My weekly newsletter this week contained over 30 great news stories featuring innovative Israeli start-ups and successfully established businesses. My blog this week highlights how these entrepreneurial organisations are driving the phenomenal success of the Jewish State.
I will start with the medical industry. Israeli biotech TACount was totally dissatisfied with existing timescales for testing for harmful bacteria in contaminated food. The old method using petri-plates takes up to several days. TACount’s has developed a five-minute test that could save the lives of many of the hundreds of millions of people who get sick from contaminated food every year. Then Israel’s Arineta Ltd is raising funds to develop its innovative CT-scanner that can quickly image the entire cardiac space in a single 3D image. The scanner emits far less radiation than full body scanners and can capture much higher quality images of the heart.
Given Imaging has revolutionised the diagnosis of colon cancer with the PillCam – its unique endoscopic capsule camera. Trials of the miniature device have begun in Japan where more than 42,000 people died from colorectal cancer in 2009. Meanwhile Israel’s Bio-Technology General has exploited its expertise in the production of recombinant proteins to develop a drug for the treatment of gout patients. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Krystexxa (pegloticase). Finally, Canadians and Koreans will soon be able to sleep easier now that Israel’s WideMed has licensed its Morpheus Hx sleep apnea monitor to GE Healthcare for sale in those countries.
On the environmental front, Israeli companies have been breathing new life into clean technology projects. Israeli start-up Global Recycling Projects Ltd, for example, has built a solar-powered biomass reactor that turns untreated sludge into gas that powers electricity-generating turbines. The Dead Sea Bromide Company, on the other hand, has developed a solution called "Markwell" that neutralizes mercury emissions from coal burned in power stations. Finally, at the 6th annual WaTec Exhibition and Conference, thousands of people from all over the world came to see first hand the water technology companies that have helped Israel''s “water miracle”.
The ingenuity of Israeli companies is remarkable. Gilat Satellite Networks is one of them, supplying the network components and terminals to help put Russian satellites into orbit. With the recession in the USA and Europe continuing, Israeli technology companies like TowerJazz are expanding into other lucrative BRIC markets such as Brazil and India. Meanwhile, Israel’s Applied Cognitive Engineering Ltd (ACE), has developed the ‘Hockey IntelliGym’ to help players develop perception and decision-making skills. The technology was originally developed to train Israeli combat pilots on the cognitive brain level.
An Israeli development is making it easier for supermarkets and shoppers to minimize the stressful business of shopping. With ShelfX, you scan each item as you take it off the supermarket shelf – either with a ShelfX card or with your own mobile phone. There are no checkout queues whatsoever. Now if they can just find a way to get rid of those horrible shopping trolleys maybe even I could enjoy the shopping experience.
ShelfX - A whole new shopping experience
Two foreign companies demonstrated their enthusiasm for doing business in the Jewish State last week. Dutch tourist agency Holiday Travel inaugurated a charter route between Schiphol Airport Amsterdam and Uvda Airport. It expects 8,000 holidaymakers from the Netherlands to use the new charter service during the 2011-12 winter tourist season. Then the US giant Procter & Gamble announced that it is to hire Israeli PhDs. P&G Israel Innovation Center director Lital Asher said, " Last year, we hired five researchers with unique capabilities in the life sciences and computing. The company''s global R&D team was impressed by the quality of the Israeli researchers, who achieved a score 20% above the global average of candidates."
Finally, the following examples demonstrate that Israel is also working to improve the business of “the other”. Despite Gaza terrorists firing several Qassam rockets at Israeli civilians last week, the Jewish State is to allow the terrorist state to export all its agricultural produce through Israel. In the coming year, Gazans are expected to export 1,000 tons of strawberries and 20 million carnations to European markets. Furniture exports are also to commence shortly.
But I will end this week with two articles that highlight how the average Arab is far better off business-wise in the Jewish State than anywhere else in the Middle East. President Shimon Peres''s MaanTech Program is helping hundreds of Israeli Arabs to get hired by high-tech companies. Now Israeli subsidiaries of international giants such as Cisco, HP, Google, Intel, Oracle, SAP, RSA, Amdocs, Checkpoint and NICE are aiming to recruit a further 1000 Israeli Arabs in the coming year. And lastly, my personal friend Stuart Palmer really destroys the ‘Apartheid Israel’ lie with his latest post containing some typical observations about Arabs going about their business in his hometown of Haifa. They include the breast-cancer specialist, the emergency doctor, the optometrist and the pharmacist.
Israel – it’s so good to do business with you!
Michael Ordman writes a weekly newsletter containing Good News stories about Israel.
To subscribe, email a request to michael.goodnewsisrael@gmail.com