Convening Education Leaders to Shape Israel’s Next Generation of Excellence

In November 2024, as part of the foundation’s biannual International Advisory Council meeting and the broader “Let’s Imagine” events, we convened the Future of Education Evening. The event brought together senior leaders from K-12, academia, the military, high-tech, philanthropy, government, and civil society, for a deep shared conversation on the future of education in Israel.

The evening took place during a prolonged period of war, when schools were struggling to maintain continuity and students were facing widening gaps. It created a space for leaders across sectors to consider how Israel could emerge from the crisis with renewed direction. Keynote speakers included Mrs. Michal Herzog, the First Lady of Israel, and Brig. Gen. Dani Gold, Head of Directorate of Defense Research & Development at the Ministry of Defense, and the roundtable discussions later informed the discussions of the foundation’s International Advisory Council.

As we prepare for the foundation’s 2026 Advisory Council meeting, we propose convening a second Future of Education Evening in Tel Aviv on November 22, 2026. We hope that by then Israel will be entering a period of recovery, rebuilding, and renewed investment in education, following nearly three years of war, shortly after national elections, and in anticipation of the formation of a new government.

This year’s event will focus on how Israel can build its next generation of scientific and technological excellence in the age of artificial intelligence. As excellence evolves, we will stir the discussion to challenge or confirm the need for strong foundations in mathematics, science, English, and computer science, alongside the ability to learn, investigate, create, collaborate, and use AI responsibly to lead future research, innovation, and entrepreneurship.

At the same time, the discussion will address the possibility that Israel will continue to face recurring periods of emergency and disruption. The experience of recent years has demonstrated the need for schools to be able to maintain learning continuity during crisis, providing students with stability, belonging, structured learning, and emotional resilience. For excellence tracks, this is especially important since prolonged disruption can deepen gaps, weaken persistence, and reduce students’ ability to remain on demanding academic pathways.

The event will be structured around roundtable discussions and will bring together approximately 100 senior leaders from education, academia, government, high-tech, artificial intelligence, the defense establishment, philanthropy, and civil society. Invitees will be executives from different fields with systemic influence on Israel’s future education, science, technology, and workforce agenda, and capacity to contribute to a shared national conversation on rebuilding excellence.

A distinctive component of the evening will be the use of artificial intelligence tools to document, analyze, and synthesize the discussions. The roundtable conversations will be captured and analyzed in real time, together with background materials, studies, and policy documents provided to the AI agent in advance, to distill key insights and share them with participants during or shortly after the event.

These outputs will serve as background material and a source of inspiration for the Advisory Council discussions that will take place in the days following the event. They will also contribute to the foundation’s strategic thinking as it continues to implement its ten-year roadmap for rebuilding Israel’s next generation of excellence.

* The text above shows the grant as approved by the Foundation’s Board of Directors / Grant 676