Israel Active

The first of two Gulfstream G550 business jets for the Italian Air Force has arrived at Israel Aerospace Industries’ facilities, to be reconfigured into an airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) aircraft.

Susan Lurie and Edna Pesis from Israel’s Ministry of Agriculture are advising the Indo-Israel Agricultural Project (IIAP) on maintaining the post-harvest quality of Indian fruit and vegetables. Techniques include “hot water brushing”, waxing and permeable packaging.

The Israeli innovation pavilion at the Innovative City Conference in Nice included Aquarius Spectrum (leak detection), ElectRoad, Elencon (efficient air-con), GreenQ (truck sensors), Sowillo (solar panels) and TruckNet (reduces number of empty trucks).

Israel’s IronScales has developed IronTrap which company Google mail and Gmail users can use to eliminate phishing spam.  When an authorized employee highlights a suspicious email, IronTrap will analyze it, disable it and remove it from every mailbox on the company’s network.

Good to see two Israeli hi-tech companies getting together to enhance cybersecurity.  Check Point is installing Mellanox’s 40GbE adapter cards in its 15000 and 23000 series security appliances in order to discover malicious behavior before it enters the network.

US and Israel have signed a new agreement which will automate their sharing of cyber data for the first time.  It will take the speed of sharing to an entirely different level to deal with constantly evolving cyber-attacks on the two countries.

The Defense departments of Israel and the USA together with MIT sponsored the recent Combating Terrorism Technology Conference in Tel Aviv.  It included two $100,000 prize competitions for Israeli security-related startups, won by Duke Robotic Systems and Spectory.

JNF has opened the Center for Water-Sensitive Cities in Israel in the city of Kfar Saba.  It employs a hybrid bio-filter - the first of its kind in the world, purifying dirty runoff rainwater in the winter and performing “aquifer dialysis” to purify polluted underground water in the rainless summer.

Eleven Israeli general hospitals and two psychiatric hospitals are to convert to natural gas for kitchens, sanitation, and heating.  The hospitals spend NIS 150-200 million a year on energy, and the transition to natural gas is expected to save them NIS 60 million.

Israel’s Aleinu aeroponic farm sits on the rooftop of the Mishor Adumim industrial park in the desert between Jerusalem and the Dead Sea.  It employs some 20 people - Jews and Arabs, religious and secular, Israeli-born and immigrants.  The herbs and lettuces grow in humid air, without soil or water.