Israel Active

Governor Jack A. Markell said he and his delegation of Delaware entrepreneurs and business leaders aim to explore ways for Israel and Delaware to strengthen ties and forge new relationships. Thousands of Israeli-based businesses are already incorporated in Delaware.

Computer giant IBM has acquired Herzliya Pituach-based Computing Solutions Leaders International (CSL) for an estimated $20 million. CSL’s virtualization and cloud-computing systems allow customers to run their business applications efficiently or remotely on 3rd party computers.

According to Israel’s Airport Authority, air flight traffic in the month of July increased by more than 6.5% in comparison to the previous summer. Passenger traffic at Ben Gurion airport is expected to peak in August.

Explorations at Karish, Israel's newest offshore gas field northwest of Haifa, reveal that the underwater reservoir contains $1.3 billion worth of condensate, a crude oil used for fuel production, on top of potential 1.8 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

USA Today selected “Pure Chocolate Granita” by Israel’s Max Brenner as one of the best milkshake’s in America. Known as “the Bald Man”, Strauss’s Max Brenner has chocolate bars in New York, Philadelphia, Boston and Las Vegas.

Lufthansa’s First Officer, Israeli Yaniv Emanuel, flew the airline’s new Boeing 747-8 from Frankfurt to Tel Aviv. The first arrival of the World’s longest commercial plane also marked the improvements to Ben Gurion airport to satisfy aviation regulations.

May 2013 was a record-breaking month for tourism to Israel. The 336,000 visitor numbers were 5 percent higher than in May 2012. The total for 2013 so far is also a record 1.4 million.

Over a dozen international delegations attended the 2013 BioMed show in Tel Aviv. The German group was also visiting Israeli universities to seek cooperation in research projects. The Italian delegation was looking to buy or invest in Israeli life science companies.

Israel’s OurCrowd is the first Venture Capital Funding Organization to insist its portfolio companies donate a portion of equity to a charitable foundation. Start-ups allocate shares to the non-profit Tmura. If the start-up is taken-over, Tmura gives 90% of the share value to charitable projects.

Here is fastcompany.com’s “6 Israeli Startups To Watch” following Google’s purchase of Israel’s Waze for a cool $1 billion.