PyCon Israel 2025

Anat Wax is an automation developer at Red Hat, a Python enthusiast, and a lifelong maker. With a background in musicology and a passion for robotics, she enjoys building creative projects that bring code to life - often with personality, art and movement.

Over the past 5 years at AWS ElastiCache, I’ve been responsible for performance evaluation of Redis/Valkey and serverless offerings, developing automation tools for performance qualification and monitoring. I also lead the Valkey-glide open-source initiative, focused on building the best Valkey client. This work has given me deep experience with Python, especially in high-performance and async contexts. I’ve collaborated with open-source communities on Python client libraries, and I'm passionate about pushing the boundaries of Python performance.

Sometimes developer, sometimes CTO, sometimes consultant, sometimes investor. Always a technologists at heart, on a quest to improve the craft of writing software.

I'm a software engineer at Magos Systems, a company that designs and manufactures Radar for the civil sector. By education, I hold a Bachelor degree from the Technion and M.A from Tel Aviv University, both in Electrical Engineering. I've been in the tech industry for more almost two decades serving as a design engineer in various areas from hardware, through FPGA and software.

Worked in Python, JS, Ruby, Go and more; nostalgic for Forth, Spreadsheets, Lisp Machines, Boxer.
Believe in FOSS as just the starting point of wider unsolved problem of making software transparent to, and modifiable by, end users. Love interpreters that you can peek & poke at runtime.
For now ignorant about AI; interested in human cognition & learning.

I'm a data scientist at SentinelOne, and I'm passionate about the power of data to drive insights and innovation. My work centers around machine and deep learning. I've spent years honing my skills in Python scientific programming.
As an organizing PyData Tel Aviv conference member, I'm dedicated to fostering collaboration and knowledge-sharing in the data science community.
I take pride in building Python packages that make data workflows more streamlined and efficient.

When I'm not working with data, you can find me hiking in the great outdoors
or exploring the vibrant cultural scene of Tel Aviv.

ChatGPT helped with phrasing this paragraph.
Also, the LLM generated the last line entirely, and it is untrue.
I do have two daughters and a partner with whom I love spending time.

Dr. Erez Waisbard - Principal Technology Researcher at CyberArk

Erez Waisbard received his Ph.D. degrees in computer science from Bar-Ilan University and his M.Sc. from The Weizmann Institute of Science.
He has over 25 years of industry experience in security and networks, designing and implementing systems at Lucent, Cisco, NDS and Nokia Bell Labs.
He is currently a Principal Technology Researcher at CyberArk and a faculty member at the Open University, Israel in the Dept. of Mathematics and Computer Science.
His research interests include cryptography, security, privacy, networked systems, and algorithms.

Gil Zilberfeld has been in software since childhood, writing BASIC programs on his trusty Sinclair ZX81. He is a trainer and mentor working to make software better.
With more than 25 years of developing commercial software, he has vast experience in software methodology and practices. From unit testing to exploratory testing, design practices to clean code, API to web testing – he’s done it all.

Gil speaks frequently in international conferences about testing, TDD, clean code, and test automation. He is the author of "Everyday Unit Testing", blogs and posts videos on these topics at http://testingil.com and YouTube channel.
In his spare time, he shoots zombies, for fun.

Haim Michael started coding when he was 8 years old. During the years 2001 – 2007, Haim led the development of more than 200 applications and games for mobile telephones, together with their complementary server-side applications. Haim focuses on programming languages, and his rich knowledge and experience in Java programming span more than 25 years. Haim is a PHP Zend Certified Engineer, OMG-Certified UML Professional, Certified Java Professional, and a Certified Java EE Web Components Developer. In addition, Haim Michael holds an MBA (cum-laude) from Tel Aviv University.

A co-founder and CEO of AutoKitteh. Prior to that, he had been leading product management for cyber security and telecommunication companies. He earned his Ph.D. in computer science from Tel-Aviv University in the field of computer networks.

Software developer and a technical lead. I take special interest in databases, web development, software design and performance tuning. More at https://hakibenita.com

Liza Katz is a software engineer with 20+ years of experience in writing code, leading teams, and building clever AI tools with Python, search tech, and large language models.

I'm a backend developer with over six years of experience, passionate about the startup world and the challenges that come with its rapid changes.

A few months ago, I founded TechGym, a program for seniors, with the goal of creating weekly sessions to stay technology fit.

Data Science and Engineering Team Lead @ LSports, Lecturer at the Data Analytics program @ Hebrew University and WiDS Community manager.

Developer of 20Y+, fiercely hated by his cat for no apparent reason.

Former hardware hacker turned Python enthusiast, I’ve worked as a programmable hardware engineer and security researcher. Today, I’m a software engineering team lead at the Hexagate team in Chainalysis, developing a real-time high-scale system that’s based on a distributed micro-service architecture.

Tech Leader, Head of Backend Cloud Gilda at Check Point, and Community Leader of Node.js-IL. With extensive experience in backend development and cloud technologies, Oren specializes in cybersecurity and education. He combines technical expertise with a passion for fostering collaboration and innovation. Beyond his professional work, Oren mentors aspiring developers through the Magshimim Program, helping shape the next generation of tech professionals in Israel.

Ortal Ashkenazi is a Data Scientist at Wix, specializing in natural language processing and applied machine learning. She enjoys turning messy, human language into structured, useful insights — bridging the gap between raw data and real-world decisions. With an MSc from the Technion, she combines academic depth with hands-on product thinking to build AI tools that people actually use.

A set of speakers

Shir is the co-founder and CTO of Deepchecks, a startup for evaluation and continuous validation of AI-based applications. Previously, Shir worked at the Prime Minister’s Office and at Unit 8200, leading research in various Machine Learning and Cyber related problems. Shir has a B.Sc. in Physics from the Hebrew University, which she obtained as part of the Talpiot excellence program, and an M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from Tel Aviv University. Shir was a featured honoree in the Forbes Europe 30 Under 30 list.

Shirli is a senior AI scientist at Intuit, where she brings cutting-edge innovation to life through generative models and agentic AI. Her areas of expertise span reinforcement learning, LLM training and evaluation, NLP, classical machine learning, and the design of intelligent agents.
Shirli holds a Ph.D. and M.Sc. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the Technion, specializing in Reinforcement Learning, and a B.Sc. in Biomedical Engineering from Ben Gurion University.

With 20+ years in data, ML, and GenAI, I blend academic research with real-world innovation. After a PhD focused on early GenAI work, I led GenAI initiatives at Datomize and now build tailored Small Language Models at Datawizz. I'm a founder passionate about AI for good.

Tsvi Mostovicz is a senior verification engineer who enjoys writing Python that's both practical and expressive. He maintains the Jewish calendar integration in Home Assistant, provides syntax support for the Specman language, and enjoys exploring Python features that make code cleaner and more maintainable.

Yaacov is a software engineer at Red Hat, he is a long time contributor to free software projects, volunteer at the Nitzanim project, and like cats.

Yonatan Bitton, is a Principal Software Engineer at Fortinet with over 12 years of experience in software development. Passionate about tackling challenging coding problems, debugging, and exploring the intricacies of code, he strives to deeply understand the tools and technologies he uses.