Israel Active

Scientists at Tel-Hai College and at the MIGAL Research Institute of the Galilee have developed a freeze-drying process that turns low-grade fallen apples into highly nutritional apple powder. It could save up to NIS 25 million from the 15,000 tons of apples wasted each year.

Israel’s SodaStream (now part of PepsiCo) has launched “Holy Turtle” – a 300m contraption that recovers plastic waste from open waters. During the 4-day pilot, the device captured tons of waste floating in the Caribbean Sea, off the coast of Roatán, Honduras.

For a tiny fraction of the development budget for a new treatment, you can now rent one of the orbiting “minilabs” of Israel’s SpacePharma for up to six months. Clients run experiments in zero gravity by remote control from Earth. SpacePharma has two tiny milk-carton size minilabs already in operation.

Israel’s Silo Kitchen is developing an Alexa-controlled food vacuum container system that extends food-life up to 5-times. Silo aimed to raise $80,000 on Kickstarter but after just 10 days it had pledges worth over half a million dollars. Very informative video.

I reported previously on Israel’s Edgybees whose First Response app saved lives after Hurricane Irma and the California wildfires. Edgybees’ Augmented Reality (AR) system was used recently during Hurricane Michael, by response teams in Florida and Missouri.

Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh held extensive talks in Jerusalem with Israel’s Minister of Energy and Water Resources, Yuval Steinitz, on the issue of water management to boost water conservation in Punjab. Four Memorandum of Understanding were signed.

Tel Aviv University is partnering with the University of Chicago, University of Illinois and Northwestern University to establish the Discovery Partners Institute (DPI) in central Chicago. The DPI will focus on research and innovation into cyber security, AI, big data and food security.

Israel’s CommonSense Robotics has launched a service that enables even small retailers to offer one-hour, on-demand grocery deliveries to consumers. Robots at CSR warehouses in urban areas use Artificial Intelligence to retrieve produce for humans to pack. Robots then dispatch orders.

Israeli-founded startup Stellares helps tech companies find talented workers using Artificial Intelligence (AI). The Tel Aviv R&D center has developed a questionnaire plus an algorithm that crawls the web and matches a candidate’s digital footprint with the job specification and company’s ethos.

Israeli university scientists have developed Phased Transaction Extraction (PTE) to help get rid of organic and metal pollutants. Solvents extract organic compounds while special bonding agents separate toxic metals. All materials and polluting chemicals can be recycled afterwards.