Israel Active

Israel’s (female) ambassador to Japan Yaffa Ben-Ari and Japan’s Minister of the Interior and Communications Masatoshi Ishida signed an accord in Tokyo to cooperate in research and development, information exchange, and training programs in the field of cybersecurity.

New York-based data company CB Insights named two Israeli startups in its 2019 Game Changers report of 36 international fast-growing firms that are changing the world. I reported on connected car startup Autotalks and AdVerif.ai uses AI to keep users safe from spam and malicious content.

Around 6,000 farmers in 50 previously drought-stricken villages in Hungund, India, adopted drip-irrigation from Israel’s Netafim and are enjoying a second annual harvest. The 24,000-hectare Ramthal (Marol) project has doubled their annual crop yield and reduced water consumption.

Israel provided cyber defense and cybersecurity to the end of November G20 Summit meeting in Buenos Aires. The Argentine Defense Ministry has signed a $5 million contract with Israel’s Defense Ministry for two computer security response teams.

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.