Israel Active

The Israel Prize in Life Sciences Research went to Weizmann’s Professor Zelig Eshhar for his breakthrough approach to treating diseases, particularly cancer. Another Weizmann Professor, Shimon Ullman won the Mathematics and Computer Science Research prize for his artificial intelligence work.

Take a tour round the office of Israeli video messaging startup Glide, located at the Jerusalem Technology Park.

The Wall St Journal reports that Apple is advertising in Israel for silicon and semiconductor design and testing engineers. It also notes that Johny Srouji, Apple’s Vice President of hardware technologies, is an Israeli Arab from Haifa.

No Camels has revealed that are responsible for designing the latest generation of Pebble Time smartwatches. Itai Vonshak is head of product and UX and Liron Damir is head of design. The company has raised over $14 million in just six days on – a new record.

Aiming to boost crop yields of plants like chickpeas and soybeans, the Hebrew University’s Robert H. Smith Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environment has been awarded a $789,000 grant from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

The State University of New York is partnering with Israel’s Office of the Chief Scientist to develop for the semiconductor industry.

Italy and Israel have established a neurology and brain laboratory in Tel Aviv, a solar laboratory in Sde Boker, a health sciences laboratory at Ben Gurion University, and a physics and magnetism laboratory at the Weizman Institute. A joint outer space laboratory has also been founded.

The optical filters developed by Israel’s Unispectral can identify an object’s hyperspectral signature – its unique chemical fingerprint. Applied to a smartphone camera, the data can be used to determine the object’s chemical components. Like a Star-Trek tricorder.

Israel’s Water Authority has opened a new treatment facility for wastewater from the city of Tiberias. The NIS 120 million-shekel project brings an end to a situation in which raw sewage flow was endangering the vitality of the Jordan River.

I featured Israel’s TaKaDu in January. Here is a more detailed report about the billions of liters of water that TaKaDu’s unique leaks and faults detection technology is saving in Australia’s parched states.