BEN-GURION UNIVERSITY | THE WAY FORWARD

and specialized certification. The school will introduce a growing number of certified prosthetists, orthotists, and rehabilitation professionals with specialized expertise and the ability to provide precision-based care of the highest standard into the healthcare pipeline. This will transform the rehabilitative landscape in Israel and the lives of amputees, by eliminating the need for Israelis with complex disabilities (including many wounded in the Iron Swords war) to travel abroad for specialized services and care. In the program, students will learn how to assess, design, fabricate, and fit custom devices to restore mobility, and provide specialized care for amputees and their medical devices. Prior to the school’s establishment this standard of training, level of care, and the most advanced prostheses were simply unavailable in Israel, to the detriment of the country’s 20,000 amputees. Scientific and technological advances, particularly in the devices’ materials, have made this domain increasingly specialized and highly reliant on advanced training, underscoring the need for the new school. The inaugural class consists of 12 students with undergraduate degrees in physical and occupational therapy. Among them are one physical therapist and two occupational

therapists already working at the ADI Negev-Nahalat Eran rehabilitation village. The program’s theoretical and academic component takes place at BGU, while students receive practical instruction at ADI Negev Nahalat Eran’s prosthetics center and work with patients at the rehabilitation hospital; modern prosthetic and orthotic devices require careful calibration, alignment, and fitting, and this hands-on experience allows students to gain the required proficiency. The school’s establishment dovetailed with the creation of new interdisciplinary master’s tracks in physiotherapy focusing on advanced clinical and research skills, with specializations in rehabilitation and in prosthetics and orthotics, and its master’s degree program follows the International Society for Prosthetics and Orthotics’ framework. Partners in this project also include Israel’s Ministry of Health and donors; together with BGU and ADI Negev, they are bringing international best practices to Israel and ensuring that the country’s amputees receive the best possible care. Stein Faculty of Computer and Information Science The Stein Faculty of Computer and Information Science was launched at the start of the 2025-

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