Israel Active

Scientists at Israel’s Bar-Ilan University and Technion Institute have teamed up with Australian scientists to save coral reefs from dying. Their coral reef ecosystem transplant (aCRET) uses terracotta tiles embedded with invertebrates and microorganisms, to rejuvenate damaged reefs.

Brig. Gen. (res.) Daniel Gold, head of the Directorate of Defense Research & Development at the Defense Ministry, announced that Israel’s Iron Beam (Ohr Eitan) laser defense system will begin defending against aerial threats at the end of December. Daniel Gold was project manager for Iron Dome.

Israel’s LeanCon uses AI to overhaul one of the construction industry's most entrenched bottlenecks - pre-construction planning for bids. This phase typically spans months, but with LeanCon it takes about 7 minutes, generating detailed projections on cost, schedule, logistics, and methods.

Israel’s Technion Institute founded the Center for High-Speed Flight at the Technion in 2023. It combines materials science and engineering, mechanical engineering, chemical engineering, and physics. It is building wind tunnels that can heat air to 9,000 deg F and fuels that generate energy and cooling.

Israel’s Heven Drones (see previously) has partnered US quantum computing company IonQ to integrate quantum-based sensing, communication, navigation, and security into Heven’s drone systems. It will keep the drones accurate and stable in electronic interference conditions.

When an Iranian ballistic missile hit Israel’s Weizmann Institute it destroyed years of research into a cure for cancer. But resilient scientists recovered samples from smashed refrigerators that miraculously had survived the impact. So life continues – literally.

Ecuador has inaugurated its official Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Israel, located within the Hebrew University’s Entrepreneurship and Innovation Center, ASPER-HUJI Innovate. It will spearhead activities in government, industry, and academia.

The 150+ Israeli tech companies at Microsoft’s Annual San Francisco Ignite Conference included Check Point, Zenity, Upwind, Eon, Cyera, JFrog, Vast Data, BigID, AudioCodes, Atera, BlinkOps, Qodo.ai, Semplicity, Genpact Israel, Volumez, ControlUp, and, especially, Varonis.

Excel, one of the most powerful and influential tools ever created by the software industry, has turned 40. Its phenomenal success, which has earned Microsoft billions over the years, is largely due to the hundreds of Israeli engineers in Excel’s development center in Herzliya.

Czech-based Prusa Research has enlisted the aid of Israeli startup Filament2 to install a new heat-resistant silicone-printing option for its large-format XL machine.