Israel Active

Israeli charity IsraAID has launched the first of several missions to help African countries build their COVID-19 vaccination program. Seven IsraAID volunteers are in Eswatini (formerly Swaziland) on invitation from the Eswatini government.

Tel Aviv non-profit “Israel-Is” is co-sponsoring the first Abraham Accords Virtual Social Hackathon to be held March 23-25.  25 mixed teams of four, each from Israel, Bahrain, Morocco and the UAE, will develop social products focusing on peacebuilding at a societal and grassroots level.

Israel’s vaccination program was successfully trialed last week by 700 grateful Palestinian Arab workers. The program will now be rolled out to the 87,000 PA Arabs with Israeli work permits, plus another 35,000 that work for Israelis in Judea and Samaria.

Former Vogue cover model Israel’s Michaela Bercu helped develop the app Tribu to optimize the world of volunteering. The App matches 800,000+ Israelis with hundreds of local projects all over Israel on days and hours that are convenient for each volunteer.

This article highlights some of Israel’s female agricultural pioneers, plus those that currently grow vegetables, milk cows and make artisanal olive oil, cheese and wine.

“AI for Women” is a project set up by Bella Abrahams, director at Intel Israel. It uses artificial intelligence tools to analyze and group career advice. A vital resource to help Israeli women launch or boost their tech career and get better paid employment.  In Hebrew only.

5,000 students from 100 global universities attended the on-line Israel Summit. Tal Zaks, the Israeli Chief Medical Officer at Moderna said, “The productive exchange of ideas in medicine and technology between the US and Israel is based on “alignment of fundamental values about the sanctity of life,”.

Israel’s Papaya Global (reported previously) whose CEO is Eynat Guez, has just raised $100 million of funds at a market valuation of $1 billion. It makes Papaya the first female-led company with the financial status of a “Unicorn”. Eynat concluded the finance deal late in her pregnancy.

In mid-Feb, Mohammed Mahmoud Al-Khaja was sworn in as the first Ambassador to Israel from the United Arab Emirates. He had to wait two weeks before he could arrive in Israel, due to Covid-19 restrictions.

For the third year in a row, Newsweek magazine ranked Israel’s Sheba Medical Center in its “Top 10 Best Hospitals in the World” Its 10th place was due to superior care, innovation and pioneering research. Newsweek surveyed 2,000 hospitals globally in 2021 – twice that in 2019.