Martin Thibodeau

Ben-Gurion goes global

Canadian Associates of Ben-Gurion University honouree Martin Thibodeau, B.C. president of RBC Royal Bank, speaks at the June 9 gala. (photo from CABGU)

Less than six decades ago, the city of Beersheva, in Israel, had more camels than people. Now, it is home to one of the world’s most innovative post-secondary institutions – Ben-Gurion University – and 400 British Columbians packed a Vancouver ballroom June 9 to help launch the university’s new School of Sustainability and Climate Change.

The Canadian Associates of Ben-Gurion University (CABGU) event at the Fairmont Pacific Rim Hotel honoured Martin Thibodeau, B.C. president of RBC Royal Bank, and featured Prof. Daniel A. Chamovitz, president of Ben-Gurion University (BGU), in conversation with event emcee Robin Gill.

Since taking the helm of RBC in the province, in 2018, Thibodeau has continued an involvement in Jewish community affairs that began earlier in his career, in Winnipeg and later in Montreal. He credits his mother with instilling in him a respect for multiculturalism and a connection with the Jewish experience.

In 2018, RBC Royal Bank created a cybersecurity partnership with BGU, investing in artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies to develop advanced cyber-security techniques. Two years later, RBC British Columbia sponsored the first two research fellowships at the new School for Sustainability and Climate Change and, later this year, Thibodeau will lead a summit to Israel, bringing a group of Canadian business leaders to BGU. He is engaged with a host of community organizations, including the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver, the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver, United Way of the Lower Mainland, B.C. Children’s Hospital, Science World and others. He is also co-chair of RBC’s Diversity Leadership Council.

“I’m always amazed at the dynamic and progressive work that continues to be produced by the scholars and the teams at Ben-Gurion University,” Thibodeau said at the June event. “The world owes a great deal of debt to the outstanding advancements that have already contributed to how we live and work as a society. I am excited to see what the future holds in the hands of these amazing and brilliant individuals.”

Thibodeau, who oversees 7,000 employees in the province, was introduced by Lorne Segal who, with his wife Melita, co-chaired the event. Segal gave an emotional testimonial to his late father, Joseph Segal, who passed away 10 days earlier, at age 97. Segal said his father had not attended many events in the past several years but had been looking forward to being present to honour Thibodeau.

In his presentation, Thibodeau thanked the Segals for their support, and for their presence in a time of mourning. Thibodeau paid credit to Joe Segal, who called him soon after he arrived on the West Coast, invited him for lunch and offered advice and an open ear.

In recorded greetings, Israel’s ambassador to Canada, Ronen Hoffman, called Thibodeau “far more than just a businessman. He is a leader, innovator and community-oriented friend of the Jewish people, of Israel.”

Chamovitz, the university’s president, noted that David Ben-Gurion’s dream of a university “at the gates of the Negev Desert” was intended to uncover secrets: “How to make energy from the sun, water from the air and agriculture from the infertile sands, taking advantage of resources that, until now, were going to waste.”

The changing climate has made innovations such as solar energy, desalinization and agriculture in inhospitable places answers to urgent questions that affect lands far beyond the Negev.

“We all of a sudden realized that what we thought was a local problem is now a global imperative and people from all over the world started coming to Beersheva to learn from our expertise,” said Chamovitz, who grew up in Pennsylvania and has been president of the university since 2019. The Abraham Accords have opened new doors to cooperation between BGU and Gulf States that need these technologies, he added.

The School of Sustainability and Climate Change was announced last year and, so far, 25 departments are collaborating on planetary life-and-death topics. (See previous articles at jewishindependent.ca.)

“My simple challenge was to get them to collaborate in order to really leverage our expertise into something that’s much greater than the sum of each of those departments,” said Chamovitz. Even the department of Hebrew literature is involved.

“Hebrew literature did a big seminar on climate fiction, understanding how climate change is influencing what people write about and how this literature is influencing public opinion about climate change,” he said.

While BGU was created with the development of the Negev Desert in mind, the work they are doing is global, with impacts reaching British Columbia, said Chamovitz.

“You cannot look at British Columbia divorced from the world,” he said. Flooding and heat domes are processes that are happening worldwide. Mitigation and prevention must take place both locally and globally, he said.

Chamovitz credited the leadership of Thibodeau and RBC for making it easier for BGU to go to other major donors to fund the new school.

Another new development at the university, he said, is a high-tech park dedicated to advanced research in cybertech, agricultural technologies and green energy.

CABGU B.C.-Alberta board member Eli Joseph chaired the event and board member Rachelle Delaney was the convener. Si Brown, president of CABGU B.C.-Alberta, opened the event. The corporate sponsorship committee was chaired by board member Adam Korbin, and David Berson is CABGU regional executive director.

Terry Beech, member of Parliament for Burnaby North-Seymour, brought greetings from the federal government. Representing the government of British Columbia, Minister of Finance Selena Robinson spoke of her family’s connections to Israel.

Investing in the climate

Martin Thibodeau, RBC’s B.C. region president, will be honoured at the Ben-Gurion University Gala Dinner June 14. (photo from RBC)

On June 9, Ben-Gurion University president Daniel Chamovitz and members of the Canadian Associates of Ben-Gurion University (CABGU) will visit Vancouver to recognize the launch of its new School of Sustainability and Climate Change (SSCC) and the local supporters who have helped make its opening possible. In particular, Royal Bank of Canada and Martin Thibodeau, RBC’s B.C. region president, will be honoured at the event.

SSCC opened last October at BGU’s Be’er Sheva campus, where its growth has been rapid. Seven months old, the school currently offers two undergraduate degrees and four graduate-level environmental science-related degrees. Its two graduate fellowships, which have supported work in renewable energy and smart city design, were funded by RBC.

“The RBC Research Fund at BGU’s School of Sustainability and Climate Change [is] being established in Martin’s honour, [and] will enable undergraduate and graduate students to be trained as, and pursue meaningful careers as, climate change innovators, entrepreneurs and policy experts,” said David Berson, who serves as CABGU’s executive director for the B.C. and Alberta Region. The funding that is raised at the gala will help further SSCC’s research programs.

SSCC’s mandate isn’t just to address environmental concerns at home in Israel, said Chamovitz. It will have a global reach, as well. BGU is currently working to cement research partnerships with universities and countries that have similar interests in addressing climate challenges. Chamovitz said RBC’s investment in its new school will provide a pathway to meeting that global need.

“RBC was one of the early supporters of SSCC, and this support was essential for leveraging subsequent support,” he said. “The Royal Bank of Canada believes in us,” and that support has served as an encouraging model for other companies to invest in BGU’s programs as well, he said.

Lorne Segal, president of Kingswood Properties and director of the Vancouver Board of Trade, who is an honorary co-chair of the June event with his wife, Mélita Segal, said corporate sponsorship is crucial to startup programs like SSCC. He said corporate support is also vital to finding answers to environmental challenges like global warming.

“Sponsorship from leading businesses and industry leaders does provide imaginative solutions to complex issues impacting our people and the planet,” he said. “Without significant and generous sponsorship support, this crucial work, simply put, would not be possible.”

Segal said supporting initiatives that bring about positive change is part of Thibodeau’s nature.

“Martin Thibodeau truly is a lifelong builder of community,” said Segal. “He is deeply praised by Ben-Gurion University for his commitment to the cause of finding solutions to climate change. It is truly remarkable how much he and RBC Royal Bank have done to enhance the capacity of the Ben-Gurion University community programs and agencies, and advance the conversation on Canada’s transition to a net-zero economy.”

Thibodeau’s support of Canadian Jewish communities and of Israel goes back decades. Originally from Quebec, he served as RBC’s regional president in Montreal until he moved to Vancouver. He oversees some of the largest – and smallest – branches and more than 4,000 employees.

In 2015, while working in Montreal, Thibodeau volunteered as a co-chair for Quebec’s largest multi-day walk for women’s cancers, held by Pharmaprix, to raise money for research at the Jewish General Hospital. “I have been involved with the Jewish community for almost my entire RBC career,” he told the Independent.

He is a strong supporter of the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver and the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver and their community initiatives, and he has been to Israel several times. It was in 2014, said Thibodeau, that he and his wife, Caroline, visited Be’er Sheva and learned of BGU’s environmental research. “[I was] so inspired by the research [and] the innovation,” he said, noting that it wasn’t hard to get behind the creation of a school that was working to find solutions to climate concerns.

“It’s right there in front of me every day,” he said. “I am a proud father of three children and I believe we have a responsibility to make sure that our climate can continue to thrive, and well beyond my lifetime. It is my personal belief that we need to do that today more than ever.”

Thibodeau said it’s been an interesting journey since that first visit to BGU in 2014. “It’s become such a tough priority for the world,” he said of climate change. In Canada, among other things, he supported RBC’s Blue Water Project, which helped provide clean water access to Canadian communities.

Still, Thibodeau is a reticent honouree. He admits that he is uncomfortable with the idea that he will be the guest of honour at a gala, even if it is for a cause he loves. “I’m very humbled,” he said. “I don’t like to have that kind of spotlight on me.” But, he said, raising money for research that might one day create a safer and better environment, that is something he will gladly get behind.

photo - Mélita and Lorne Segal, honorary chairs of the BGU Gala Dinner for Sustainability and Climate Change — Mélita and Lorne Segal, honorary chairs of the BGU Gala Dinner for Sustainability and Climate Change. *(photo by The Collective You)*

The gala will also acknowledge Lorne and Mélita Segal, who are well-known for their philanthropy and other work. Both have been recognized by Capilano University with honorary doctor of letters, and Lorne Segal has a doctor of laws (hon.) from the Justice Institute of British Columbia. He was inducted into the Order of British Columbia for his work as founding chair of Free the Children’s WE Day Vancouver and as chair of the Coast Mental Health Courage to Come Back Awards. The Segals regularly open their home to fundraising galas.

“When Lorne and I built our home, we didn’t really do it for ourselves but, rather, to share it with the community,” said Mélita Segal. “Whether it was Dr. Peter AIDS Foundation, Arts Umbrella, Chor Leoni, JNF [Jewish National Fund] or WE Charity … it has been a great joy for us and very fulfilling to give back and share in this way.”

Berson described the Segals as “tireless builders of community, leading by example while creating opportunities for people in the business world to make a difference in the lives of others. Ben-Gurion University, Canada, is genuinely fortunate to have their leadership for this event and for our organization.”

The Ben-Gurion Sustainability and Climate Change Gala on June 9 takes place at Fairmont Pacific Rim. Tickets and tables can be purchased at bengurion.ca/vancouver-gala-2022-tickets or by contacting Berson at davidberson@bengurion.ca.

Jan Lee is an award-winning editorial writer whose articles and op-eds have been published in B’nai B’rith Magazine, Voices of Conservative and Masorti Judaism and Baltimore Jewish Times, as well as a number of business, environmental and travel publications. Her blog can be found at multiculturaljew.polestarpassages.com.

BGU tackles climate change

Researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev’s School of Sustainability and Climate Change have been experimenting with alternative ways of irrigating trees, in this case, by floodwater. (photo by Dani Machlis/BGU)

“It is in the Negev that the creativity and pioneer vigour of Israel shall be tested,” David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, predicted in 1955.

The country was not even a decade old. Ben-Gurion was trying to inspire a growing population of immigrants, including Holocaust survivors, to realize their collective potential – to not just embrace a new home, but to build a new, resilient future. That legacy, he maintained, would be found in the most unlikely of places: in the harsh expanse of the country’s southern water-poor and undeveloped desert. But their hard work, he insisted, could one day transform Israel.

“In order to be a realist, you must believe in miracles,” he said.

Today, his vision for the Negev lives on at the university that was founded in his name. Ben-Gurion University of the Negev sits, not coincidentally, at the northern tip of the desert. Some 13,000 square kilometres of semi-arid, rocky terrain make up the Negev, punctuated by dry riverbeds and desolate vistas. It’s on the cusp of this wilderness that Israel’s first School of Sustainability and Climate Change (SSCC) was established last October.

This June, Canadian Associates of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev will be holding a gala dinner in Vancouver to raise funds for the SSCC’s ongoing research. Co-chaired by Melita and Lorne Segal, the event will honour Royal Bank of Canada’s B.C. regional president, Martin Thibodeau, for his community-building efforts.

Existential research

According to BGU president Daniel Chamovitz, environmental research has always been a part of BGU’s mission. Water reclamation, sustainable food production and creating plant species that can survive in adverse environmental conditions have been continuing themes of study since the university’s inception in 1969. Establishing a school that could serve as an umbrella for diverse areas of climate and sustainability research was a natural progression.

“We are the engine, by necessity, of development and change in the Negev,” Chamovitz said. That existential motivation has not only led to new ways to desalinate sea water for industrial purposes and engineer new foods, but new collaborative opportunities with countries experiencing climate impacts. The university is home to three campuses that house climate- and sustainability-related studies, as well as a business park with more than 70 multinational companies. It’s also become fertile ground for Israel’s start-up industry and research collaboration.

Chamovitz said countries like the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Morocco are looking to partner to solve common environmental challenges. Desertification, the erosion of arable lands driven by a changing climate and urbanization, now affects more than one-sixth of the world’s population. There are also real-time challenges in the Middle East, where dry lands predominate but research experience may be limited.

“The Abraham Accords here have been essential for the growth of the school,” said Chamovitz. It’s not only opened doors for political alliances, it’s fostered new research partnerships for institutions like BGU, he said.

“For 50 years, we have been learning to live in our desert,” he added, noting that what was once seen in Israel as a hyper-local challenge – how to live in a desert – has become a concern for an increasing number of countries.

This month, a delegation from Morocco’s Mohammed VI Polytechnic University (UM6P) arrived in Israel to discuss a new research partnership with the university. The collaboration, which will focus broadly on addressing food insecurity, demands for smart agriculture and alternative energy options, will also lead to educational partnerships with UM6P. “They are very excited,” Chamovitz said. “We already have our first students [from Morocco].”

But international collaboration isn’t the only byproduct of the SSCC. There’s growing interest within Israel, as well.

“[The] school has become the magic dust which influences everything,” Chamovitz said, noting that departments and researchers without any seeming connection to climate change and sustainability are identifying ways to explore environmental subjects.

“One of the most surprising and fulfilling outcomes,” he said, “is that our department of Hebrew literature.… That’s when we knew we had succeeded – when Hebrew literature became part of the school.”

Prof. Noam Weisbrod, who directs SSCC’s Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research, estimates that about 70% of BGU desert research, in one way or another, touches on topics related to climate change and sustainability. The list of departments is diverse, ranging from biology and medical sciences, to environmental geography and earth sciences.

“The idea is to team up and create a force which is focusing on climate change and sustainability and their impacts in different angles and different directions, and to enable multidisciplinary research” that attracts students who can lead the next generation of research into sustainable ways to combat climate change, Weisbrod said.

Mitigation imperative

In February of this year, the International Panel on Climate Change released its sixth report: Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability.

“Approximately 3.3 to 3.6 billion people live in contexts that are highly vulnerable to climate change,” the IPCC stated, noting that “current unsustainable development patterns are increasing exposure of ecosystems and people to climate hazards.”

“Diminishing resources is a real challenge,” said Weisbrod, adding that the solutions may lie in how we manage those precious resources. “There is a lot of research on how to get more crop for drop of water. I like that sentence, ‘more crop for drop,’ because this is what we’re trying to do – to get the maximum crop for minimum resources,” he said.

The latest IPCC report suggests humanity is on the right path. Countries like the United Arab Emirates are taking action to protect water resources and reduce climate change impacts like desertification, steps that are part of BGU’s cooperative strategies with UAE.

According to Chamovitz, many of these advances wouldn’t be possible without investors that are willing to support sustainability initiatives. He noted that RBC was one of the SSCC’s first donors and has been important to the school’s success – in 2020, RBC, British Columbia, sponsored the first two research fellowships at SSCC.

Chamovitz will be a special guest at the Ben-Gurion University Gala Dinner for Sustainability and Climate Change on June 9 at Fairmont Pacific Rim. Tickets for the event are available from bengurion.ca/vancouver-gala-2022.

BGU plans new school

Ben-Gurion University’s Prof. Amir Sagi, left, and Dr. Amit Savaia have found a way to use shrimp to fight a deadly parasitic disease in Nigeria. (photo from BGU)

This year, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev plans to launch a new school that will specialize in climate change research, mitigation and environmental sustainability. It will also offer a graduate program with a cross-section of specialties.

BGU’s three campuses house an enrolment of 20,000 students and a faculty of 4,000. Its areas of expertise range far and wide, and, among other things, the university has become known as a go-to place for figuring out how to address one of the 21st century’s biggest threats: climate change.

For BGU president Daniel Chamovitz, the university’s growing reputation isn’t that much of a surprise. “Because what have we been doing in the last 60 years?” he asked rhetorically. “We have been learning how to survive – not to survive, how to thrive in the desert.”

photo - Prof. Daniel Chamovitz, president of Ben-Gurion University — Prof. Daniel Chamovitz, president of Ben-Gurion University. *(photo from BGU)*

Chamovitz’s own expertise is in genetics and plant biology. Originally from Aliquippa, Pa., he is most recently known for his studies in plant development and for his book What a Plant Knows: A Field Guide to the Senses, which has been published in 18 languages.

The realization that the university already has a strong foothold in environmental and sustainability research, Chamovitz said, is what led to its new mandate to become the world’s authority on climate change and sustainability.

A long history

For Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, the Negev was always Israel’s greatest untapped resource. It was the place, he predicted, that the Jewish homeland would sow their greatest accomplishments. A desert that spans more than 60% of the country’s land mass, the Negev would hold the answers to Israel’s most pressing problems of the day: how to grow enough food to feed a nation, generate sufficient energy to power cities and harness enough water to turn brown deserts green.

But building a sustainable nation, he warned, one that could benefit from a desert that receives less than 200 millimetres of rainfall per year wouldn’t be simple. “It is incumbent upon Israel’s scientists to reveal the secrets of nature that are unique to our land,” he said. The Negev, he insisted, was the perfect environment for an institute of study that could solve the world’s most basic – and challenging – problems of existence.

Ben-Gurion’s visionary thinking was the catalyst for many of Israel’s earliest environmental accomplishments, including desalination and energy generation using seawater, steps that would be critical to Israel’s much-needed water technology. Both projects were developed in the 1960s, at a research facility in the town of Be’er Sheva, a Bedouin settlement at the northern tip of the Negev. The institute that gave rise to these early innovations would eventually become BGU.

BGU’s new school

Two years ago, when he was hired as president of BGU, Chamovitz told the Jewish Independent he had conducted a “bottom-up” assessment of all of the departments and their areas of specialization. He wanted to know what their strengths and weaknesses were.

“[We] identified over 150 researchers dealing with various issues of sustainability and climate change,” Chamovitz said. “And, in every discipline. Not only in our institutes of water, energy and desert agriculture – that’s the low-lying fruit – but also in engineering and in civil engineering, where we develop energy-efficient building material and methods.

“It was clear to everyone that the field of sustainability and climate change was what sets Ben-Gurion University apart from every other university in Israel.”

That brand-name recognition helped secure a new partnership with Royal Bank of Canada, which is sponsoring the new school’s first graduate fellowship program. The investment by RBC will fund two fellowship positions for students specializing in climate change or sustainability-related research and, in doing so, help launch the program.

This isn’t the first time that RBC has partnered with the university. In 2018, RBC and BGU entered into a cybersecurity partnership, in which the bank invested $2 million toward research programs in BGU’s department of software and information systems engineering.

In this case, the partnership aligns with RBC’s own long-term sustainability goals and its Tech for Nature program, which it launched in 2019.

photo - Martin Thibodeau serves as the president of Royal Bank of Canada’s British Columbia region — Martin Thibodeau serves as the president of Royal Bank of Canada’s British Columbia region. *(photo from Royal Bank of Canada)*

“The research being conducted also aligns with RBC’s interests as we recognize that innovative technologies offer immense potential to help solve environmental challenges,” Martin Thibodeau, B.C. regional president, RBC Royal Bank, told the Independent. “The most pressing environmental concerns of our time are negatively impacting the planet at a rate that often outpaces the solutions designed to address them. RBC is leveraging its capabilities in technologies such as artificial intelligence and blockchain, as well as its convening power, to build solutions and the type of multi-partner coalitions needed to address and solve our shared environmental challenges.

“Our commitments align with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and, through our partnerships, we aim to develop multi-sector, multi-partner solutions to achieve progress on these challenging issues. We’re both proud and excited to partner with BGU through CABGU to address these important issues,” Thibodeau said.

“We are in awe of the grassroots contributions that RBC makes to our Jewish community and the positive role that RBC plays and has played in strengthening so many local community organizations in British Columbia and across Canada,” said David Berson, executive director of the B.C. & Alberta chapter of the Canadian Associates of Ben-Gurion University, which worked as a liaison with RBC and BGU to secure the partnership.

“[We] are incredibly excited that corporations such as RBC see the importance of partnering with Ben-Gurion University, [and] that their investment [will] pay back to society tenfold,” Chamovitz said. He likened RBC’s partnership to an educator who invests in students’ goals, which, in time, benefit generations to come.

A new learning model

Climate change is a multidisciplinary problem, said Chamovitz, one that takes the expertise of not only hydrologists, biologists and engineers, but geneticists, geologists, legal experts and others. Education, therefore, must be tailored to meet the broad range of knowledge required to understand climate change. That doesn’t mean graduate students won’t specialize in their research and their studies, Chamovitz said, but they will be expected to have a multidisciplinary background that connects with the challenges of creating a sustainable world and addressing climate change.

photo - Microbial eco-genomics deals with the study of relationship between organisms, including microbes and their environment — Microbial eco-genomics deals with the study of relationship between organisms, including microbes and their environment. *(photo from BGU)*

“The one requirement would be their willingness to work interdisciplinarily and to take courses in other fields. Otherwise, they don’t need the school,” said Chamovitz. “They could just go into the school of engineering [for example] or school of ecology. And, you know, for some people, that’s the better track.”

Chamovitz said it’s companies like RBC that are making this new branch of education possible, adding that the university has seen an increase in inquiries from companies and communities across the world that are attempting to address climate change challenges. Last year, for example, a company located in Chennai, India, reached out to see if BGU could assist in building a local agricultural research institute. Chamovitz said the institute’s future researchers will be trained first at BGU before returning home to Chennai to begin their new jobs. The university has also struck up a three-way partnership with the city of Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, and Arizona State University, in Tempe, Ariz., to address issues relating to global warming in Dubai.

“We have similar collaborations in western China, which are also in arid places. And we are really excited about developing relationships in Canada,” said Chamovitz, who recently visited Vancouver to meet the presidents of Simon Fraser University and the University of British Columbia, which both offer studies in climate change and sustainability.

The two Israeli RBC fellowship students have already been selected. Shir Eisenstein will be doing a master’s in material engineering, looking for new materials that help harness sustainable, renewable energy. Nadina Levitt, who is also pursuing a master’s, will be enrolled in the department of geography and environmental studies and studying sustainability models for smart cities. Both students demonstrated a key requirement for upper-level studies when it comes to BGU’s approach to this new specialization: innovation.

“One of the problems in higher education is this need for prerequisites,” Chamovitz noted. “What we are looking for is not prerequisites, but ingenuity.”

The university is expected to complete the formalization process and approval for the new school of sustainability and climate change in February and be open for enrolment this October.

For more information about BGU and the programs it offers, visit in.bgu.ac.il/en. For more about CABGU, contact Berson at bguvancouver@bengurion.ca or 604-266-2680, or visit bengurion.ca.

Jan Lee’s articles, op-eds and blog posts have been published in B’nai B’rith Magazine, Voices of Conservative and Masorti Judaism, Times of Israel and Baltimore Jewish Times, as well as a number of business, environmental and travel publications. Her blog can be found at multiculturaljew.polestarpassages.com.