Israel Active

Recent article and interesting video about the Ashalim project to build a 250-meter high solar tower in Israel’s Negev desert.  Also, Leonardo DiCaprio has publicized the project.

Professor David Kazhdan of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem won Israel’s EMET prize for Excellence in Exact Sciences (Mathematics) for his work in design of representation theory and its uses in algebra, algebraic geometry and number theory.

When startups build an app, they nearly always use development kits (SDKs) from 3rd parties to do the mundane things such as crash reporting, advertising, login or security.  Israel’s SafeDK monitors the SDKs. Its products are now on millions of mobile devices.

The Israeli pavilion at CES 2017 in Las Vegas was full of hi-tech Israeli products.  The BBC mentioned that TytoCare’s telehealth system was Israeli, but failed to credit Israel with Intel’s Project Alloy AR headset or BMW’s partnership with Israel’s Mobileye.

Israel’s national water carrier Mekorot has begun the construction of the world’s longest tunnel for transporting water under pressure.  It will extend 13km from near Beit Shemesh to Ein Kerem in Jerusalem.  It is part of the project to connect the coastal desalination plants to the rest of Israel.

Israeli universities (mainly the Hebrew University, Technion, Tel Aviv University and Weizmann) are globally renowned for their research and educational programs in the IT fields that are at the heart of the race for autonomous vehicles.

Online payment system PayPal has established its first-ever partnership with Israeli academia. It has joined with Ben Gurion University to develop big data, machine learning, and cybersecurity solutions that will make payment transactions safer for its 192 million customers.

The California water crisis continues. Californians admire Israel’s solutions and hope they could be applied to their situation.

I reported previously on Israel’s EggDetect that prevents hatching of male chicks - unwanted by the egg industry.  Now there is an alternative – TeraEgg from Israel’s Novatrans. It uses terahertz spectroscopy on gasses that leak from the pores of the egg.

Israel’s Evogene has successfully improved the ability of corn to thrive in drought conditions with its Bio-stimulant products. These produce drought-resistant microbial strains that have produced high yields in their first year of testing.