Israel Active

Nearly 150 IDF engineers worked with doctors and scientists from Sheba’s ARC innovation center to convert non-invasive respirators into 100 invasive BiPap ventilators. They can serve more than one patient at a time and be linked up to a central monitoring system.

Israel’s Aura Smart Air has launched a test of its air purification system at Israel’s Sheba Medical Center. Aura Air is in the final approval stage for European Union funding. The EU is seeking solutions for closed-space infections, with a special emphasis on the coronavirus.

Israeli startup Iron-Drone has developed ThermoGate to test the temperature of people entering shops and workplaces as per Israeli government regulations. Meanwhile Israel’s Rafael Advanced Defense Systems has built and installed its own temperature checkers at two Israeli hospitals.

The Israel Innovation Authority is launching a new tech innovation lab with NIS 32 million of funding to promote investments in the field of digital health. Companies have been invited to help operate the lab and assist Israel in the diagnosis and treatment of the coronavirus pandemic.

With a 70% decline in road traffic, Israeli-founded mobile navigation app developer Waze has turned to building new features that help users during the coronavirus pandemic. One can identify locations with “drive-thru” and “curbside pickup”, for safe access to food and essentials.

Israeli startup Arti provides simple, inexpensive software for media professionals to develop Augmented Reality videos. With just a smartphone, a laptop and an internet they can make AR videos containing 2D and 3D objects, movies etc. Arti has just raised $4 million of funds.

The coronavirus pandemic put Israel’s date industry at risk due to shortage of labor to pollinate trees between February and April. Israel’s Blue White Robotics is now deploying drones to pollinate date plantations in Israel’s Arava region and the Jordan Valley.

Israel’s Tikkun Olam (“Healing the World”) Makers or TOM has built a platform called Rapid Response Makers (RRM). Medical professionals and developers all over the world are encouraged to design and build medical infrastructure, products, and software to help fight the pandemic.

In response to the pressing need for more COVID-19 testing, Israel’s Stratasys and Origin of the US have signed an agreement in which Stratasys will market and promote Origin 3D-printed nasopharyngeal (NP) swabs to healthcare providers and other testing centers in the U.S.

Researchers from Israel’s Technion Institute have developed a process that they say can be made into a simple, inexpensive, fast and accurate home test for the coronavirus. Dip a swab of saliva into a test tube of chemical reagents and then into hot water. If the reagent color changes, the saliva is infected.