Eran Ben-Shahar

Eran Ben-Shahar, in Australia, 2007

Eran Ben-Shahar (/ʃɑːˈxɑːr/; born 11 March 1969) is an Israeli author, philosopher, journalist and inventor. Born in Haifa, Israel, after living and lecturing in the Galilee, Israel he now lives in New Zealand. Author of the bestseller Barely-Bear Makes Money and also of 42 – Personal Empowerment Pocket Guide and Ofer the Fawn – The Water Riddle. Creator of the "Social-Capitalistic" concept. Inventor of many open-source internet products and publishings. His books are published in Biblical Hebrew in the source, translated to English (2006) and Chinese (2007).

Biography

Eran Ben-Shahar was born in 1969 at Kiryat Bialik, near Haifa, Israel. Named "Eran", meaning "aware person". His father immigrated from Bulgaria and his mother was deported from Egypt, Eran was the second among 3 sons. His father Haim named the family "Ben-Shahar", meaning "son of dawn". He attended Habonim Grammar School in town and then boarded the local Ort High School (1984). As was put out in 2006 by "Channel A" (the national Israeli radio broadcasts), Ben-Shahar was discovered at early childhood as a gifted child and was invited to attend university courses when he was only 10 years old. He began his own writing at the age of 11, while at the age of 13 he started to publish a series of articles in the Israeli journal Computer World. It was only revealed in the past few years that Computer World agreed to disclose his real age to the public only 2 years after he started his work with them. In 1988 he graduated high-school and had to join the Israeli Defense Forces. After 3 years of mandatory service he left the Army and in 1992 he started his B.Sc. in the Physics Faculty of the Technion – Israeli Institute of Technology. He also made 2 years of lecturing in the Technion and at the end he graduated with an M.Sc. in theoretical physics (1999, advisor – Amos Ori) in the field of Einstein's theory of General Relativity.^[1]

Eran Ben-Shahar, A lecture in Tel Aviv, 2005

In 1996 Ben-Shahar invented a multiple database search algorithm working parallel in the languages of English, Russian, Arabic and Hebrew. In 1999 this algorithm, along with some other web products, was sold to the U.S. company Netvision, to produce the high-rating portal NANA. Later on Ben-Shahar admitted in a newspaper interview that it was a mistake, by his own words – "My contract to Netvision was my first and last mistake to sell my soul to globalization monsters". Since then he put most his works and inventions, as well as some of his literature works, as an open source. In 2005 Ben-Shahar published the book Barely-Bear Makes Money (Gala Publishing, 2005). The book was published in a limited edition but very soon became a bestseller due to a new approach on economy being described there. Several months later he published 42 – The Entrepreneurs' Pocket Guide (Gala Publishing, 2006) but very quickly after that he broke his contract with the publisher and made the book free over the internet in a different name: 42 – Personal Empowerment Pocket Guide. In a radio interview in Channel A ^[2] he claimed, "Anyway authors don't make money of their books, so better it be free for everyone", a rare approach in Israel that made several people and organizations angry. In late 2006 he published his third book Ofer the Fawn – The Water Riddle (Gala Publishing, 2006), expanding his group of fans as he contracted the publisher to allow him to put a PDF version of the book online for everybody.^[3] The book is sold in hard copy and hard cover by the publisher, yet Ben-Shahar is still allowing it to be downloaded free.

Quotes

"Jealousy is a minus because it what makes a zero of a person become negative" (E. Ben-Shahar, 2009)

Works

• E. Ben-Shahar, Ofer the Fawn – The Water Riddle, a children's story book, Gala Publishing, 2006. Published in Hebrew and English.
• E. Ben-Shahar, 42 – Personal Empowerment Pocket Guide, Gala Publishing, 2006. Published in English, Mandarin and Hebrew.
• E. Ben-Shahar, Barely-Bear Makes Money – A Visionary Guide to Ventures, a bestseller in Hebrew now also published in English and Mandarin, 2005.
• E. Ben-Shahar, Gravitational Bounce of a Charged Dust Sphere, M.Sc. Thesis, Technion Publishing, Israel 1999.
• E. Ben-Shahar, Chaos and Fractal Geometry for Youth, an experimental guide, Technion Publishing, Israel, 1997.
• E. Ben-Shahar, Mechanics for Manpower Teachers, a handbook for physics teachers, Technion Publishing, Israel, 1993.
• E. Ben-Shahar, Classical Mechanics and Optics – Experiments, a handbook for physics teachers, Technion Publishing, Israel, 1993.
• A list of essays and articles at The Israeli People and Computer Magazine, 1982–1984.

Appearances at the press

A rare documentation: Ben-Shahar's age disclosed to the public after two years of appearance as a senior journalist (Hebrew)

• Nofar Sinay (21 January 2007). הדובים באים, הדובים באים [The bears are coming, the bears are coming]. Haaretz (in Hebrew). Retrieved 11 August 2014.  Research article on Ben-Shahar and the "Social-Capitalism" theory.
• H. Barel, "60 minutes with Eran Ben-Shahar" , 17 May 2006. Interview at Reshet A ("Channel A") – a national radio channel, Israel.
• U. Shavit, "Why?", Weekend Magazine of Haaretz, 17 December 1999. Interview at Haaretz (archive article # 577213).
• "Pagaz", a five minutes interview at "RESHET B" ("Channel B"), a national radio station, February 1998.
• "New Virtual Community", a five minutes interview at "RESHET B" ("Channel B"), a national radio station, December 1998.
• A review of works by Ben-Shahar at Yedioth Ahronoth, July 1999.
• Several articles about works of Ben-Shahar, at Maariv Jan 2001; 4/2/2001; 11/2/2001
• T. Ritov, "Bypassing Media – about the works of Eran Ben-Shahar", Misgav Voices, November 1999.
• Many reviews of Ben-Shahar works at the professional media and local newspapers: Walla , Sivan , "Internet Now", "Captain Internet" & more.

References

External links

• Ben-Shahar Family web site
• Homepage of the novel "Barely-Bear Makes Money"
• Homepage of the children's book, "Ofer the Fawn – The water Riddle A PDF version of the book can be downloaded here.
• 42 – Personal Empowerment Pocket Guide. An online version of the book by Ben-Shahar is presented in English, Mandarin and Hebrew.
• Homepage for Barely-Bear Fans. It seems to be mainly active in Hebrew but some English content can be found here.
• "60 Minutes Interview with Eran Ben-Shahar" (in Hebrew). National Radio Channel B. Archived from the original on October 13, 2007.