Israel Active

Israel’s Muve is a new way to move around town. Described as a CleanTech backpack on wheels, the electric scooter eases congestion but gets you from A to B at a steady 20-25 km per hour. At $2,000 it is a third of the price of a Segway and has many more features.

Each year, the world dumps 800,000 aging maritime shipping containers. Israel is building the first ever bridge from recycled containers, to link the Ariel Sharon Environment Park at Hiriya with the main thoroughfare leading to Tel Aviv. The bridge even has solar-powered lighting.

A 16-year study by Professor David Weisburd of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Institute of Criminology has shown that 50% of city crime occurs in 5% of the streets. Traditional crime fighting focuses on the criminals but Stockholm Prize-winner Weisburd has changed perceptions.

Israel’s Council for Higher Education has added 11 more research centers into its ICORE research excellence program, to reinforce Israel’s intellectual capacities and promote synergy among Israel’s leading research centers at universities, colleges, hospitals and research institutes.

At CleanTech 2013 Energy and Water Minister Uzi Landau said, “Israel is emerging from times of crisis in the area of water into stability. We have not only continued what has started in the past to develop desalination plants, but we are now building new and we have extending and developed those that already exist.”

The Israeli Navy has installed a bio-treatment facility, which separates contamination from wastewater coming out of the diesel engines of its ships. Engine wastewater from many ships is collected into a single, large tank. A biological treatment agent is added, which cleans the water to the extent that it may be returned to the sea.

In a booth at the CleanTech exhibition hall in Tel Aviv amid colorful plastic floral arrangements and an intricate bouquet of flowers made of used book pages, Orly Rostoker was waiting for the bride who will walk down the aisle with that bouquet.

Israeli start-up Idomoo is the leading provider of Personalized Video as a Service (PVaaS) solutions. Idomoo delivers personalized and individually relevant messages to the computers, tablets and smartphones of millions of customers.

The Yissum R&D Company at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem has developed a non-toxic, environmentally friendly agent that controls fungus and bacteria in agriculture. It is derived from yeast isolated from strawberry leaves, and is effective for a large variety of plants.

Since 1971 the National Institute of Psychobiology in Israel has funded over 400 Israeli scientists. Dr. Bernard Lerer, a psychiatry professor at Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical Center told a Florida audience about some of the medical breakthroughs that the NIPI has helped develop.