Israel Active

When Covid-19 struck, Israeli company Lightricks (developer of photo editing software Facetune) sent home its nine cleaners. Days later, maintenance manager Nadav changed their lives. He taught them basic computer skills and had them inputting photos of faces for image processing.

The Israel-Asia Center (reported previously) was founded in 2011 Since then it has secured some $185 million for the Israeli economy. Its 8-month fellowship has trained almost 100 young leaders from 14 different countries across Asia, including Indonesia and Malaysia.

The US gets a high return on its annual $3.8 billion Israeli investment. Israel invests almost $24 billion in the US, nearly triple that in 2010. Israeli-designed components are an integral part of US hi-tech products. Areas include IT, biotech, life sciences, energy, defense, cyber-security and much more.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky discussed with and Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu expanding the Free Trade Area Agreement, promoting Israeli investment and resuming flights. He also said that Israel is "an example of an effective fight against the coronavirus epidemic."

Cyprus announced that Israel will be in the first group of 13 countries, with low COVID-19 infection rates, allowed to resume commercial flights to the country on 9th June. Initially, passengers will require a health certificate confirming that they are virus-free. Cyprus hotels open on 1st June.

Several Israeli firms took major steps during the pandemic to avoid losing skilled staff. Ness Technologies and VeriFone Systems re-assigned many employees from clients who froze their business activity to clients that had increased demand or moved them to development projects.

As reported previously, IKEA’s sixth Israeli store has been built at Moshav Eshtaol – north of Beit Shemesh. Now, as the number of coronavirus infections in Israel has dropped, the new store has opened, employing some 380 people.

Micha Berkuz, Shai Darin, and Tal Zuri, established BuyMe in 2012 and turned it into Israel’s leading platform for employee gift vouchers, offering vouchers to more than 1,000 businesses. They have now sold their share in the company to Tel Aviv-based Teleclal Group for NIS 81 million.

Israel’s Else Nutrition (reported previously) has just been granted approval of patent applications for its plant-based formulation for infant and toddler populations in both India and Canada.

The EcoMotion 2020 virtual week-long summit has partnered with the newly launched Arizona Israel Trade and Investment Office. It features cutting-edge transportation technologies, smart mobility and autonomous vehicles.