In order to fly, you should hold and let go.


How do birds do it? And can a man fly?


By cooperation, communication and a smile, you can fly high.


Avner Hochfeld is a circus performer and Acrobalance teacher.


He lives in Tel Aviv and believes everyone can be a flyer.

Noa Vax is a percussion artist who specializes in Middle Eastern and South Indian percussion. Noa began playing the drum set at the age of 10; in high school she branched out to Latin percussion instruments, and has since explored music from around the world, adding regional percussion instruments to her impressive repertoire.
After many years of playing with popular singers such as Etti Ankri, Dan Toren and different ensembles (Istiklal Trio, Kadola), and performing all over the world in ethnic music festivals and competitions, Noa established her own solo project titled Granny Memi.
Granny Memi is a feminine, rhythmic music project performed on the backdrop of videos and records of Noa’s grandmother singing in Ladino. Three generation of women appear on the stage. The project is a journey through the roots and traditions that influence Noa, from her Turkish origins to her strong connection to South Indian music, all forming a unique Middle Eastern fusion show. Other artists are also on the stage, including Idan Toledano (Oud, Guitar), Niri Sadeh (Ney, Flute, Clarinet) and Boris Marinin (video art).
Noa also in charge of the rhythm studies at "Muzik" College in Tel Aviv and works with the Israeli Ministry of Education Music Department to conduct body percussion workshops for teachers, with the goal of integrating music and the body into children’s everyday lives.

Dr Eran Bar-Meir is an innovative plastic surgeon, specializing in breast reconstructive surgery. Eran was trained and inspired by the leading plastic surgeons at the prestigious Harvard University Plastic Surgery program. Upon returning to Israel, he brought a unique combination of cutting-edge surgery and a special insight on the patient as a whole. This progressive and holistic view is accompanied by the highest level of service, care and understanding.

His original approach has gained him widespread popularity among women with breast cancer. Understanding the patients' physical and mental state is a crucial part of this challenging aspect of plastic surgery.

Eran's passion to use his medical skills to help people has defined him throughout his career. In the IDF, he served as the unit surgeon in an elite combat force and was awarded a medal of honor. During his residency, he found himself in the crossfire of terrorist activity while vacationing with his daughter in the Sinai Peninsula. Eran treated and evacuated to safety over fifty wounded civilians, and was later awarded a special honor by the President of the State of Israel.

Dr. Shahar Arzy studied medicine (MD) and cognitive neuroscience (MA) at the Hebrew University and holds a PhD in neuroscience from the University of Geneva. Specializing in the human cortex, he now works in the clinic of neuropsychiatry and the epilepsy center presurgical evaluation unit at the department of neurology at Hadassah Hebrew University Medical Center, and leading the Neuropsychiatry Lab.

His main interest is the human self and its subjective experience in physiological and pathological states. He is involved in developing new tools for evaluation and management of neuropsychiatric patients, and puts special efforts in translating clinical and scientific ideas into cultural and philosophical frameworks.

Ran Gavrieli lives in Tel Aviv and studies gender at Tel Aviv University. He works with youth and adults all over the country in sex and gender studies and in building positive self image in a world inundated by sexual imagery with negative connotations.

Ran writes and lectures about emotional and physical safe sex; porn and porn-influenced cultural damages; gender and power relations; and sex and intimacy.

He also volunteers with victims of human trafficking and the sex industry.

His talk is titled “Why I stopped watching porn.”

Eilona Ariel is a documentary filmmaker whose work was deeply inspired by her life in Asia and her practice of the ancient meditation technique called Vipassana.

She moved to New York City in 1978 and spent nine years studying and working as a musician and a photographer. In 1980, she received a diploma from the Germain School of Photography. She left the USA in 1987 to spend several years living in Asia. In 1995 she returned to Israel and established the Karuna Films Production Company together with Ayelet Menahemi.

Eilona has produced and co-directed several documentaries, among them the award winning film "Doing Time, Doing Vipassana" (1997), which made a great impact on jail systems all over the world. The film won the Pass Award of the National Council on Crime & Delinquency (USA) for its excellence in communicating the complex problems of crime to the American people. Her cinematic essay "It's About Time" won the Best Documentary and Best Script prizes at the Jerusalem International Film Festival, the 2002 Japan Prize for Best Documentary, and participated in INPUT 2002, IDFA and the Toronto Film Festival.

Eyal Chernichovsky is the founder, designer and fabricator of Chernichovsky Custom Bicycles, a niche bicycle brand specializing in carbon metals and titanium frames. American-born and living in Israel, he holds a bachelor’s degree in Philosophy and a master’s of design, a specially awarded post-master’s degree in Industrial Design.
Eyal’s philosophy and design are highly intertwined within his custom creations. Bicycles are profound products, whose simplicity extends beyond these ingeniously designed objects. They evoke an awe and grace commonly found in the beauty and power of nature, based on geometric principals.
Eyal himself rides extensively in every genre of riding, implementing skills that are both self and formally taught. His goal now that he is dedicated to building bikes is to create “the ultimate tool to relax the rider’s soul” (MBA Magazine). In addition to building bikes, Eyal is also engaged with cycling communities in Israel, both on regular rides and organized events and races. He is highly tuned-in to this very large subculture, filled with a variety of different people that he finds fascinating in their specific language, aesthetic and dialogue.

Motti Ruimy is an architect, interdisciplinary artist and author. His creative interest primarily lies in the playful merging and synthesis of urban policy and public art. His work is often described as “Action Urbanism.”
Motti studied architecture at Bezalel Academy of Art & Design, Jerusalem, graduating in 2007. He had previously studied Fine Art at Bezalel Academy, graduating in 2000. He has been guest lecturer in Columbia University (NY), Cooper Union (NY), NCAD, GradCAM, among others.
Motti is the author (along with Paul Kearns) of the book REDRAWING DUBLIN (Published in 2010 by Gandon Editions, grant aided by “Engaging with Architecture” Scheme - Arts Council Ireland). He is currently working on a new book Seamless Neighbourhood – Redrawing the City of Israel, a book that addresses “the substance, seamlessness and segregation of Israel’s largest City – Tel Aviv”
In 2011 Motti initiated the “Urban Party”, Talking Cities platform that has since been hosted in Dublin (Complex Theatre), Tel Aviv (port) and Jerusalem (Museum on the Seam). In his most recent work ‘Postcards of Our City’, he invites anonymous and intimate communication between people from two different cities.
Motti spends his time between Dublin and Tel Aviv. He is a practicing Architect, he worked for Scott Tallon Walker Architects in Dublin from 2008 to 2010, and is currently an Architect Consultant with KSM West End Group Architects.

Dr. Tal Shafir has had a special passion for movement and dance since young age. As an adult she wanted to bring their exhilarating effects on mood and well being to other people. Thus, after graduating with her LLB degree from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and becoming a lawyer, she studied dance-movement therapy, as soon as those studies became available in Israel. While working with neurologically impaired children, the desire to design better interventions prompted her to go back to school to study neuro-physiology of motor control. Once in school, she was drawn to research and decided to continue her career in academia.

Dr. Shafir completed her Masters and PhD in movement science at the University of Michigan. These were followed by two postdoctoral fellowships: during the first she studied brain-behavior interactions in infants, and during the second, at the University of Michigan Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience Institute, she was trained in neuroscience of emotions and brain imaging. She then combined her diverse training to advance her old interest, focusing her interdisciplinary research on movement-emotion interaction, its underlying brain mechanisms and its translation into interventions for depression. She recently returned to Israel and joined the faculty of The Graduate School for Creative Art Therapies at the University of Haifa.

Dr. Guy Hoffman is an assistant professor at the School of Communications at IDC Herzliya and co-director of the IDC Media Innovation Lab. Previously, he was a research fellow at Georgia Tech and at MIT. Hoffman holds a Ph.D from MIT in the field of human-robot interaction and an M.Sc. in Computer Science from Tel Aviv University. He also studied animation at Parsons School of Design in NYC.
His research deals with human-robot interaction and collaboration, embodied cognition for robots, nonverbal communication for robots, entertainment, theater, and musical performance robotics, and non-humanoid robot design. Among others projects, Hoffman developed the world's first human-robot joint theater performance, as well as the first real-time improvisation human-robot Jazz duet.
Hoffman designed several robots, including a robotic desk lamp, AUR, which won the IEEE International Robot Design Competition. His research papers have earned top academic awards, including Best Paper awards at HRI and robotics conferences in 2004, 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2010. He was software and animation lead on the World Expo Digital Water Pavilion; part of a team recognized as creating one of TIME magazine's Best Inventions of the Year; and was commissioned for a title-page illustration of the New York Times Week in Review. Hoffman's work has been exhibited around the world and covered in the international press, including CNN, the BBC, The New York Times, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Haaretz, Science, the New Scientist, PBS, NPR, and Comedy Central. In both 2010 and 2012, he was selected as one of Israel's most promising researchers under forty.

To learn more about Guy's work and see his talk on the TED.com homepage, please visit his site here: http://guyhoffman.com/

Neil Harris studied acting and political theater at The Central School of Speech and Drama in London before moving to Israel at the age of 22 in 1979. In 1981 he was enlisted into the IDF and spent two years as a medic in the first Lebanese War. Today he works in the field of Experiential Education for Social Change, and facilitates programs on Jewish/Palestinian Dialogue, HIV and AIDS prevention, Gay and Lesbian Youth, and Democratic Dilemmas in Israeli Society.

In November 2001, Neil completed a cross-country walk of over 900 km from Metulla to Eilat, interviewing Jewish and Palestinian-Arab Israeli citizens on "The State of the Nation" one year into the al-Aqsa Intifada. Neil joined the summer faculty of the American Dance Festival in 2009, and has collaborated with a number of North American performance artists creating and performing dance works.

Neil incorporates dance improvisation and Theater of the Oppressed techniques into support groups that he facilitates on a regular basis, as well as integrating performance into his activism for social change in Israel. He is a senior educator for the Dorot Fellowship in Israel. Neil splits his time between living on Kibbutz Tuval and in south Tel Aviv.