Dr. Idan Porat holds B.A. in environmental studies, from the Technion; MSc and PhD (with excellence) in Urban and regional planning from the Technion. He is a Senior Teaching Fellow and senior researcher at the Technion IIT. He is one of the founders of the Spatial Capital Lab and the Spatial Planning & Design Lab at the Center for Urban and Regional Studies and the leading researcher of the ‘Israel 100’- national strategic plan. Idan teaches Graduate courses: Metropolitan studio, Regional and Metropolitan planning, and Urban Environmental Quality. Dr. Porat's research interests are: spatial planning policy, urban and regional strategic planning based on local capital assets and Multi-Parametric GIS analysis. He developed a "building pattern recognition" analysis toolkit for local, place based, urban renewal policy. His research was published in lead international journals and was presented in international conferences. He has over 15 years of practical experience in urban and regional planning as team leader of the Ashdod city strategic plan and a member of the Holon city master plan team. Idan is married to Smadar (Psychologist); father to Roni, Uri and Ziv and lives in Kiryat Tivon.