Israel’s 68th Independence Day (Friday, May 13 – 5 Iyar, 5776) inspires appreciation, admiration and respect for its remarkable accomplishments not only since the establishment of the State of Israel, but over the past 119 years since Theodor Herzl convened the First World Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland.
The only democracy in the Middle East (i.e. within the Green Line) remains, despite its many challenges from within and without, a vital engine of research, invention, innovation, and ingenuity that benefits not only Israeli citizens and the Jewish people, but nations and peoples everywhere even if they are unaware that they are benefiting.
Those benefits include significant advances in medicine, healthcare, microbiology, genetics, agriculture, energy, water conservation, the environment, communications, engineering, transportation, navigation, computer technology, optics, robotics, safety, security, and defense.
Here are just 76 inventions and innovations created, developed and marketed by Israeli scientists, physicians, researchers, bio-tech and hi-tech companies, and entrepreneurs (not in any particular order):
• Given Imaging – patient-friendly solutions for visualizing and detecting disorders of the GI tract – best known for its PillCam (aka capsule endoscopy), now the gold standard for intestinal visualization.
• Netafim – a worldwide pioneer in smart drip and micro-irrigation operating in 112 countries with 13 factories worldwide.
• Ormat Technologies – geothermal power plants supplying clean geothermal power in 20+ countries.
• Pythagoras Solar – the world’s first solar window combining energy efficiency, power generation and transparency. This transparent photovoltaic glass unit can be integrated into conventional building design and construction processes.
• Hazera Genetics – yielded the cherry tomato.
• BabySense – a no-touch, no-radiation device designed to prevent crib death. Made by HiSense. The device monitors a baby’s breathing and movements through the mattress during sleep. An auditory and visual alarm is activated if breathing ceases for more than 20 seconds or if breath rate slows to less than 10 breaths per minute.
• Iron Dome – a mobile air defense system designed to intercept short-range rockets and artillery shells.
• 3G Solar – pioneered a low-cost alternative to silicon that generates significantly more electricity than leading silicon-based PV solar modules at a lower cost per kilowatt hour.
• MobileEye – combines a tiny digital camera with sophisticated algorithms to help drivers navigate more safely. The steering system-linked device sounds an alert when a driver is about to change lanes inadvertently, warns of an impending forward collision and detects pedestrians. MobileEye has deals with GM, BMW and Volvo, among others.
• Leviathan Energy – innovated the Wind Tulip, a cost-effective, silent, vibration-free wind turbine designed as an aesthetic environmental sculpture, producing clean energy at high efficiency from any direction.
• Rav Bariach – introduced the steel security door that has become Israel’s standard. Its geometric lock, whose cylinders extend from different points into the doorframe, is incorporated into doors selling on five continents.
• BriefCam – a video-synopsis technology lets viewers rapidly review and index original full-length video footage by concurrently showing multiple objects and activities that actually occurred at different times. This technology drastically cuts the time and manpower involved in event tracking, forensics and evidence discovery.
• GridON – makes the Keeper, a three-phase fault current limiter that blocks current surges and limits the current for as long as required to clear the fault, and is of interest to major utilities companies around the world.
• Waze – a GPS-based geographical navigation application program for smartphones with GPS support and display screens, which provides turn-by-turn information and user-submitted travel times and route details, downloading location-dependent information over the mobile telephone network now available in over 100 countries.
• GetTaxi – an application that connects customers and taxi drivers using its proprietary GPS system, thus enabling users to order a cab either with their smartphone or through the company’s website.
• Better Place electric car network – provides a model for a worldwide electric car grid.
• Intel Israel – changed the face of the computing world with the 8088 processor (the “brain” of the first PC), MMX and Centrino mobile technology.
• Disk-on-Key – the ubiquitous little portable storage device made by SanDisk, is an upgraded version of disk and diskette technology through the use of flash memory and USB interface for connection to personal computers.
• TACount – real-time microbiology enables the detection and counting of harmful microorganisms in a matter of minutes, rather than the conventional method of cell culture that takes several hours to a few days. The technology applies to the fields of drinking and wastewater, pharmaceuticals and food and beverage production.
• Solaris Synergy – innovated an environmentally friendly and economically beneficial way to float solar panels on water instead of taking up valuable land, generating energy while protecting and limiting evaporation from reservoir surfaces.
• HydroSpin – a unique internal pipe generator that supplies electricity for water monitoring and control systems in remote areas and sites without accessibility to electricity.
• Produce drinking water from a condenser that absorbs the air’s humidity, holding it in silica based gel granules, and then condensing it into water. 85% of energy used is pumped back into the system. Developed by EWA.
• The Volcani Research Center of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development – improves existing agricultural production systems and introduces new products, processes and equipment. Basic and applied research is conducted at six institutes and in two regional research centers by more than 200 scientists and 300 engineers and technicians.
• Rosetta Green – develops improved plant traits for the agriculture and biofuel industries, using unique genes called microRNAs.
• Mazor Robotics’ Spine Assist and other surgical robots – transforms spine surgery from freehand procedures to highly accurate, state-of-the-art operations with less need for radiation.
• Optical heartbeat monitor – a revolutionary medical technology using a fast camera and small laser light source.
• Elya Recycling – an innovative method for recycling plastic based on a specialized formulation of natural ingredients. Making the new raw material for handbags, reusable totes and lumber products requires 50 percent less energy than current recycling methods and 83% less energy than virgin manufacturing.
• Like-A-Fish – unique air supply systems extract air from water, freeing leisure and professional scuba divers, as well as submarines and underwater habitats, from air tanks.
• WatchPAT – an FDA-approved portable diagnostic device for the follow-up treatment of sleep apnea in the patient’s own bedroom, rather than at a sleep disorders clinic.
• Zenith Solar – a modular, easily scalable high-concentration photovoltaic system (HCPV) whose core technology is based on a unique, proprietary optical design to extract the maximum energy with minimal real estate.
• AFC (Active Flow Control) – an intelligent gas-air mixing system to replace all existing mixing technologies.
• Space Imagery Intelligence (IMINT) unit of Elbit Systems – makes a “space camera,” a compact, lightweight electro-optic observation system for government, commercial and scientific applications.
• Turbulence, the world’s first hyper-narrative, interactive movie – technology that allows the viewer to choose the direction of the film’s plot by pressing buttons on the PC, Mac or iPad at various moments in the action.
• EpiLady – the first electric hair remover (epilator), secured its leading position in the international beauty care market and since 1986 has sold almost 30 million units.
• Decell Technologies – provides real-time road traffic information based on monitoring the location and movement of phones and GPS devices. Swift-i Traffic is incorporated in leading navigation systems, fleet management services, mapping operations and media channels in several countries.
• NDS VideoGuard technology – the pay-TV industry’s advanced suite of conditional access (CA) solutions protecting branded service from piracy and ensuring that consumers have choice and flexibility in broadcast and on-demand content.
• PrimeSense – revolutionizes interaction with digital devices by allowing them to “see” in three dimensions and transfer control from remote controls and joysticks to hands and body in a low-cost, high-performance 3D machine vision technologies for consumers.
• Takadu – provides monitoring software to leading water utilities worldwide offering real-time detection and control over network events such as leaks, bursts, zone breaches and inefficiencies.
• Indigo digital printing presses – general commercial printing, direct mail, photos and photobooks, publications, labels, business cards, flexible packaging and folding cartons print without films and plates, allowing for personalized short runs and changing text and images without stopping the press.
• Solid rapid prototyping machine (Cubital) – crafts 3D models of engineering parts directly from designs on a computer screen used in the automotive, aerospace, consumer products and medical industries, and engineering firms and academic and research institutions.
• Viber – an app download on any smart phone allowing hi-speed calls using Wifi to be made across the world for free.
• Zomet Institute – a non-profit, public research institute where rabbis, researchers and engineers devise practical solutions for modern life without violating Sabbath restrictions on the use of electricity. Zomet technology is behind metal detectors, security jeeps, elevators, electric wheelchairs and coffee machines that can be used on Shabbat, as well as solutions requested by the Israeli ministries of health and defense, Ben-Gurion Airport, Elite Foods, Tnuva Dairies, Israeli Channel 10 Television and others.
• EarlySense – continuous monitoring allows hospital nurses to watch and record patients’ heart rate, respiration and movement remotely through a contact-free sensor under the mattress. The system’s built-in tools include a wide range of reports on the status of patients, including alerts for falls and bedsore prevention.
• TourEngine – reduces fuel consumption and harmful emissions by common engines through a sophisticated thermal management strategy that can be easily integrated with future hybrid engines, further improving their efficiency and environment-friendly attributes.
• The superconducting fault current limiter (FCL) – designed for limiting short currents.
• Heliofocus – provides solar-energy boosting for existing coal or gas power plants, reducing carbon emissions and overall costs.
• Transbiodiesel – makes enzyme-based catalysts (biocatalysts) used in the production of biodiesel.
• SolarEdge – makes a module that optimizes every link in the solar PV chain, maximizing energy production while monitoring constantly to detect faults and prevent theft.
• 3D tethered particle motion system – allows for three-dimensional tracking of critical protein-DNA and protein-RNA cell interactions in the body.
• Panoramic Power – provides a current monitor solution that enables enterprises and organizations to reduce their operational and energy expenses using a breakthrough power flow visibility platform.
• Eshkol-Wachman Movement Notation – a notation system for recording movement on paper that has been used in dance, physical therapy, animal behavior and early diagnosis of autism.
• Azilect – a drug for Parkinson’s disease.
• Copaxone immunomodulator – a drug for treating multiple sclerosis.
• Taliglucerase alfa (Elelyso), a recombinant glucocerebrosidase enzyme produced from transgenic carrot cell cultures. Taliglucerase alfa won approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in May 2012 as an orphan drug for the treatment of Type 1 Gaucher’s disease.
• Nanowire – a conductive wire made of a string of tiny particles of silver, a thousand times thinner than a human hair.
• World’s smallest DNA computing machine system – “the smallest biological computing device” ever constructed, composed of enzymes and DNA molecules capable of performing simple mathematical calculations and which uses its input DNA molecule as its sole source of energy.
• Protector USV – an unmanned surface vehicle, to be used in combat.
• USB flash drive – a flash memory data storage device integrated with a USB interface.
• The first PC microprocessor – the intel 8088 the first PC microprocessor that used on the first PC IBM PC.
• Quicktionary Electronic dictionary – a pen-sized scanner able to scan words or phrases and immediately translate them into other languages, or keep them in memory in order to transfer them to the PC.
• Laser Keyboard – virtual keyboard projected onto a wall or table top and allows to type handheld computers and cell phones.
• Hybrid cucumber seeds – hybrid seed production of cucumbers and melons, disease-resistant cucumbers and cucumbers suitable for mechanical harvesting.
• Grain cocoons – provides a simple and cheap way for African and Asian farmers to keep their grain market-fresh, as huge bags keep both water and air out, making sure the harvest is clean and protected even in extreme heat and humidity.
• Biological pest control – breeds beneficial insects and mites for biological pest control and bumblebees for natural pollination in greenhouses and open fields.
• AKOL – gives low-income farmers the ability to get top-level information from professional sources.
• Reusable plastic trays – used to collect dew from the air, reducing the need to water crops by up to 50 percent.
• “Zero-discharge” system – allows fish to be raised virtually anywhere by eliminating the environmental problems in conventional fish farming, without being dependent on electricity or proximity to a body of water.
• TraitUP – enables the introduction of genetic materials into seeds without modifying their DNA, immediately and efficiently improving plants before they’re even sowed.
• Judean date palm – oldest seed ever to be revived, restoring an extinct cultivar.
• Super iron battery – A new class of a rechargeable electric battery based on a special kind of iron. More environment friendly because the super-iron eventually rusts.
• ReWalk – a bionic walking assistance system to enable paraplegics to stand upright, walk and climb stairs.
• Robotic guidance system for spine surgery.
• World’s smallest video camera – a camera with a 0.99 mm (0.039 in) diameter, designed to fit in a tiny endoscope.
• Azilect – a drug for Parkinson’s disease.
• Copaxone immunomodulator – drug for treating multiple sclerosis.
• Bio-Bee – biological pest control breeds beneficial insects and mites for biological pest control and bumblebees for natural pollination in greenhouses and open fields.
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