Rotem Avny

Talks

I talk about living with screens and thinking with AI.

Studying user experience showed me how deeply technology shapes our lives: not only the products we use, but our daily habits. In my talks I bring those insights together with practical tools. The goal is not only awareness, but simple solutions you can apply.

For more than a decade I have led and motivated people, mostly in education and nonprofits, and I learned that my place is in front of an audience.

Rotem on stage with a microphone, beside a slide that maps a life in months, screen time included. Someone in the audience is filming.
Photo: Avishai

The talks

I aim to fit each talk to its audience, so I like to get to know them first.

Screens · flagship talk

RelationScreens: thriving with screens

We all know our phones are addictive. That is the result of good, personal, user-centered design. In my flagship talk we uncover the methods that made us dependent on technology, and learn how to turn it into a tool for our own goals.

The tools of user experience are like a knife: they can help, like a surgeon's, or they can hurt. I made this talk about the psychology behind our screens, and the uses that do us good.

What you take away

  • How the smartphone changed our lives
  • The manipulations built into digital products
  • We're all hooked: how we came to depend on our phones
  • UX design and its evil twin, dark patterns
  • How to build a healthy relationship with your phone
For
Anyone who wants to stop fearing technology, stop regretting wasted screen time and start putting progress to work in their own life. An enrichment talk for a general audience.
Format
  • About 90 minutes, adjustable
  • In person or on Zoom
  • No limit on audience size

For workplaces

RelationScreens: technology in the workplace

How do screens affect our work, for better or worse? Not a talk about how long you spend in front of a screen, but about the drives and tools behind it, and how to turn a distraction into a tool that works for you.

What you take away

  • How we got here: what the smartphone did to our personal and working lives
  • The manipulations that steer us, and how to deal with them
  • Me and my phone, work partners or hidden enemies: screens and productivity, communication and focus
  • Tools for a healthy relationship with technology, for the person, the team and the whole organization

AI and creativity

Creative thinking with AI

How can AI become a creative tool in your organization? Together we bring it into a structured, efficient thinking process built on Google's Design Sprint, a way to solve complex problems and develop new ideas.

What you take away

  • What makes AI a tool that changes the rules for organizations
  • Technology meets creativity: working with AI to connect the dots, find inspiration and improve processes
  • Google's Design Sprint, and how AI strengthens each stage, from understanding the problem to a prototype
  • A live exercise: we take a challenge from the audience and show how the method, with AI, finds creative, efficient answers in a short time
For
Managers, teams and organizations looking for new ways of working; anyone who wants to combine technology and creativity to solve business challenges; anyone who wants practical tools to use tomorrow.

Co-Thinking

The thinking user's guide

AI is an incredible tool, but do we remember to keep our own mind in the driver's seat? This talk is about using AI as a tool that sharpens our thinking instead of dulling it, through an approach I developed called Co-Thinking.

In the same spirit I built a GPT that works as a thinking coach, not a thinking drain.

What you take away

  • How to keep your critical thinking
  • How to spot biases
  • How to make technology a partner, not a replacement
Format
  • On stage

For builders

Intro to user experience

User experience is not only for tech companies, or only for digital products. You get to know the foundations and main tools of a field whose engine is understanding what your users really need and want, and fitting your product or service to them.

What you take away

  • Why good user experience matters
  • Key concepts of user experience, and what the field is made of
  • Ways to collect data and draw insights
  • Understanding your audience's needs, and how a good experience is made
For
Anyone who builds projects, provides services or manages products.
Format
  • About two hours, adjustable
  • In person or on Zoom
  • No limit on audience size
  • A version for teens
  • Advanced follow-up: product-market fit

Entrepreneurship for everyone: an intro to Lean Startup

If you have come near entrepreneurship, you have probably met the term Lean Startup. In a hands-on session we go around its build, measure, learn loop together, and see why it helps build projects and businesses that keep up with today's pace.

What you take away

  • The background of Lean Startup, and a product pivot challenge to learn its language
  • An empathy map challenge from your own field: the needs and the problem
  • An MVP challenge: sketch a minimal solution that still has value
  • Closing the loop: the whole process, step by step, and why sustainable, scalable solutions matter
For
Project management teams, teen and youth groups, and social and educational organizations.
Format
  • About two hours, adjustable
  • In person or on Zoom
  • Up to 30 participants
  • A version for teens
  • Advanced follow-up: product-market fit

Digital resilience

Strong in front of the screens: digital resilience in a crisis

The war is fought on screens too, and there we come under psychological attack, in ways we can't yet measure. The answer is resilience in the digital space. This talk gives tools to cope and to build that resilience, so we keep functioning and even come out stronger. At the end I share a document of tools and links for staying active online, including advocacy that supports the national effort in the digital arena.

What you take away

  • What resilience is, and the challenges we face in the digital space
  • The psychology behind psychological warfare online
  • How to build resilience in the digital arena
  • Digital tools that strengthen personal and national resilience
  • A summary, and an exercise in building resilience
For
Organizations, adults and young adults, as a first, basic answer to a complex time.
Format
  • About 75 minutes, adjustable
  • In person or on Zoom
  • No limit on audience size
  • A version for teens

Watch

Play the talk: The hidden price of living with screens, at TEN15 Herzliya, in Hebrew

The hidden price of living with screens

TEN15 Herzliya · In Hebrew · on YouTube

Play the talk: How to build an agent that thinks with you, not instead of you, at theLOOP #2, in Hebrew

How to build an agent that thinks with you, not instead of you

theLOOP #2 · In Hebrew · on YouTube

The course

The journey to digital balance

My course at Pragma. The digital age tests our ability to focus, to keep going, and to put our energy into what really matters to us. This course is not tips or quick fixes: it is a structured process of changing habits and redesigning your digital environment.

  • 8 sessions
  • 20 hours
  • Ramat Gan and live on Zoom
  • Open to all

We look at how digital systems shape our decisions, emotions, habits and focus: the attention economy, dopamine, friction, behavioral design and cognitive psychology.

You build a system that helps even when you're tired, when there's no motivation, when the world is loud.

The eight sessions

  1. The digital age, and where you start: the phone that pulls you in, the attention economy, cheap dopamine
  2. What's my drug? Mapping your usage patterns and triggers
  3. Vision and planning: who I want to be in the digital age, with personal OKRs and a two-week detox
  4. Focus and deep work
  5. Designing your digital environment, with behavioral design
  6. Technology that makes you stronger: AI, the Co-Thinking way
  7. Putting it in place and refining it: build, measure, learn
  8. Summing up the change, and an ongoing support group

Where I've spoken

  • Agents&MeAugust 2026
  • Pragma
  • theLOOP #2
  • TEN15 Herzliya

Audience feedback

Creative thinking with AI, via Etsli. Translated from Hebrew.

A very special way to look at artificial intelligence. Thank you for opening our eyes and easing our anxiety about the future. I believe that if we use AI the way you suggest, people will gain and not be ‘replaced,’ as I feared.

A very professional talk. Rotem built it step by step, explained, and was precise in the right places.

Especially interesting and creative. It's time to learn AI.

Book a talk

I'd be glad to get to know you, and to find together the talk and the format that fit your audience.

Talk to me on WhatsApp

Or through an agency, in Hebrew:TalkshowsEtsli

WhatsApp