Israel Active

The Judean date palm was extinct. But 2000-year-old seeds discovered at Masada in 2005 were planted at Kibbutz Ketura by Drs Elaine Soloway and Sarah Sallon (see ). The resulting trees were named Methuselah and Hannah. Their dates were just harvested, linking the State of Israel to its ancient roots.

Israel’s Apollo Power’s flexible solar panels produces cheap electricity anywhere the sun shines. It operates without any construction. It is unbreakable and can be placed on any surface, on water, uneven terrain and vehicles. Apollo is working with Audi and Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi.

Israel’s UBQ Materials (reported previously) is to open its first full-scale production facility in the Netherlands. It will convert landfill waste into some 70,000 tons of sustainable, thermoplastic material for producing pipes, floors, bins, shipping pallets, crates and more.

Israel’s Amit Tishler is one of the co-founders of PopBase – an award-winning tool for producing interactive content with minimal effort. PopBase is developing Woodland Fables - a storybook game that helps kids make healthy life choices such as balanced nutrition, sleep, and physical fitness.

After 10 years in the IAF and 4.5 years as an El Al pilot, Stav Nemirovsky retrained as a computer programmer. Thanks to an IAF veterans’ association, he landed a job in the professional services department of Israeli cybersecurity company Guardicore.

Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) has unveiled its new MultiFlyer non-military unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) squadron of small helicopters. It will be used to monitor disaster areas, guide rescue missions, help with traffic control in large-scale events, and track agriculture or marine areas.

Israel Aerospace Industries is partnering Israel’s Technion Institute in its ADELIS-SAMSON project, to develop 3 new micro satellites to be launched this year. Their purpose is to help search and rescue operations, conduct remote sensing, and carry out environmental monitoring missions.

The Israeli R&D center of Japan’s Yaskawa Electric has built a robotic arm that can conduct around 2,800 Covid-19 tests a day and has been installed in the IDF’s main Covid-19 testing lab. The arm is faster than human testers, less error prone and can free up staff for other tasks.

Israeli and Italian space agencies have successfully launched the DIDO-3 nanosatellite. It is part of a series of satellites built by Israeli-Swiss company SpacePharma that Israeli and Italian scientists are using to conduct micro-gravity experiments into antibiotic resistant bacteria.

Israel’s Sheba Medical Center is using the software from Israel’s AnyVision to persuade its visitors to wear masks and to wear them correctly. The facial recognition system displays positive or negative messages on nearby screens depending if and how a person is wearing a mask.