Hailo is developing a microprocessor designed to deliver data-center performance to edge devices by using proprietary technology for deep-learning applications. The processor fits into embedded devices, enabling them to process high-resolution video and other high-throughput streams in real time using deep-learning algorithms while operating at low power consumption, size, and cost. Hailos AI processor is designed to fit into smart devices in a variety of industries and use cases including automotive, smart cities, retail, and Industry 4.0. Hailo’s mission is to enable smart edge technologies reach their full potential. The solution Hailo presents bridges the gap between existing and future AI technologies and the compute capacity needed to power these applications. The company is focused on building AI processors efficient and compact enough to compute and interpret vast amounts of data in real-time — processors that can be embedded in the edge devices themselves. Now, complicated AI applications that could previously only run on the cloud are made possible to run on the edge, and the best part – with a fraction of the power consumption. Hailo was named a cool vendor in Cool Vendors in AI Semiconductors, 2020 by the Gartner Research Group.
For many decades there has been a significant debate worldwide about the need for and value of space exploration, with the costs and benefits over the long and short term assessed by policymakers and citizens alike.
In the Israel of the 1980’s, policymakers recognized and accepted that space related activities had the potential to contribute, not only to the Israeli economy and the country’s international standing, but also to the advancement of humanity in terms of research, agriculture, communications and the monitoring of environmental pollution. As a result, The Israel Space Agency was founded by government in 1983 under the auspices of the Ministry of Science and Technology, and given a mandate to initiate and coordinate all activities of a civilian space program.
Over decades that followed, Israel developed a highly successful satellite program, focused on the miniaturization of technology and the development of high resolution, remote sensing and communication capabilities, all of which have helped to put Israel at the forefront of the industry worldwide.
But Israel’s capabilities in the space domain are not limited to satellites. Since 2012, 62 R&D projects have been granted approximately NIS 160 million ($51.3 million) to “encourage the use of existing technologies for space, reduce knowledge gaps with regards to what is happening in the global space markets, improve Israeli industry’s competitiveness and increase the Israeli industry’s use of scientific knowledge accrued from space technologies.” In January this year alone, The Israel Space Agency, the Ministry of Innovation, Science, and Technology, and the Israel Innovation Authority (IIA) approved a new grant of NIS 18.5 million ($5.94 million) to 11 private companies developing innovative space technologies.
While the grant may be a relatively small amount in comparison to other industries and countries, the potential impact from the technologies promises to be very significant. In addition, the companies are obligated to reimburse the government for the funding through royalty payments they may ultimately receive from sales of commercial products.
Some of the companies, described below, that received grants are notable for their innovative, multi-application or problem solving approaches;
Helios– is developing technologies to extract and utilise metals and oxygen from Martian and lunar soil, to provide fuel and construction materials for future space missions. As a by-product, Helios discovered and then developed a novel method to produce iron from iron ore, requiring only thermal energy, and emitting only oxygen. This technology can allow steel producers on Earth to significantly reduce their carbon footprint and production costs.
Paxis is developing advanced ceramic materials for the production of complicated 3D structures from silicon carbide making products suitable for use in extreme environmental conditions in space or on earth.
Terra Space Labs is developing an infrared Earth observation system which, by using tiny satellites that are both cheaper and simpler to produce, can assist with issues like forest fire detection and monitoring, the detection of greenhouse gasses, oil spills, as well as the measurement of forest biomass and the diagnostics of ice within clouds, thus contributing to global environmental monitoring efforts.
N.S.L. Communications, produces pop-up satellite dishes and antennas to help supply broadband and other communications services for the IOT and agricultural Sectors, at a fraction of the traditional cost of satellite communications, and without the need to establish expensive cellular infrastructure on the ground.
Many of the space technologies in use and in development today are unseen by most of the global population, but they help to facilitate our everyday needs through various industries and platforms. Take for example the benefits offered by two other Israeli firms.
Gorila Link –offers a plug and play “Platform as a service” (PaaS) solution that seamlessly enables the connectivity of smart devices across multiple satellite networks providing 100% global coverage. The benefits of such communications coverage for earth-based industries are numerous, particularly in the Oil and Gas and Forestry and Transportation sectors, as well as smart city and IOT intensive sectors.
In the area of future food sustainability, GreenOnyx, is an Israeli agriculture engineering startup that develops fresh greens filled with nutrients and dietary supplements. It is experimenting with growing a water-based lentil plant under microgravity conditions in an autonomous growing facility. The leaves will be tested as food in space, and be produced in a controlled group where their growth rates will be analysed.
In addition to these recent grant recipients, there are numerous other Israeli companies contributing to human progress in important sectors.
One such company is Space Pharma which has developed miniaturized microgravity laboratory technology, enabling the unprecedented possibility to develop new drugs in Space. By conducting experiments in microgravity, where biological and chemical systems have accelerated processes, scientists can observe three-dimensional growth of cell cultures and molecule structures of proteins and crystals at a lower cost and with higher success rates than experiments using traditional research methods. According to SpacePharma’s CEO, Yossi Yamin, “We study everything from colloids, enzymatic reactions, liver cells, fluid physics, stem cells, cancer biopsies, whose molecules retain their three-dimensional shape.” This research can ultimately help to pave the way to new breakthroughs in fields such as life science, foodtech, chemicals, materials, and more.
It was Spacepharma’s technology that facilitated some of the experiments conducted by Philanthropist and former Israeli fighter pilot Eytan Stibbe while he was aboard the International Space Station in April 2022.
Given these examples, it’s clear to see that – in some ways – science fact is now surpassing science fiction, and Israel is helping to lead the way.
gorillaLink is a plug and play PaaS solution that seamlessly enables connectivity of smart devices across multiple satellite networks providing 100% global coverage.
We want to re-define the way industries seamlessly utilise their communication devices in a smart and unprecedented way, that allows them to be more efficient and cost effective.
Easy to integrate edge to cloud via satellite connectivity solution. Billing, link management and on boarding process in a single Platform as a Service.
D-Fend Solutions provides an autonomous counter-drone perimeter security system that automatically detects, identifies, and intercepts intruding commercial drones. D-Fend provides comprehensive, safe, portable, and scalable solutions for securing a stationary perimeter.
The system is based on autonomous cyber software-defined radio technology that combines cyber and wireless signal processing techniques to take control over drones’ communication links without causing spectral interferences.
MTI Wireless Edge develops and produces high-quality, low-cost antenna solutions including smart antennas, MIMO antennas, and dual polarity for wireless applications such as WiMAX, Wi-Fi, broadband wireless access, and RFID.
MTI supplies antennas for military and commercial applications from 100 KHz to 90 GHz. The company offers a dynamic variety of off-the-shelf and customized antennas, including sector, directional, and omnidirectional antennas for all broad and narrow band wireless applications in licensed and unlicensed bands.
The company’s military products include a wide range of broadband, tactical, and specialized communications antennas, antenna systems, and DF arrays installed on numerous platforms worldwide, including airborne, ground, and naval.
Israel, as a global centre of research and development, is leading efforts to use technology to mitigate the coronavirus crisis on three fronts: developing a vaccine, improving testing for the virus, and innovating technological developments to improve patient care.
There have been seemingly daily updates about Israeli breakthroughs in this area. This article will try to provide a helpful overview of many of those breakthroughs and how quickly they are expected to be available for use.
Vaccinesand other Treatments
Early reports that Israel was ready to export a coronavirus vaccine to the world were premature, but there are at least two important Israeli institutions working towards the development of a vaccine.
The first is Israel’s state-run Institute for Biological Research (IIBR), which has been tasked with the job of creating a vaccine by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Fifty top scientists at the Institute are working on the vaccine, in three separate teams, alongside a global biotech company with complementary expertise. On March 31, sources told Reuters that the IIBR had begun testing a COVID-19 vaccine prototype on rodents.
Other researchers at IIBR are also involved in plasma collection from people who have recovered from infection with the novel coronavirus, hoping that this might assist in the research.
In addition, Migal Galilee Research Institute, located in Kiryat Shmona in Israel’s far-north, has spent four years working on a vaccine for a coronavirus disease in poultry that has many similarities to the current novel coronavirus which is causing the current pandemic among humans. The Institute announced in late February, that this vaccine would be adapted to deal with COVID-19.
David Zigdon, the CEO of Migal Galilee Research Institute, said his lab was working hard to accelerate the vaccine’s development.
“Our goal is to produce the vaccine during the next 8-10 weeks and to achieve safety approval in 90 days. This will be an oral vaccine, making it particularly accessible to the general public,” Zigdon said in a press release.
Meanwhile, scientists at Israel’s Weitzmann Institute of Science, together with Diamond Light Source laboratory in Oxfordshire, are “pioneering a revolutionary method of scientific research that could see a candidate for an anti-coronavirus drug emerge ‘within weeks’” according to the UK’s Jewish Chronicle.
According to Dr Nir London, who heads the team at Weizmann, the technique involves using the “crowd-sourcing of global intelligence” to quickly generate an “unprecedented amount of preliminary data” and then using tests conducted on all proposed molecules in parallel, rather than linearly, enabling scientists to follow up on “500 to a 1,000 compounds” in the same period it would normally take to test a “few tens of compounds.”
Testing
Testing for coronavirus has been a highly fraught aspect of the current outbreak given the slow pace and labour intensiveness of traditional testing methods.
Israeli researchers have committed themselves to improving testing using technology.
There are reports that in the next six weeks, an Israeli company – working under the guidance of Israel’s Defence Ministry – will be ready to test a COVID-19 screening method that uses only a patient’s voice. Through artificial intelligence technology, the test would observe the patient’s breathing and speech patterns in order to detect the illness. It would be particularly useful because possible cases could be tested from home and could also help monitor the health of patients who have already been diagnosed.
Meanwhile, researchers at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology collaborating with experts at Rambam Medical Centre in Haifa, have come up with a new method of processing test results that could vastly speed up the rate at which tests for the virus can be completed. The technique, known as“pooling”, involves protocols which make it possible for a lab to test samples from up to 64 people at the same time, rather than one at a time, as is the usual practice.
“The level of collaboration between faculty, physicians, health professionals and medical and graduate students at the universities, hospitals, health maintenance organisations, Magen David Adom, and Ministry of Health, is unprecedented in Israel,” said Professor Karen Avraham, Vice Dean of Tel Aviv University’s Sackler Faculty of Medicine. “This will set the stage for years to come for how much we can accomplish when working together so selflessly.”
Defence industries pivot to the war against the coronavirus
Israel’s defence industries have shifted into addressing medical needs in the country. According to the Jerusalem Post, the Defense Ministry, in collaboration with medical company Inovytec and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), have completed a production line for Ventway Sparrow ventilators, established on the grounds of a classified IAI missile production site. Ventilators, ready for deployment to hospitals, have already begun rolling off the line.
Meanwhile, the IDF has tasked its famous Unit 81, the military intelligence technology unit, with working to find a way to easily convert simple and inexpensive breath regulating devices known as CPAP machines into ventilators suitable for use in intensive care units. The unit will also produce 1,000 face masks for healthcare providers a day, as well as outfit 50 vans with internal separators to protect drivers from infected patients, and produce information management software for laboratories testing for coronavirus.
Additionally, Unit 108 of the Israeli Air Force has teamed up with Microsoft Israel Research and Development, Ichilov Medical Center, Magen David Adom (MDA) and others to develop a simple respirator that could be mass-produced in labs at low cost. It is being developed as “open source” so that countries around the world could ramp up manufacturing locally, affordably and in a short period of time.
The IDF has also retooled assembly lines previously used to build seats for tanks in order to produce protective goggles for health care workers.
Harnessing the top minds at Israeli universities
All of Israel’s universities have initiated multiple research projects designed to quickly help address the coronavirus crisis:
The Technion: Besides the previously mentioned testing breakthrough, Haifa’s renowned Technion has 20 different laboratories at the university working on COVID-19 related projects in the spheres of diagnostics, vaccine development, therapeutics and aids for medical teams. TheTechnion academics on the job include Avi Schroeder, who is developing a targeted drug for treating acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), based on existing drug delivery methods, while at the same time, developing a vaccine for coronavirus based on a vaccine he has previously developed for shrimps.
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev: The Beersheva-based BGU has launched a “Coronavirus Task Force”, according to the Jewish News Service (JNS), “In a meeting attended by 50 scientists from diverse departments within the university, ideas were presented and the task force broke into several groups working on the most promising projects and collaborations, including self-sterilizing facemasks, medical emergency drones, a coronavirus test that could take just five minutes using chip technology, and a telemedicine and remote triage system.”
Hebrew University of Jerusalem: A March 31 report in theTimes of Israel interviews HU Professor Shy Arkin, who is using his lab to test chemicals to be used to attack the virus. “What we’re trying to do — and again, I would hope and anticipate that others are doing — is trying to repurpose drugs” and find drugs already on the market that may be effective in reducing the most dangerous effects of the virus, Arkin told David Horovitz.
Tel Aviv Universityhas opened a dedicated coronavirus research lab, which will also be able to perform 1,000 tests for coronavirus a day, adding to the country’s ability to slow the spread of the virus.
Israeli company Kryon Systems has developed an automation system to help Israel’s health insurance companies quickly process the mountains of data coming in from the country’s growing number of coronavirus patients – as well as those who have tested negative. Kryon is now offering this automation technology to any other health insurance providers globally free of charge, in order to help in the current pandemic.
The Israeli Defence Ministry has also developed a new software called “coronameter” which analyses data gathered from the mobile phones of Israelis to help locate likely carriers of the coronavirus in order to test them. Its use is now awaiting cabinet approval.
Other Israeli researchers are working on projects as diverse as CT scanning technology that can test for coronavirus using artificial intelligence, portable blood-testing devices for coronavirus patients who do not require hospitalisation and a sensor that allows contactless monitoring of a patient’s condition.
Once again, Israel has proven itself to be at the cutting edge in helping solve this dangerous pandemic. Time is of the essence, but Israel appears to not be wasting any of it.
Military radar systems designed to defend Israel against terrorist attacks are being modified to detect coronavirus in human bodies.
Two major defence contractors – Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) and Elbit Systems – are working with the defence department to refit sensitive sensors to screen patients for COVID 19, Jewish News Syndicate reports.
Israeli defence ministry officials announced the prototype technology can measure vital signs of patients, including pulse, respiratory rate and temperature, and detect patterns that indicate a likely COVID-19 infection.
The equipment could be deployed to public spaces such as the entrances to shopping malls to give medics an indication of people who may be exhibiting signs of the virus.
The technology when fully developed would enable doctors and nurses to carry out the screening from two metres away – or even from another room by tracking it on a screen.
Currently, medical teams have to examine patients directly through close contact and at longer intervals, putting them at risk of infection.
Yossi Cohen, vice-president at Elbit Systems’ C4i and Cyber Division, says until the coronavirus pandemic the advanced radar was purely for military use.
“Until now, the civilian world didn’t have this need,” he said.
“This development came as a result of a capability that we want to give doctors at the entrance to emergency rooms to distinguish [between] patients that have a respiratory and have a chance of [contracting] coronavirus from patients suffering from other patients.”
JERUSALEM — The drone glides up toward a high-rise until it reaches an apartment window where a woman waves from inside, proving to police that she is self-isolating after testing positive for the coronavirus.
Israeli police are deploying drones as part of efforts to stem the outbreak, allowing officers to keep a safe distance from infected people. Israel has also approved the use of phone-spying technology that was previously used against Palestinian militants.
Israel and other countries have rapidly come to see such methods as crucial tools to prevent the spread of the virus, which has infected nearly 2 million people worldwide, killed more than 120,000 and prompted economically devastating lockdowns.
But the increasing use of such technology against civilians has raised privacy concerns and difficult questions about how far authorities can or should go to curb the pandemic.
The drone used outside the apartment complex in the Tel Aviv area was deployed by police checking in on patients who have been ordered to self-isolate.
Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld says police are using drones across the country to “find and confirm that people with the coronavirus are in isolation” in accordance with Health Ministry regulations.
“Units on the ground are using drones in high-story buildings and making visual confirmation,” he said.
The virus causes mild to moderate flu-like symptoms in most patients, who recover within a few weeks. But it is highly contagious and can cause severe illness or death, particularly in older people or those with underlying health problems.
Israel has reported more than 11,800 cases and at least 117 deaths. Like many other countries, it has closed down schools and businesses and imposed strict stay-at-home orders. Those who test positive for the new coronavirus are required to isolate themselves, and anyone flouting regulations face fines or even arrest.
Police have used drones to enforce lockdowns in other countries, including Italy, France, Spain and China. They have been used to enforce social distancing in New York City and New Jersey. India has also used drones to monitor its lockdown.
Elsewhere in the Middle East, in Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, police have used drones to order people to stay inside. In Dubai, which is part of the UAE, they have been used to spray disinfectant on streets.
In Saudi Arabia, drones have reportedly been used in some public places to check people’s temperatures.
Tehilla Shwartz Altshuler, an expert on technology and privacy laws at the Israel Democracy Institute, says it would be a violation of constitutional rights if the police used drones to look into private homes. Israeli security forces are also barred from using facial recognition technology, except to surveil Palestinians in the occupied territories.
She’s alarmed by the speed at which authorities and technology companies have embraced new surveillance tactics in response to the pandemic. She says her “biggest fear” is that such technologies are here to stay.
“First of all, they are here to stay because the corona is here to stay,” at least for another year, though it may come and go, she said. “After the corona is gone, we’re going to get used to the fact we’re using those technologies.”
As governments worldwide ramp up their efforts to combat the global coronavirus pandemic, officials and healthcare providers are turning to a broad suite of technologies – big data analytics, telemedicine, and even drones. Whether for surveying affected areas, delivering medical samples and quarantine supplies, or monitoring and protecting crops, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) stand to play a critical part in the global response to the pandemic.
With
50 drone
companies and startups, Israel is a hub of drone innovation. The country first began work
on developing drones, or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), in 1962, for defense
purposes. Israel is globe’s top exporter of
drones, and
the country’s drone-tech ecosystem has put Israeli companies to meet expected
surge in demand for drone technology across a broad swath use cases.
Business
Insider Intelligence forecasts that the drone
services market will spike from $4.4 billion in 2018 to $63.6 billion by 2025.
Driving the market’s growth will be increased use of drones in numerous
civilian industries: For example, agriculture will employ drones to monitor
crops and livestock; the construction industry will use them to perform safety
inspections in hard or dangerous-to-reach areas; and insurers will turn to
drones to survey damage and gather data for claims processing.
Drones
are even starting to be deployed for on-demand food deliveries – as residents
of Reykjavik, Iceland have enjoyed firsthand since Israeli drone company Flytrex began partnering with the city in 2017. The company will begin food
deliveries in
Holly Springs, North Carolina this year, after securing approval from the
Federal Aviation Administration.
Flytrex
isn’t the only Israeli company scaling the skies of drone innovation:
Edgybees provides situational awareness for public safety professionals,
first responders, broadcasters, and others using drones mounted with augmented
reality-equipped cameras. The company’s technology was used by responders
during recent wildfires in Australia and California.
Percepto develops autonomous drones for monitoring and surveillance of
assets in the energy, mining, oil & gas, ports, and solar industries.
Founded in 2014, the company has offices in Israel, the U.S., and Australia,
and its clients include Italian electric company ENEL and U.S.-based Johnson
Controls.
With
its esteemed research institutions, robust public investment in R&D, and
unparalleled entrepreneurialism, Israel is well-positioned to continue its
leadership in drone innovation at a time when the globe needs it most.
Israel Trade and Economic Commission in Sydney, Australia 