Computer science professor Shimon Schocken is also an avid mountain biker. To share the life lessons he learned while riding, he began an outdoor program with Israel’s juvenile inmates and was touched by both their intense difficulties and profound successes. For all those working with adjudicated yout on in therapeutic adventure, Shimon’s talk is a moving testament to the power of adventure.

Shimon Schocken is the IDB Professor of Information Technologies and founding dean of the Efi Arazi School of Computer Science at the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) in Israel. After 10 years at NYU, he returned to his home country to help begin the IDC at Herzliya — Israel’s first private and non–profit university. In 2005, along with Noam Nisan, he co-wrote one of today’s bestselling works on building computers, The Elements of Computing Systems. He is also the creator of the Visual Computer (Vic), an interactive simulation of a model digital computer that allows users a unique, hands-on understanding of the modern computer’s most fundamental elements. Schocken embraces his public role as an educator. Within his field, he serves as chairman of the Computer Science Education committee in the Israeli Ministry of Education.