Israel Active

Businesses can now speak even more clearly to foreign customers. Israel’s Lexifone has launched version 2 of its phone conversation translation system. It translates in real time French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Mandarin, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and of course English.

Israel’s Everything.me won a 2013 Meffy award in San Francisco in recognition of its contextual phone technology that provides Android users with an effortless mobile experience. Everything.me also won the Bronze Lovie in the ‘Lifestyle’ category.

In May I reported that Israel’s Mapal Green Energy had won a contract with Britain’s Anglian Water Company. It has now closed a deal with the UK’s largest water company Thames Water, for Mapal’s bubble aeration technology water purification system to treat sewage and polluted water.

A delegation of 15 Israeli companies made an impressive showing at Singapore International Water Week.

Israel’s Extreme Reality has developed video software that can interpret the movements of a person and detect anomalous behavior. Extreme Reality has just been selected as one of the Red Herring Top 100 Europe companies for 2014.

Israeli cleantech Desalitech moved to Boston last year in order to bring its advanced, cost-effective water solutions to Mexico and countries worldwide. Desalitech uses Closed Circuit Desalination Reverse Osmosis technology to minimize waste generation and energy consumption.

Israel is setting up a “center of excellence” in Goa, providing technological solutions to agricultural issues. Israel’s consul general in Mumbai, Davik Akov wants to add Goa (India’s smallest state by size) to the 20 other centers offering Israeli technology all over India.

Israel’s first Wearable Technology Conference takes place on 12th May in Tel Aviv. Speakers include Steve Mann, who is commonly known as the father of wearable computing. One of the highlights will be a half-hour session of rapid-fire pitches from 10 Israeli wearable computing start-ups.

Two student projects from the Control Robotics and Machine Learning Lab at Israel Technion’s faculty of Electrical Engineering. First, a tiny drone follows someone by tracking his face. Secondly, a Kinect device for the blind, that directs a blind person by telling him or her where to walk.

For the third year running, Citi’s Mastercard is running a competition to find the best new financial technology ideas and apps in Israel. The winner gets $25,000, a spot in the Citi accelerator, plus $10,000 for a trip to Citi’s and Mastercard’s innovation labs in Dublin.