Israel Active

The Start-Up Nation is hosting a Mini-Maker Faire, “a family-friendly festival of invention, creativity and resourcefulness, and a celebration of the Maker movement.” “Making” is the process of taking common household items and “upgrading” them into a new product or technology. The Makers of today are the high-tech inventors of tomorrow.

Rafi Koren, a lemon farmer from Moshav Avigdor near Kiryat Malachi has invented a product that prevents the spread of Mal Secco, a fungal disease affecting citrus trees that has been known to kill entire lemon groves.

The commercial arm of Israel’s Weizmann Institute has developed a system to protect soil and groundwater from contamination from pesticides. Environmentally friendly substances called prophyrins act as catalysts to dissolve toxic substances into harmless ones after they have served their pest-killing purpose.

Israel’s Dimona Silica Industries has developed a road asphalt compound that uses old tires for strength and safety. The new compound, RuBind, recycles many of the 50,000 tires disposed of every year, and is already in use in Israel’s Beit She’an Valley.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will show President Barack Obama a series of technological products by Israel’s high-tech industries in a special exhibit set up in the President’s honor. The products are in the fields of renewable energy, accident prevention, medicine, search and rescue, and robotics.

Israeli startup VocalZoom has developed an optoelectronic microphone that is able to extract a person’s voice from almost all surrounding noise – including other people’s voices. Its optical microphone “reads lips” by sensing vibrations on the face of the person speaking.

Professor Shafi Goldwasser of Israel’s Weizmann Institute was joint winner of the 2013 Turing Prize for her pioneering work that brought about computer cryptography – securing transactions on the Internet. The Turing Prize is considered to be the “Nobel Prize” of computing.

Israel’s Accel Telecom’s Voyager car-phone extends your smartphone, with features especially for drivers. Big, easy to access keys, special noise filtration and cancellation plus enhanced volume for clearer conversations, voice activation for calls and commands, a built-in copy of Waze and much more.

Israel’s Powermat Technologies unveiled its cordless iPhone5 charger at the Barcelona World Mobile Congress. The product includes a charging case, an extra battery which doubles the iPhone's work period and a 7,000-milliampere mobile internal charging pad, for multiple recharges.

(Thanks to Uri) Eye On Israel is a really smart new Windows application to help you explore and navigate Israel. It contains dynamic maps, videos and information on the best geological and historical sites, plus wildlife, attractions, accommodation and more that I haven’t had time to check out yet.