Israel Active

Nice article describing JNF-USA’s partnership with Israeli NGO ii2020 and Tel Hai College to build the Beit Asher Food Innovation Center. Incorporating the JNF-USA Institute of Culinary Arts, it is poised to make the Upper Eastern Galilee a major world food capital.

In 2015, some 200 Israeli-founded companies based in Massachusetts brought in $9.3 billion in revenue. In 2018, ten new Israeli companies opened in the region, plus the first ever start-up incubator between IBM Israel, Brown University, and the University of Rhode Island.

I reported last year (Jan 2018) that Israeli kibbutzim invested some NIS 76 million in startups in 2017. In 2018 this soared by 45% to NIS 110 (some $30 million). Most kibbutzim have transformed from socialist agricultural communities into private organizations with hi-tech factories.

Yissum, the tech transfer company of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem has opened three international centers, to help commercialize its innovations. The centers are in Chicago USA, Asunción Paraguay and Shenzhen China. Yissum says it expects to open more in the future.

More and more multinationals are establishing operations in Tel Aviv as it is an ideal place to pilot test new products before expanding globally. Bird, Wolt Enterprises, Yandex, Juul Labs and Mobike are just some of the multinationals to launch in Tel Aviv in 2018.

Global credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s has solidified its August 2018 AA- high rating of Israel’s economy. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated, “This is a very strong expression of confidence in the economic policy that we have led in recent years.”

Intel is to invest an extra NIS 40 billion (approx $11 billion) in its Israel enterprises and will open another plant in the southern city of Kiryat Gat.  Intel will also recruit 1,000 additional local staff.

Israel’s Mellanox earned over $1 billion for the first time in its history. Mellanox’s high-speed solutions accelerate the fastest supercomputers in the world. Intel is reportedly about to make a multi-billion dollar bid for the company.

TV sports service Eurosport has signed a multi-year partnership agreement with Israel’s Outbrain. It will use Outbrain’s content discovery technology for 13 of its global markets, including Australia, the U.K. and Germany. Outbrain’s clients include CNN and Wall Street Journal.

I reported previously on Israeli workload gamification startup GamEffective that incentivizes performance with rewards. Now, German Insurer Swiss Life Select has changed its entire sales operation to be handled through GamEffective's workload tracking and productivity software.