Israel Active

A team of students from Israel’s Rothschild-Hashomron High School in Binyamina came second at the prestigious international FIRST Robotics Competition in St. Louis, USA.  Over 20,000 students from 24 countries pitted their robots against one another in completing set tasks.

New Israeli Education Ministry guidelines prohibit selling or serving of sweets, snacks, and sugary or fatty foods to school and kindergarten students throughout Israel.  Replacements include low-fat spreadable cheeses, avocado, whole-wheat pasta and bread, fruit and vegetables.

Israel-based Ecoppia is building a plant in India to manufacture its robotic solar cleaners at a new, state-of-the-art facility near Chennai.  Ecoppia’s robotic cleaning system uses controlled air flow to push the accumulated dirt off the solar panels

The technology of Israel’s Tipalti ensures that companies never make payments to individuals or companies that are on government watch lists. Tipalti did $2 billion of sales last year.

Israel Air Forces’ Aerial Maintenance Unit is using 3D printers to print aircraft parts in order to keep 30-year-old planes flying.  The technology has attracted original manufacturers Boeing and Lockheed to see how the upgrades can make the planes perform even better than when new.

Israel’s Eco Wave Power has completed the construction and entered the testing phase of its first commercial scale wave power plant in Gibraltar.  The $5 million, 5 Megawatt plant is expected to produce 15 percent of Gibraltar’s electricity within two years.

Israel’s Melodea won the Nanotechnology Innovation of the Year Award at NanoIsrael 2016 in Tel Aviv.  Melodea has developed technology to extract nano-crystalline cellulose (NCC) – an important new material – from the waste products of the paper industry.

Car satellite navigation (satnav) systems can be distracting and dangerous.  Israel’s Cellepathy has developed Ergo, which uses sensors, cameras and artificial intelligence to turn off the satnav when the driver doesn’t need it.  Cellepathy won the ConnecteDriver 2016 Auto App Challenge.

The BBC World Service “Elements” series actually praised Israel’s success in desalination, drip irrigation and water recycling during its second episode on “Hydrogen (water)”.  Listen from 13 mins 30 secs.

Recent video showing how Israel recycles 85 percent of its wastewater.