Israel Active

General Motors' development center is carrying out trials on Israeli public roads of prototypes of Cadillacs with high-level autonomous driving systems. GM’s Super Cruise needs no driver intervention on high-speed roads, including overtaking, emergency braking, and moderate turns.

Israel’s Water-Gen is launching a water generation pilot with India’s Tata. A joint entity in India will oversee local manufacture and installment of mid-size AWG (Atmospheric Water Generators) GEN-350G units.

I reported previously about Israel’s WiFi charging system Wi-Charge that charges mobile phones using infra-red beams in the ceiling lights. Wi-Charge received FDA approval in 2017 and won the Best of Innovation (Smart Energy Product) award at CES 2018.

Israel’s ECI has been chosen by Idea Cellular Ltd (Idea), the third largest mobile operator in India and sixth-ranked in the world, to upgrade its optical network. Idea has nearly 200 million subscribers. ECI is a global provider of flexible network solutions.

I reported previously on two Israeli startups with energy-saving solutions for hotels. Now Israel’s Vortex Energy uses sensors to compare a hotel’s internal and external temperatures to control heating and air conditioning systems. It can save up to 20% of a hotel’s operating costs.

A new sub-sea Internet cable will connect Israel with Spain in 2020 that will have 40 times more capacity than existing Internet cables. The new 7,700 km cable will reach Bilbao, Spain, where an equally powerful internet cable already connects Spain to the main Internet backbone.

Why carry your smartphone in one pocket and a selfie stick in another?  That’s what the son of David Sherman, CEO of Israeli startup Stikbox, thought. The promotion video for Stikbox received nearly 10 million hits on Facebook and over 380,000 on Youtube.

Muhammad Zahalqa, CTO of Experis Israel (part of Manpower group), came on ILTV news to explain how his company trains Israeli graduates for the hi-tech industry. In his words, turning them into “ninja developers” to help address the shortage of technical skills in the Startup Nation.

No, not a spy story. Tel Aviv University is partnering Russian tech company Yandex to provide courses in artificial intelligence (AI). The Yandex Machine Learning Initiative, will feature courses on machine learning, deep learning, natural language processing, computer vision, and robotics.

Israel’s Farmster links Tanzanian farmers to buyers for their crops even if they can’t access the Internet. They are given a simple SMS (texting) facility on their low-tech mobile phones and the buyers (who have smartphones and the FarmZee app) can quickly see what is available.