Israel Active

(Thanks to Yishai Fleisher and www.JewishPress.com) I reported the story previously, but this new 9-minute video shows the first and largest solar power farm in the Middle East – at Kibbutz Ketura. It will generate 40 megawatts of power – over one third of Eilat’s electrical requirements.

Israeli start-up Onavo’s Extend application compresses downloaded data and saves the iPhone user 80% of roaming charges. Onavo is just one of the 150 Israeli companies exhibiting at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

We can guess why Israel was excluded from the main body of UNESCO’s report of scientific achievements for the period 2005 to 2010. After 18 months of protests (and withdrawal of funds by the USA) UNESCO has now promised to add an on-line addendum to the report.

Israel will have the 4th largest delegation at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona – the most important showcase event for the mobile industry. One in every 13 booths will be Israeli. The Israel Export Institute has sponsored 100 companies and dozens more are exhibiting independently.

Israel has facilities for even the smallest of start-ups. TechLoft’s space is the shared home to a dozen or more seed-stage companies or even pre-seed companies (businesses that haven’t yet reached start-up status). Some of them aren’t companies at all – just teams of people working to formulate an idea.

Israel’s Nemesysco Layered Voice Analysis (LVA) technology detects stress and emotion. It has security, medical, recruitment and insurance applications. It can even sense when two individuals “click” - on the phone, over skype, or locally on a handheld PDA or smartphone.

Israel’s AirBase Systems develops the CanarIT – a low-cost, effective air quality sensor that logs the level of pollution, analyses it, and delivers warnings, alerts, and information to help people protect their health.

Professor Tsevi Mazeh of Tel Aviv University was part of the NASA team that has discovered planets circling around twin suns, over 5000 light-years away. The data was collected by NASA's Kepler satellite and has revealed that most suns in the universe exist in pairs.

The Tel Aviv municipality has allocated space at the City Library for young Israeli innovators to meet and share their ideas for new businesses. Avner Warner –Director of Economic Affairs describes Tel Aviv as a citywide incubator ecosystem of entrepreneurs, mentors and investors.

Israel’s on-line National Library has released 7500 digitised pages in Sir Isaac Newton own handwriting revealing that Newton learnt Hebrew and used his scientific approach to study Jewish theology and mysticism.