Looking to bolster Israel’s national security and national standing, as well as provide a springboard for promising students in aerospace engineering, Houston-based businessman and proud Technion alumnus Max Blankfeld has endowed an international prize at the Israeli school to help transform the aerospace field.

The Technion – Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa announced this month the establishment of the Max and Desiree Blankfeld Endowed Prize for Transformative Innovation in Aerospace. The award will be given to a single recipient each year, alternating annually between an international track for senior researchers from abroad and a local track honoring a promising Technion student who has developed original ideas in the field of aerospace engineering.

The official call for nominations will be issued in summer 2026, with the inaugural prize ceremony scheduled for June 2027. The university declined to specify the size of the endowment, and the specific financial values of the annual prize and student scholarship have not yet been determined.

Every other year, the international track, known as the Distinguished Leader Award, will provide prize money and travel funding for a multi-week stay in Israel to foster collaboration with local faculty and students. On the alternating years, the Early Career Award provides a selected Technion student with both scholarship support and prize money, allowing them to focus on developing original aerospace concepts. Technion President Uri Sivan emphasized that this dual structure will simultaneously elevate the university’s global research standing and incentivize its own student body.

“Aerospace in Israel plays a very important role in the security of Israel,” Blankfeld told eJewishPhilanthropy, explaining his decision to split the prize’s impact. “The idea was to have an international prize that would bring and honor the best minds… and allow them to share ideas and knowledge [with students and faculty]. The other year will be to encourage students at the Technion who are very promising to develop their own ideas in the field.”

Blankfeld’s philanthropic focus on the university is rooted in his personal history. The son of Holocaust survivors who had immigrated to Brazil after World War II, Blankfeld came to Israel from Brazil at age 17 to study in the Technion’s aeronautical engineering program, which he attended from 1970 to 1973. He credits those formative years in Haifa and the mix of scholarships and parental support he received as his primary motivation for giving back.

This endowment marks Blankfeld’s latest contribution to the institution. Appointed to the Technion Board of Governors in 2025, he previously established the Eli and Chaya Blankfeld Graduate Fellowship in 2021 to honor his parents. The fellowship specifically supports doctoral and postdoctoral students making aliyah to study aerospace engineering at the university.

“Every scholarship you give is an investment in the person, and since I focus heavily on Israel in my philanthropy, it’s also an investment in the country,” Blankfeld added. “The future of the country depends on the education of the people who live here.”