The Swifts are small migratory birds whose numbers are sadly diminishing.  They are highly aerial birds that land only for nesting and raising their young. The Friends of the Swifts Association (FOTS) headed by Amnon Han promotes the conservation of these unique species of birds by building them protected nesting chambers and installing a live stream within them to provide a wonderful platform for increasing public awareness as well as gaining valuable scientific information.

The unique software for the live broadcasts was developed on behalf of the FOTS by group of students from the Department of Information Systems at the Herta and Paul Amir Faculty of Social Sciences, as their graduation project. The software named CCTV application is designed to track the movement of the swifts and broadcast it from inside Swift nests. This is the third year that it has been operating successfully and flawlessly. The live broadcasts are regularly screened in the Civic Science Room of the newly opened Natural History Museum in Toronto, Italy, as well as in other places in the world.

As a token of appreciation for the project, the Friends of the Swifts Association donated to the University of Haifa three Swift sculptures made by a British sculptor Mark Coreth , the value of each sculpture being about 2500 euros.  It was decided to install the sculptures on the front wall of the Amir building at City Campus:

The Swifts also symbolize the hope for the coexistence of all three Abrahamic religions: Christianity, Islam and Judaism. See also A video about the project of Mark Coreth. On the dedication board at the entrance to the building, the story of the Swifts Project appears in the three languages: Hebrew, English, and Arabic:

Furthermore, in light of the University of Haifa’s commitment to sustainability and the conservation of the environment, the University and FOTS  built a Swift nesting colony on the roof of this same building:

The colony is constantly monitored by the live stream system installed,  to be displayed online on a screen inside the building for the benefit of all ornithologists, scientists and Swift enthusiasts all over the world:

The entire Swift project at the Herta and Paul Amir Technology Complex bear a message of interfaith fraternity, and the nesting colony with its affiliated research, create a unique marriage of multidisciplinary research and values such as tolerance, multiculturalism, sustainability and environment conservation.