Israel Active

The Armadillo (RMDLO) is a clever Israeli-designed kitchen strainer / colander that folds flat for easy storage. Strong, flexible and “green”, it also bends to help serve drained food items easily. The RMDLO has now reached its funding goal on kickstarter, but pledges may still be possible.

Tree for charging cellphones; dolls that attach to kids’ clothes; search engine for focused online recommendations. Just a few of the ventures developed this year at the Center of Entrepreneurship at the College of Management Academic Studies (COMAS).

(Thanks to Herb) For a small country, Israeli start-ups are really thinking big. Many are at the forefront of “crunching data” to give big companies information on what business would be profitable. (Warning – article is mainly for “geeks” or those with a big interest in IT)

(Thanks to Size Doesn’t Matter) Israeli start-up Woosh has launched its global pilot, providing free drinking water in Tel Aviv’s public spaces.

Israeli start-up Sensibo is a remote control technology that controls the temperature of your home. It can reduce energy usage by up to 40 percent. Sensibo is now raising funds on IndieGogo.

A delegation of 18 Israeli companies providing solutions to the Oil & Gas industry presented at the Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) in Houston, Texas. They included Flow Industries, who make the “green” AirShock pre-fracking and oil well rejuvenation system.

“Lumus” and “Opgal“, two cutting-edge Israeli optics companies, have collaborated to develop a Google Glass-style night-vision display system. The Therm-App mobile device, mounted on headgear, transmits high-resolution images to the Lumus wearable display.

Israel’s BlazeMeter has developed a cloud-based platform for self-testing of mobile and Internet performance. Its systems include the JMeter mobile testing platform and have conducted more than 500,000 tests over 50,000 users, including Fortune 100 companies. It has just raised $6.5 million in finance.

Britain’s Office of Cyber Security and Information Assurance and Israel’s National Cyber Bureau have signed a pact in London to finance joint cyber defense research.

StarTau’s innovation day was studded with start-up companies big and small, pitching their ideas and connecting with like-minded investors and entrepreneurs. Students from MBA programs mingled with investors, angels, and new companies alike.