

Raised in an abusive home, Arnina Kashtan, like millions of others, learned to hide her vulnerable experiences, questions, feelings, in fear of not being accepted. Her quest is one of learning and teaching to Speak Beyond Guilt and Fear. She is an international speaker and a Senior Certified Trainer with CNVC, the Center for Nonviolent Communication (since 1992). As such she has been leading workshops, seminars, and retreats in Israel, US and Europe – in Hebrew, English, and Spanish. The founder and Senior Trainer of Meitarim, the Center for Nonviolent Communication in Israel (since 2000), where she also serves as Consultant and Mediator for individuals, families, and organizations. As part of her passion to bring the consciousness of courage and compassion to the world, she co-founded the NVC “Conscious Leadership” three-year program in Israel, now in its 5th year, training people into becoming NVC coaches and trainers. As a Senior Facilitator of The Work of Byron Katie (since 1998), she has created a unique combination of these two modalities into a method of deep self-discovery, empowerment and leadership. Her background as a musician (she has B.A. in music from the Israeli Music Academy, Tel-Aviv University, 1974), combined with her being a published writer and poet, translator, and editor, have been key contributions to her passionate encounters with a variety of audiences across the world.

Yuval Shahar

Yuval Shahar is a professor and previous chair of BGU’s Information Systems Engineering department. He holds a B.Sc. and an M.D. degree from the Hebrew University, an M.Sc. in computer science from Yale University, and a Ph.D. in Medical Information Sciences from Stanford University. After a decade at Stanford as a researcher and full-time faculty member, he has joined BGU to found and head its Medical Informatics Research Center. Over the past 20+ years, Prof. Shahar’s research has focused on temporal reasoning, temporal data mining, therapy planning, decision analysis, information visualization, knowledge acquisition, knowledge representation, and knowledge-based systems, mostly in biomedical domains. Prof. Shahar was a scientific chair of the international Artificial Intelligence in Medicine (AIME) conference (2009) and a many-time scientific program committee member of the American Medical Informatics Association’s (AMIA) Fall Symposium. Among multiple awards, Prof. Shahar was granted in 1995 a prestigious NIH 5-year FIRST career award and an NSF award to explore the theoretical and practical implications of the temporal-reasoning methodology he had developed; in 2005 an IBM Faculty Award, and in 2008 an HP Worldwide Innovation Program award. He was elected in 2005 as an International Fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics (ACMI). Prof Shahar serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Biomedical Informatics, Artificial Intelligence in Medicine, Methods of Information in Medicine, and Applied Ontology.

Itay Yatuv

Artistic director of the Hakvutza Dance School in Jaffa, Tel Aviv, Itay has been practicing and internationally teaching Contact Improvisation for over 10 years for professional and armature dancers. He trained as a contemporary dancer in New York, Italy and Israel. Choreographing independently, Itay has been leading international projects of improvisational performances. In the last 3 years, Itay has been investigating the connection between the principles used in Contact Improvisation and infant development, both motor and in the way an infant physically communicates with his parent.

Aviad Israeli

Aviad Israeli is an Associate Professor and the Chairperson at the Department of Hotel and Tourism Management at the Guilford Glazer Faculty of Business and Management, Ben Gurion University of the Negev. He researches service management and his studies focus on identifying service firms’ assets and their impact of firm performance and on studying the dynamics of service encounters. His research appears in leading journals such as International Journal of Hospitality Management, Tourism Management, of Travel Research. Aviad is ranked in the top 100 most prolific researchers in the field of hospitality and tourism research. Aviad served in different positions in academic administration. He was the academic coordinator of the Honors MBA program, the Chair of the faculty teaching committee and the chair of the University Disciplinary Court. In addition, his consulting positions include service as a committee member of the Council of Higher Education and a member of the committee that defined the physical standards of hotels in Israel. Recently, he was appointed by Israeli Minister of Tourism to serve on the committee that evaluates costs and prices in the Israeli hospitality industry.

Katherine Martinelli

Katherine Martinelli is an internationally published food and travel writer and photographer who contributes regularly to publications on three continents. Her writing, recipes, and photographs have appeared in The Jewish Daily Forward, The Jewish Chronicle, Time Out Israel, Remedy Quarterly and many others. Her essays and photographs have also been included in several Israeli books. Katherine recently released her first cookbook, Puff Pastry at Brunch: 10 Sweet and Savory Recipes to Start Your Morning (Hang Time Press, 2012). Expanding on her culinary digital media offerings, Katherine also developed a self-guided food tour app of Jerusalem’s Mahane Yehuda market in conjunction with Rama Food Tours.Native New Yorkers, Katherine and her husband currently live in Be’er Sheva, Israel, where Katherine also leads photography tours of the Old City with the Be’er Sheva Art Experience.

Oded Adomi Leshem

Oded Adomi Leshem is a filmmaker, educator, and peace advocate doing his Master’s Degree in Conflict Resolution and Mitigation. He had directed the internationally acclaimed documentary “Voices from El-Sayed”, taught filmmaking for many years and has been working for several years in different peace and conciliation NGOs focusing on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.