Dan Gielan

Born in Tel Aviv during WWII, Dan Gielan grew up under the British rule over Palestine. At a young age he witnessed the momentous events of the establishment of the State of Israel and the ensuing War of Independence, and some years later he experienced the threat of the 1956 war with Egypt.

While in high school Dan also attended the Israeli Conservatory and Academy of Music and graduated with a degree in Music Composition. Following over 3 years of military service in the Armored Corps of the Israeli Defense Forces, he studied at the Technion in Haifa and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering. During the Six Day War Dan served as a communications officer for an armored battalion in the Sinai, and in 1968 he came to the United States to pursue an MBA degree at Columbia University in New York. When the Yom Kippur War broke out in 1973 he volunteered to return to Israel and help defend it, this time as a tank platoon commander in the IDF.

In his career in the U.S. Dan founded and managed three Information Technology companies, lectured extensively at universities and professional symposia, and was recognized as one of the pioneers of the IT industry. In his previous book “Zero-Zero” (1998) Dan warned of two threats to modern society: our over-reliance on uncontrolled computer systems in all facets of modern existence, and the loss of personal privacy, both of which have come to pass as issues central to our lives today.