Israel Active

Israel’s Innovation Authority (IIA) has launched a grant program for any startup where at least 33% of its owners and tech managers are women. It will cover up to 75% of a startup’s R&D costs for its first year and up to 70% for the second year.

Israel’s WaterGen is donating ten GEN-350 atmospheric water generators to Brazil. They will be installed in schools and hospitals that lack safe drinking water.  Brazil’s Minister of Science Marcos Cesar Pontes visited WaterGen’s HQ during Tel Aviv’s recent Cybertech conference.

Karawan Halabi, has made history as the first person from Israel’s Arabic-speaking Druze minority community to win a track-and-field national championship. The Technion biomedical student won the women’s 10.45km annual Israel Open Field Racing Championship.

600 Israeli startups (55 last year) have donated equity stock or stock options to Israeli non-profit Tmura . When any are taken-over or go public, Tmura receives the proceeds of the stock sales and donates it to charity. In 2018, Tmura gave NIS 1.6 million to good causes.

The IDF Door to Door Project helps Palestinian Arab businesspeople transfer their merchandise from Judea and Samaria to other areas in Israel directly and quickly and at a low cost. The project has recently improved its efficiency by using Israeli trucks to collect goods directly from Palestinian Arab factories.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry has re-launched its virtual embassy for Arab social media users in the Gulf states. The aim of the ‘Israel in the Gulf’ twitter account is to promote dialogue between the people of Israel and the peoples of the Gulf states.

I reported previously on the Eilat-Eilot energy conference and its focus on Africa.  Here are 3 videos from the event by I24 News, highlighting the Israeli companies that are bringing light to rural Africa.  

Bar-Ilan University researcher Maoz Fine has published that Eilat’s coral reef is genetically resistant to rising sea temperatures. Hardy corals settled in Eilat 18,000 years ago at the end of the last ice age. Those hardy genes are being cross-bred to save bleached reefs in Hawaii and Australia.

Several anti-Zionists been spotted using Israeli products recently. They include Dutch activists riding Israeli mobility bikes and eating in an Israeli falafel shop. Also, US Congress member Rashida Tlaib and other BDS supporters have developed websites using the Israeli-based Wix website builder platform.

Sierra Leone’s former Ambassador to the United Nations, Adikalie Foday Sumah, visited Israel in 2018 with 40 other UN Ambassadors .  He has since founded the Sierra Leone-Israel Friendship Society and asked Sierra Leone President Julius Maada Bio to promote joint projects with Israel.