Amnon Shashua (; born May 26, 1960) is an Israeli computer scientist and businessman. He is the Sachs Professor of

Computer Science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to practical disciplines (includin ...

at the

Hebrew University The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI; he, הַאוּנִיבֶרְסִיטָה הַעִבְרִית בִּירוּשָׁלַיִם) is a public university, public research university based in Jerusalem, Israel. Co-founded by Albert Einstein ...

in Jerusalem and President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of

Mobileye Mobileye Global Inc. is a company developing autonomous driving technologies and advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) including cameras, computer chips and software. Mobileye was acquired by Intel in 2017 and went public again in 2022. Mob ...

, Co-Founder of OrCam, Founder and Owner of One Zero Digital Bank and Chairman of AI21 Labs.

Biography

Amnon Shashua received his B.Sc in mathematics and computer science from

Tel-Aviv University Tel Aviv University (TAU) ( he, אוּנִיבֶרְסִיטַת תֵּל אָבִיב, ''Universitat Tel Aviv'') is a public research university in Tel Aviv, Israel. With over 30,000 students, it is the largest university in the country. Loc ...

in 1985 and his M.Sc in computer science in 1989 from the

Weizmann Institute of Science The Weizmann Institute of Science ( he, מכון ויצמן למדע ''Machon Vaitzman LeMada'') is a public research university in Rehovot, Israel, established in 1934, 14 years before the State of Israel. It differs from other Israeli univ ...

under the supervision of

Shimon Ullman Shimon Ullman (שמעון אולמן, born January 28, 1948, in Jerusalem) is a professor of computer science at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially ...

. His Ph.D in brain and cognitive sciences was received from the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern t ...

(MIT), while working at the

Artificial Intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech r ...

Laboratory, in 1993; and his postdoctoral training under Tomaso Poggio at the center for biological and computational learning at MIT.

Career

Academic

Shashua has been on the computer science faculty at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem since 1996. In 1999 he was appointed as an associate

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who professes". Professor ...

and in 2003 received full professorship. From 2002 to 2005 he was the head of the engineering and computer science school at the Hebrew University. Shashua has held the Sachs chair in computer science at the Hebrew University since 2007. Shashua's work includes early visual processing of saliency and grouping mechanisms, visual recognition and learning, image synthesis for animation and graphics, theory of

computer vision Computer vision is an Interdisciplinarity, interdisciplinary scientific field that deals with how computers can gain high-level understanding from digital images or videos. From the perspective of engineering, it seeks to understand and automate t ...

in the areas of multiple-view geometry and multi-view tensors, multilinear algebraic systems in vision and learning, primal/dual optimization for approximate inference in MRF and Graphical models, and (since 2014) deep layered networks.

Business

In 1995 Shashua founded CogniTens, which was sold to

Hexagon AB Hexagon AB is a publicly listed global information technology company specializing in hardware and software digital reality that was founded in 1992 and headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden. Hexagon's B share is listed on the list of large compan ...

in 2007. In 1999, Shashua co-founded

, a company that develops systems-on-chip and

algorithms for driving assistance systems, as well as

autonomous driving A self-driving car, also known as an autonomous car, driver-less car, or robotic car (robo-car), is a car that is capable of traveling without human input.Xie, S.; Hu, J.; Bhowmick, P.; Ding, Z.; Arvin, F.,Distributed Motion Planning for Sa ...

technology. On August 1, 2014 Mobileye launched its IPO on the NYSE which was the biggest Israeli IPO ever in the US raising approximately $1 billion at a market cap of $5.3 billion. In 2010, Shashua co-founded OrCam, an Israeli company which launched an assistive device for the

visually impaired Visual impairment, also known as vision impairment, is a medical definition primarily measured based on an individual's better eye visual acuity; in the absence of treatment such as correctable eyewear, assistive devices, and medical treatment� ...

based on computer vision capabilities. In August 2017,

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the devel ...

acquired Mobileye for approximately $15.3 billion. Shashua became a senior vice president at Intel, in addition to his title of President and CEO of Mobileye. In October 2022,

went public again, trading on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange with Shashua as its CEO.

Awards and recognition

Shashua received first prize in the 2004 Kaye Innovation award, and the 2005

Mifal HaPayis Mifal HaPais ( he, מפעל הפיס) is the national lottery of Israel. Most gambling is illegal in Israel. The only bodies licensed to provide betting services are Mifal HaPais and The Israeli Sports Betting Council. In 2012, Mifal HaPais's annua ...

Landau Prize The Landau Gold Medal (russian: Премия имени Л. Д. Ландау) is the highest award in theoretical physics awarded by the Russian Academy of Sciences and its predecessor the Soviet Academy of Sciences. It was established in 1971 ...

for Science and Research in the area of Exact Sciences -

Robotics Robotics is an interdisciplinarity, interdisciplinary branch of computer science and engineering. Robotics involves design, construction, operation, and use of robots. The goal of robotics is to design machines that can help and assist human ...

. On Israeli Independence Day 2017, Shashua was chosen to light a torch at the national ceremony on

Mt. Herzl Mount Herzl ( he, הַר הֶרְצְל ''Har Hertsl''), also ''Har ha-Zikaron'' ( lit. "Mount of Remembrance"), is the site of Israel's national cemetery and other memorial and educational facilities, found on the west side of Jerusalem beside ...

. In 2019 Shashua was recognized by the

Society for Imaging Science and Technology The Society for Imaging Science and Technology (IS&T) is a professional society (a type of research and education organization) in the field of photography. Founded in 1947 as the Society of Photographic Scientists and Engineers (SPSE), it is head ...

as the Electronic Imaging (EI) Scientist of the Year. In 2020 he was awarded the

Dan David Prize The Dan David Prize is a major international award that recognizes and supports outstanding contributions to the study of history and other disciplines that shed light on the human past. It awards nine prizes of $300,000 each year to outstanding ...

for his work in Artificial Intelligence. In 2022 he was awarded the Mobility Innovator Award and was inducted into The Automotive Hall of Fame.

References

External links

Amnon Shashua
academic page on Hebrew University of Jerusalem website. *Amnon Shashua

according to

Calcalist ''Calcalist'' ( he, כלכליסט, a Hebrew wordplay on ''The Economist'', from כלכלה) is an Israeli daily business newspaper and website. History and profile ''Calcalist'' was first published on 18 February 2008, and currently runs five d ...

. {{DEFAULTSORT:Shashua, Amnon 1960 births Living people Israeli Mizrahi Jews Artificial intelligence researchers Hebrew University of Jerusalem faculty Intel people Israeli chief executives Israeli company founders Israeli computer scientists Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Science alumni Tel Aviv University alumni Weizmann Institute of Science alumni