Israel Active

Israel’s Technion Institute will join the EuroTech Universities Alliance of five leading European Universities on 1st January. It will pool education, research and innovation with the universities of Denmark, Lausanne, Luxembourg, Eindhoven, Munich and across the EU.

US-based XpressSAR has bought a constellation of up to four TecSAR synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellites from Israel Aerospace Industries. Launching in 2022, XpressSAR will use them to monitor harbors, airfields, active volcanoes, spreading floods, oil spills and ship traffic.

I reported previously on Israel’s VoiceSense and its speech analytics program that can predict behavior from speech patterns. VoiceSense has just launched its solution for Human Resources which analyzes interview videos to produce a shortlist of suitable candidates.

I reported previously when the Artificial Intelligent road crash prediction system from Israel’s Waycare started a one-year pilot project in Las Vegas. Nevada Highway Patrol says the system reduced crashes by 17 percent and it wants to extend the system across the Las Vegas Valley.

To honor Israel’s 70th anniversary, the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities and the French Academy of Sciences have convened joint scientific conferences - in Paris in June of this year, and just recently, in Jerusalem. Nobel Prize laureates attended and delivered papers at both conferences.

In Jerusalem we met Professor Amos Notea who is chairing the third Art&Archaeology International Conference in Jerusalem from Dec 9-12. The conference will focus on breakthrough methods and technologies for measuring and analysis of our cultural and historical heritage.

A breakthrough image sensor developed by Israel’s TowerJazz is onboard the NASA Parker Solar Probe spacecraft. The CMOS (complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor) sensor is capturing high-resolution images of the sun’s atmosphere, including coronal mass ejections (CMEs) and solar wind.

US supermarkets throw away 25 million tons of food each year. Israeli startup Wasteless cuts food waste and shopping costs. Its system enables supermarkets to lower prices of products nearing their expiration date.

I’ve reported previously on Israel’s HomeBiogas, manufacturer of small-scale biogas systems. To mark World Toilet Day, HomeBiogas has launched its Bio-Toilet in Jalpatagua, Guatemala, and in off-grid communities in Israel. The digestor turns both human and paper waste into cooking gas.

A team of 16- and 17-year-olds at Yeshivat Amit Nachshon school near Beit Shemesh has set up a startup to develop a wrist band that aims to help keep beach-goers safe from drowning. Life guards will be alerted if someone is swimming out too far or if showing signs of distress.