Israel Active

I reported previously on David Wanetick’s book “Solution Nation” describing 62 Israeli companies developing solutions to problems “that threaten to end life itself or materially degrade the quality of life.” This Israel21c article features 10 companies from the book.

Calcalist will lead a delegation of Israeli auto and mobility tech companies to the first-ever Mondial Tech conference at October’s Mondial de l'Automobile (Paris Motor Show). Jean-Claude Girot, Mondial’s general commissary, an ardent Israel supporter, will open the conference.

Global investor and philanthropist Warren Buffet helped secure $80 million in Israel bond purchases at a gathering in Omaha. He spoke of Israel as “one of the most remarkable countries in the world”. Each attendee pledged to buy a minimum of $1 million bonds.

Israel's economy remains robust with the latest figures from the Central Bureau of Statistics showing that Gross Domestic Product grew at an annualized rate of 4.2% in the first quarter of 2018. Most areas of the economy showed huge growth, with exports of software and communications products up 26.8%.

Israeli-founded, US-licensed insurance company Lemonade relies on automation and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to keep costs down. It processes new business and claims in minutes and at the end of the year any surplus funds set aside for claims that is unused gets donated to charity.

The “Living Financially Smarter in Israel” group has listed 70 ways that Israel’s economic and financial system works to benefit its citizens. They include Aliya money, free ulpan, free savings for children, cheap health care and 66 others. Click for more.

Israel’s Shin Bet Security Agency and Tel Aviv University (TAU Ventures) are launching Xcelerator – for startups working in Artificial Intelligence (AI), primarily natural-language processing (NLP) technologies, robotics, and data science. Initially, six startups will receive $50,000, workspace and mentoring.

I reported previously about one Israeli startup that says it can migrate a company’s data center onto the Cloud in minutes. Here is another, Velostrata, which had been an Israeli startup, until it was recently bought by Google and has now become part of Google Cloud.  

I reported previously that Intel planned a $5 billion expansion of its Kiryat Gat factory.  It has now submitted a detailed plan to the Israeli Government which granted a $380 million incentive. Intel Israel exported $3.6 billion of tech products in 2017 and its 2018 plans are impressive.

I reported previously on Israel’s Mindspace – one of the growing number of Israeli companies leasing shared office space globally. Mindspace has just acquired Dutch shared space provider KleinKantoor, taking Mindspace’s operations into its sixth country.