As doors open for the new academic year at Holon Institute of Technology (HIT), the campus finds itself at a pivotal inflection point. The commencement of classes marks not only a return to academic routine amidst ongoing national challenges, but also the official entrance of Professor Refael Barkan as the institute's new president. Stepping into executive leadership after six years as Vice President for Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Internationalization, Barkan begins his tenure with a clear directive: narrow the gap between the stable principles of academia, and the rapid evolution of industry.
"We are entering this new academic year in an era of exponential growth," asserts Barkan. "We no longer experience developments at linear paces; we experience developments at exponential paces, and therefore we need to change the paradigm.”
Having served for over a decade in executive leadership at HIT, Barkan brings a distinct perspective to the presidency. Rather than viewing technological intervention as a threat to traditional academic structures, Barkan says he approaches his tenure as an opportunity to modernize degree programs and ensure that graduates enter the workforce equipped with real-world capabilities from day one.
“In order to keep academia relevant, active, and deeply connected to the needs of the country and society, we must narrow the gap between academic instruction and industry practice,” he says.
Adapting to a changing industry: the applied academic model
At the heart of HIT’s operational philosophy as it begins this academic year is the "applied academic model"—an approach explicitly designed to integrate industry standards into degree requirements across engineering, sciencess, design, and instructional and medical technologies and instructional and medical technologies faculties. The institute has systematically moved away from purely theoretical coursework, choosing instead to anchor classroom studies in active industry challenges.
"Our academic faculty is one where members have at least one foot inside the industry," Barkan explains. "That means they are constantly evolving, constantly exposed to these challenges, and can therefore prepare students for these challenges from a first-hand perspective."
To reinforce this direct connection, HIT pioneered a comprehensive internship pilot program as part of the curriculum across its academic degree tracks. The goal of the academic internship is to ensure that students’ academic work is deeply connected to the technological and medical ecosystem. Recognizing that major defense-tech-tech companiescompanies, national and multi-national technology corporations, and agile startups operate under radically different resource constraints, the institute crafted this framework to cover the range of sub-fields and dynamic skills that students will need to utilize across the Hi-Tech industry.
"Each company has its own needs, requirements, and resources," explains Barkan. "There is no comparison between the resources of a startup and the resources of a large corporation, and therefore the focus is also different. So we took upon ourselves a very big mission here: to build an internship that is highly adaptive to the industry and its specific needs. When a student graduates, they don't just know the basics and the theory; they have already gained practical experience in teamwork and acquired the soft skills and power skills that truly empower human capability alongside technology."
This close industry monitoring has proven particularly important in navigating shifts across technology sectors. When computer science enrollment across higher education institutions experienced a significant decline nationwide, HIT adjusted its offerings, focusing on skills that were in higher demand, such as physical infrastructure, microelectronics, and hardware engineering. In so doing, HIT’s goal is to ensure that students are keeping pace with modern coding standards and AI integration from the very beginning of their academic careers, Barkan says.
This strategic shift yielded immediate, positive enrollment trends: HIT enters the new academic year reporting a 20% increase in undergraduate enrollment in electrical and electronics engineering, alongside a 13% growth in first-year industrial engineering and technology management students.
"There is a trade-off happening in the market," Barkan says of the shift. "The market’s growth in semiconductors, hardware infrastructure, and data science requires real anchors, and our curriculum provides that security."
Innovations in medical technology and design
Looking toward industry trends and the evolving needs of society, Barkan identifies a key multidisciplinary intersection shaping his presidency: the dynamic interplay of technology, medicine, and design. He believes this intersection will be a critical driver of new academic tracks.
"When I look at the totality of our study programs and research pathways, I see a very applied multidisciplinarity of a triangle whose vertices hold technology, medicine, and design," states Barkan. "Our goal in the coming years is to maximize the interfaces between these three fields."
Barkan, who previously founded Israel’s first Faculty of Medical Technologies at HIT, established an innovative undergraduate track in Digital Medical Technologies that gained international attention during the coronavirus pandemic. Combining data science, artificial intelligence, and medical and health sciences, the program endeavors to carve a unique academic niche that prepares analysts and developers for digital health environments. At the same time, the program is officially recognized by the council of higher education as a (technological) pre-med program.
The integration of design into healthcare represents one of HIT's most cutting-edge academic initiatives, Barkan says. HIT’s Faculty of Design has partnered with large institutions, such as Sheba Medical Center, to design environments that are more conducive to healing. Health spaces design is a rigorous, multidisciplinary scientific discipline that synthesizes architecture, cognitive psychology, and advanced technologies to proactively optimize human health and clinical outcomes. It focuses on engineering comprehensive ecosystems - spanning urban spaces, home-care settings, and digital interfaces - that seamlessly integrate health-promoting stimuli into daily life.
"What good is an excellent emergency room or an outstanding hospital,” Barkan asks, “if the patient's waiting experience in the emergency department is terrible?"
Supporting soldiers, reaching diverse populations
As a public academic institution, HIT enters the new year in constant dialogue with broader societal and geopolitical realities. Over the past year, as hundreds of students and faculty members were called into active military reserve duty, the institute made every effort to accommodate affected students and ensure academic continuity.
"We could not remain indifferent to the social and geopolitical situation," Barkan says. "Just as we teach our students to be adaptive to industry needs, we ourselves were forced to be highly adaptive."
To accommodate returning soldiers as the new year opens, HIT introduced several different semester start dates in lieu of a single rigid opening, in order to "enable all populations, including reserve duty service members and defense industry personnel, to maintain their academic trajectory alongside their duties," Barkan explains.
The institute offered personalized tutoring sessions, tailored exam schedules, and extensive faculty mentoring—amounting to what Barkan calls a zero-student-left-behind policy. This commitment extended to making efforts to expand access and offerings for underrepresented populations, including a dedicated program for Ultra-Orthodox women. Run in collaboration with “Mivhar” College, the program is beginning its third year, and features tailored degree tracks in fields including digital medical technologies.
According to Barkan, this outreach is an essential part of HIT’s mission to harness and develop talent that will contribute to this era of exponential growth in tech.
"You cannot talk about AI and technological development without harnessing all sectors of society to this revolution," Barkan says. "We see this as a national mission of the highest order. It is not just about giving them a degree; it is about bringing them to a position where they lead in the industry, integrate into top companies, and bring their unique culture and capabilities into technological advancement.
“A country's resilience is measured by its ability to connect all sectors and segments of society into one shared growth engine. High-tech and academia must become the conductors that drive that engine."
This article was written in collaboration with the Holon Institute of Technology.