Israel Active

Amnon Shashua, founder of Mobileye, has now founded AI21 labs. Its aim is to revolutionize written communication with artificial intelligence (AI) software that can understand and generate text. Its AI generator HAIM fills in gaps in incomplete sentences. HAIMKE turns bullet-points into sentences.

Israel’s SpaceIL in partnership with members of the Israel Space Agency, the Ministry of Science and Technology, and the Ramon Foundation, have launched a free online space camp for Hebrew speakers aged 7 – 11. It runs Aug 9 – 13, each morning having four different 30-minute activities.

Nine floors below Jerusalem’s Har Hotzvim tech hub, Israel’s Bynet Data Communications is building one of Israel’s biggest data centers. Some of Israel’s most sensitive information will be stored inside the hill. It is said Herod used rocks from Har Hotzvim to expand the 2nd Temple.

. The Internet of Things makes home devices connected to the Internet (such as your fridge or TV) vulnerable to being hijacked and used to mount Denial of Service attacks via the Internet. Do not worry though - scientists at Israel’s Ben Gurion University can help stop that.

Israel’s ORT Braude College of Engineering in Karmiel won a 250-participant hackathon with “Anansee” - an app to prevent cheating, specifically for online tests. The app uses the camera in the student’s computer and mobile phone, plus issues and verification checking.

Israel-based ControlUp (reported previously) helps employees turn their home computers into a virtual office running on a virtual desktop from the cloud. Many of the 1,000 employees at Israel’s Sheba Medical Center use ControlUP for telemedicine and to work from home.

Israelis won one gold, two silver medals and a bronze at the 52nd International Chemistry Olympiad, held on Zoom. 18-year-old Roi Peer won the first ever Israeli gold medal at the event. The Israelis competed against 240 students from 60 countries, including Iran and Syria.

The Venture program – Switzerland’s leading competition for up-and-coming entrepreneurs – ranked new on-chip memory technology developed at Bar-Ilan University, as one of three most promising ventures among nearly 330 start-ups. The technology is being commercialized.

The United States and Israel have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to support cooperation and exchanges on biodiversity conservation, protected areas and the protection of cultural and historical heritage. It covers countering wildlife trafficking and protecting ecosystems.

Recent video and update from SeismicAI (featured previously) that uses an innovative sensor network and Artificial Intelligence to predict earthquakes and send alerts to help reduce damage. SeismicAi has pilot projects in Canada, the Himalayas and even Istanbul, Turkey.