Israel Active

Tel Aviv hosted the sixth annual City Summit as part of its DLD Innovation Festival. The main debate was about how city residents engaged with the municipality in the Technological Age. Tel Aviv won the World Smart Cities Award in 2014.

Israeli startup Lishtot won the StartUp Open Israel 2015 competition run by the Global Entrepreneurship Network. It will now represent Israel in November’s global finals. Lishtot’s low-cost product detects water pollutants in a 5-second test, based on the electromagnetic properties of water.    (See why this could be a vital product - )

Israel’s largest international hi-tech event, the DLD (Digital Life Design) Innovation Festival Sep 6-12, has attracted huge numbers of power players from the world’s leading tech and finance firms, all eager to get a piece of the Startup Nation’s action.

Israeli food conglomerate Tnuva is joining the investors of TechForGood’s Rally accelerator. Tnuva hopes that the startups within the accelerator can increase its exposure to breakthrough technologies in the food-tech sector.

Here is a brief account by Seth M Siegel of the history of Israel’s work since the 1950s to tackle the scourge of drought in the developing world. Mr Siegel’s new book “Let There Be Water: Israel’s Solution for a Water-Starved World is published this week.

News of the Israeli-developed Skysaver escape harness that allows you to evacuate safely from the window of a high-rise building . SkySaver has received final certification from the Standards Institute of Israel and officially launched on Aug 3rd.

Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) has signed a contract to supply Dai Nippon Printing (DNP) of Tokyo with a training program for those whose job it will be to prevent cyber-attacks in the real world. DNP will become a reseller in Japan of IAI’s TAME Range training system.

Israel’s NanoLock has developed antibacterial nanotechnology that can be used to make prevent infections in tooth fillings, medical devices, even food and to combat air pollution.

Israel’s SQream produces software to analyze huge amounts of data. Its SQL Database won bronze in the Best New Enterprise Product category of the Best in Biz Awards 2015 International program. And its GenomeStack won a bronze “Stevie” award in the Best New Product of the Year – Big Data Software Solution category in the 2015 International Business Awards.

The Israeli-developed Intel Skylake is another huge advance in microprocessor technology, with more than double the performance, triple the battery life, and 30 times better graphics than most computers in use today. It consumes just 3 watts of power – current chips use 30-45 watts.