An Israeli foodtech startup that produces plant-based meat substitutes has been leading an effort to provide thousands of meals for vegan soldiers in the Israel Defense Forces. 

The head chef and culinary consultant for Redefine Meat, Omer Tal, created the initiative to feed the army’s vegan and flexitarian soldiers. He has brought together Israeli foodtech startups, vegan food producers, chefs and volunteers in a Tel Aviv restaurant kitchen given over to create the meals.

The kitchen was made both vegan and kosher, the latter in accordance with Jewish dietary laws, and received approval from the Tel Aviv Rabbinate. 

The startups joining the effort to provide plant-based meats and dairy alternatives include Green Butcher, More Foods, YoEgg! Foods and Creative Pea. 

The almost 6,000 meals produced so far include vegan versions of spaghetti bolognese, chicken skewers, shakshuka and cheese pastries. Dairy-free confectionery companies including JO-MO Chocolate also provided sweet treats.  

Israel has mobilized more than 300,000 reserve soldiers in addition to its conscripted army to fight Hamas in Gaza after the terror group stormed across the border and murdered more than 1,400 people on October 7. 

“Even while in a state of shock, trying to contain the horrific events that took place, it was clear to me that we would not be returning to any form of routine soon,” said Tal. 

“In the midst of the suffering, sadness, anxiety, and pain that continues to affect us, the Israeli community has rallied together to support and strengthen one another.”  

Israel is considered to be one of the most vegan-friendly countries in the world, with around 5 percent of the population eschewing animal-based products.

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A startup that turns ocean waves into electricity has received an award for its innovation from the nonprofit AltaSea, a hub for marine science, research and education. 

Eco Wave Power Global transfers the motion of ocean waves to power stations on land using its uniquely shaped floating devices, which rise and fall with the waves’ up-and-down motion and the changes in water levels. The power stations convert the energy into fluid pressure used to spin a generator, producing electricity.

Founder and CEO Inna Braverman was named the recipient of AltaSea’s Innovation Award at its annual Blue Hour event, which is given to companies or individuals that are creating innovative solutions to some of the world’s most pressing problems.

AltaSea is also the location of Eco Wave Power’s first US pilot station, which is set to be installed in the coming months. 

“This award embodies two of my greatest passions – one is my work with Eco Wave Power and the second is my efforts to promote gender equality in the STEM sector,” said Braverman during her acceptance speech.

“I founded Eco Wave Power when I was 24, and back then everyone told me that wave energy is impossible, but I kept working hard to prove that wave energy is possible. I never gave up. Now, Eco Wave Power has a grid connected power station in Jaffa Port, in Israel, a planned pilot station here in the Port of Los Angeles, which will be the first of its kind in California, and a first commercial scale power station in final planning phases in Portugal,” she said.

Braverman concluded her acceptance speech by asking for prayers and support for her home country.

“While we are having a Blue Hour here, Israel is having one of its darkest hours, with over 1,300 citizens killed and more than 100 citizens kidnapped in Gaza,” she said

“In these dark days, I would ask you to support Israel and stand with Israel. Because in the end, we will not remember the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”

The post Startup Producing Ocean Wave Energy Scoops Innovation Award appeared first on NoCamels.

A new Israeli initiative is helping social media users to identify and report posts that are harmful or contain false information as well as share content in support of the country as it enters its third week of war against Hamas in Gaza. 

Millions of inflammatory and anti-Semitic posts have been circulating on social media platforms since October 7, when Hamas terrorists killed over 1,400 people in an attack inside Israel and abducted more than 200 others into Gaza. A significant amount of that content is misinformation designed to persuade people that Israel carried out crimes it did not commit, experts say.

TrendTrack – born out of an existing program to provide social groups with public data – presents a real-time list of pro- and anti-Israel content that is trending on Instagram, YouTube and TikTok. This allows users to monitor relevant posts, without forcing them to search for the content themselves. 

The volunteer monitors go to the TrendTrack website and choose to view content from one of the three social media platforms. The website provides links to each relevant post and the account that posted it so that users can either like and share or report it. 

The project was developed by the Bright Initiative program, which provides public bodies, non-profit organizations and academic institutions with freely available web data to help tackle pressing social issues. 

Both Bright Initiative and TrendTracks are powered by Netanya-based Bright Data, the world’s largest data collection platform, which gathers massive amounts of publicly available information from around the world. 

The TrendTracks lists of posts are compiled in two ways. Primarily it uses the Bright Data technology but also trawls the three social media platforms with specific keywords and hashtags related to Israel’s ongoing conflict with Hamas in Gaza. 

Dana Mazia, general manager of the Bright Initiative, believes that people who use TrendTracks are crucial to helping Israel promote its message as it battles Hamas. 

“We’re trying to take this data that we have to help both organizations and people like you and I play an active role in promoting Israeli advocacy during the war,” Mazia tells NoCamels.  

She says that spending just five minutes a day on the TrendTracks website can help promote Israeli advocacy and make a real difference. 

And though she cannot divulge much information about the initiative’s internal analytics, Mazia says that TrendTracks already has been successful at removing harmful posts, despite being live for just a little over a week.

Over the course of a single night, she says, the platform was able to detect 80,000 inflammatory posts on Instagram alone.

Identifying and removing content on social media that is hateful or contains false information is becoming more and more crucial, Israel advocates say, especially as anti-Semitic hate crimes have continued to soar worldwide with the onset of the war.

In London alone, police recorded a 1,353% increase in anti-Semitic offenses this month (October) compared to the same period last year. Anti-Semitic incidents have also been reported in Vienna, Paris, New York and Sydney, as well as other Western cities.

Beyond this, says Mazia, promoting pro-Israel content on social media is as crucial as reporting the disinformation and hate speech in order to ensure that the country maintains support around the world. 

The war will not end in the near future, she points out, and the world’s attention will be drawn more to the plight of Palestinian civilians in Gaza as Israel continues to press Hamas in the coastal enclave. 

“We need to know that the world understands our situation and gives us their support to protect ourselves,” says Mazia. 

“For that reason we want to put the right voices out there, which means to like, comment and repost content that is supportive.”

She adds that sharing and promoting pro-Israel content will also encourage the creators of the original content to continue to do so, and even spur on others who so far been hesitant to voice support for Israel. 

“We need to keep the cycle going and help them to help us,” Mazia says. 

The data gathered by the TrendTracks platform is also being provided pro bono to a number of organizations, although Mazia declines to divulge which. 

Some of these organizations, she says, are using this data to root out the sources of misinformation online, while others are using it for intelligence-gathering purposes. 

Bright Initiative, says Mazia, believes that TrendTracks can make a meaningful contribution – alongside the other social media users and impactful organizations who flag hateful and misinformed posts about Israel and support positive content. 

“We believe that this is our way to help win the war,” says Mazia.

The post New Project Combats Israel Hate On Social Media, Post By Post appeared first on NoCamels.

A cybersecurity company is offering free online cybersecurity courses for high school students in southern Israel whose hometowns are constantly under rocketfire from Hamas in Gaza. 

The initiative, which was developed by OASIS Security, aims to equip students with essential technological skills, foster their interest in the cyber domain and increase their potential for future involvement in the field. 

The interactive Zoom sessions cover diverse topics, including fundamental cyber concepts, offensive versus defensive strategies and programming languages.

The initiative was also developed in collaboration with the Magshimim (“fulfilling”) Program, a national cyber education program for high school students in the periphery, as well as other cybersecurity startups. 

High schools within the region that are interested in joining the program can send their requests directly to ops@oasis.security.

“The entire State of Israel is currently experiencing unbearably difficult times, when the students of the south are sitting idly in their homes or in various places to which they have turned throughout the country,” said Danny Brickman, CEO of OASIS.

“In order to try and make it easier for them, if only a little, we are taking part in this important initiative.

“As we continue to expand and allocate additional resources at OASIS, our team is wholeheartedly involved in this project, pooling our extensive expertise in the cybersecurity field,” he said.

“Our shared mission is to empower students, nurturing their comprehension and interest in the realm of cybersecurity.'”

The post Cybersecurity Firm Offers Free Zoom Courses For Teens appeared first on NoCamels.

The Israel Innovation Authority (IIA), the branch of the government dedicated to promoting the high-tech sector, has announced an investment fund of 100 million shekels to support approximately 100 Israeli startups struggling to sustain financial backing during the current conflict. 

The startups are in the product development or initial sales stages and, according to the IIA, all have significant technological assets. 

The grant is designed to allow these companies more time to utilize their available resources, said the IIA.

The 100 million shekels will be more than matched by private investors, who are expected to contribute more than 200 million shekels to the fund. 

Companies will be able to apply for grants from the fund in November. The startups will be evaluated on a range of criteria, including those technological assets, existing available funding, impact on employees and infrastructure. 

“The high-tech sector, which has faced declining investment volumes over the past 18 months, is also impacted by the current crisis,” said IIA chief Dror Bin. 

“This impact is more pronounced in startup companies that urgently need funding, especially during a challenging period when it is difficult to conduct new financing rounds. The Innovation Authority is committed to continue providing innovative companies with a sufficient security-net to help the Israeli high-tech sector thrive in the post-crisis era.” 

The high-tech industry was the largest contributor to Israel’s national GDP in 2022, accounting for just over 18 percent or 290 billion shekels ($78B), according to the IIA. It was also responsible for 50 percent of the country’s foreign exports. 

The post Israel Innovation Authority Creates 100M Shekel Fund For Startups appeared first on NoCamels.

An Israeli company that was working on an AI system to teach people how to operate drones has accelerated the development of its platform and is now using it to help train Israeli soldiers – and civilians – in the use of the unmanned aerial vehicles in wartime. 

FlyZone is a subsidiary of Tech 19, a company in the southern city of Yeruham, some 60 km (37 miles) from the Gaza border, that provides a range of technological solutions, including in the fields of drones, satellites and robotics. 

The firm was working on the platform to train drone operators when Hamas terrorists from Gaza attacked Israeli communities across the border on October 7, killing at least 1,400 and abducting at least 200 more. 

The resulting Israeli military response includes the use of drones, which required hasty training for troops unfamiliar with operating them – and one particular soldier turned to FlyZone for assistance. 

“One of our developers is on emergency reserve duty,” the company’s founder and CEO Inbar Cohen tells NoCamels. 

“He called me and told me: we have an urgent need to train people on drones, because drones have become a very, very big thing in this war.” 

The Israel Defense Forces deploys a range of drones, including the Skylark UAVs, which are used for reconnaissance, and the Hermes series, which are used in active combat.

The military does have systems to train drone operators, Cohen says, but they are housed in the major military bases, such as Tze’elim in the Negev Desert. 

There is no formal agreement with the IDF to train drone operators, according to Cohen, who points out it was an ad hoc step as the country moved swiftly to respond to the attacks of two weeks ago. 

Anytime, Anywhere

Because the FlyZone platform is software-based, it requires just a basic VR headset and standard remote control in order to train prospective operators. Furthermore, it can be used with a range of drones, in any location, including the staging areas where the Israeli troops are preparing for battle. 

“You don’t need to go anywhere; you can [train] from wherever you are,” Cohen says. 

“You just need the glasses and a very simple remote control and both are things that you can go and buy relatively easily in a few minutes.”

The incorporation of artificial intelligence into the platform is what makes FlyZone unique, Cohen says. 

While other drone simulators have a fixed, generic range of levels of difficulty in which to train, the use of AI allows the FlyZone platform to recreate a multitude of environments in order to practice operating the UAVs while facing a variety of challenges. 

“The progress is not based on levels, but on what you are doing,” Cohen explains. 

If an IDF drone operator needs to work in a dense, urban area, for example, FlyZone can adjust its settings to recreate that environment for training. 

Similarly, it can show the trainee a series of topographical settings and even change the time of day and weather to practice in different lighting or wind conditions – both of which have an impact on how a drone flies. 

The AI algorithm also lets the platform to collect data on the performance of the trainee, identifying the aspects of drone operation for which more practice is required, allowing them to improve their skills in a more focused and faster way.  

“They’re learning very quickly how to operate drones,” Cohen says. 

The “priceless” data that FlyZone is gathering will also accelerate the development process, she explains, allowing the company to better match the needs of the system with the needs of the user. 

And for now it is not just soldiers who are now benefitting from the platform, Cohen says. 

The civil guard units in Israeli communities, which were in almost all cases the first line of defense when Hamas terrorists stormed their towns, kibbutzim and moshavim on October 7, are also training with the FlyZone platform. 

These community-based trainee drone operators are not just of military age, she says, but people in their 50s and 60s and even 70s. 

“People are actually scanning and making sure that there are no terrorists and that there are no surprises,” Cohen says, referring to the Hamas killers who stormed across the border fence or flew into Israel undetected on motorized paragliders. 

“They don’t want to be surprised again.”

The post Firm Fast-Tracks Drone Simulator To Train Israeli Soldiers, Civilians appeared first on NoCamels.

A new project by Tel Aviv Municipality has used flowers to spell out a global message of solidarity with the Israeli people and security forces, inspired by US President Joe Biden’s statement of “We Stand with Israel.”

Biden delivered his message during his visit to Israel last week, when he met with those directly affected by the October 7 wave of attacks perpetrated by Hamas terrorists from Gaza. More than 1,400 Israelis were murdered, thousands were wounded, and over 200 others were abducted into Gaza during the attacks. 

The “Flower People Project” message, which was the initiative of Israeli civilian Lihi Salpeter Danziger, was on display for three days in Habima Square in central Tel Aviv last week. 

The city teamed up with Israeli flower growers, weavers and floral arrangers who donated their time to create the 45-meter long message using hundreds of colorful blooms. 

The flowers were then repurposed to provide free floral tributes for funerals and for wedding bouquets at a time when fresh stems can be hard to come by. 

The bouquets and wreaths were delivered to the families by a team of volunteers across the country.

The post Tel Aviv Project Spells Out Message Of Solidarity In Flowers appeared first on NoCamels.

An Israeli artificial intelligence startup that helps women with in-vitro fertilization (IVF) cycles has integrated its technology into the electronic medical records (EMR) used by numerous fertility clinics around the world. 

Fairtility’s CHLOE (Cultivating Life Through Optimal Embryos) technology uses AI to assess the viability of a woman’s embryos throughout her IVF cycle, a medical procedure in which the egg is fertilized outside of the body.

By integrating CHLOE with their EMRs, clinicians can digitize their embryology labs, automatically capturing and processing data regarding the most viable embryos for implantation.

CHLOE will then generate an embryo quality score and implantation predictions with insights and explanations based on millions of data points, which may improve IVF outcomes for patients –  a treatment that is normally only successful in one out of three tries.

The company says that integrating CHLOE into their systems helps reduce the administrative work of embryologists by up to 30 percent, as it also ensures that they have all their key information in one place.

The EMR platforms that have integrated CHLOE include vRepro, IDEAS from Mellowood Medical, nAble IVF and MedITEX.

“Integrating Fairtility’s CHLOE with the top EMR platforms enables clinics to seamlessly consolidate and standardize all data from both clinical and operational sources, moving us towards digital transformation of reproductive care,” said Eran Eshed, CEO and co-founder of Fairtility.

“These integrations enable information to flow seamlessly, maximizing clinic and lab efficiency and transforming both the patient and clinician experience.”

The post Israeli AI Fertility Tool Integrated Into Medical Records At IVF Clinics appeared first on NoCamels.

An Israeli startup has just received US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for its eye drops that are capable of temporarily correcting vision.

The QLOSI eye drops, developed by Orasis Pharmaceuticals, improve farsightedness by constricting the pupil, resulting in a “pinhole effect” and increasing depth of field and ability to focus on nearby objects.

The prescription eye drops can be used twice a day, and their effects of improving near vision can last up to eight hours without impacting distance or night vision. 

The FDA approval is based on results from clinical trials that evaluated the safety and efficacy of the eyedrops on more than 600 patients.

Presbyopia, or farsightedness, is the result of the natural aging process, and there are almost two billion people living with it globally. They experience blurred vision when performing daily tasks like reading a book, a restaurant menu or messages on a smartphone.

It cannot be prevented or reversed, and it continues to progress gradually. All existing treatment options are either inconvenient, like reading glasses and contact lenses, or invasive, like refractive surgery that changes the shape of your cornea and lens implants, which replace the lens in each eye with a synthetic one.

“The FDA approval of QLOSI marks a tremendous milestone for Orasis as we continue our mission to provide a flexible treatment option for the millions of people in the U.S. living with presbyopia, or blurry near vision,” said Elad Kedar, CEO of Orasis Pharmaceuticals.

“I am grateful to the Orasis team, our strategic partners, clinical investigators, and patients who participated in our clinical trials, all of whom made this achievement possible.”

The post Eyedrops That Temporarily Correct Vision Get FDA Approval appeared first on NoCamels.

A city in the US state of Georgia is introducing road management technology from Israeli startup Intelligent Traffic Control (ITC). 

The system, which uses data feeds from the local network of traffic cameras already in existence, requires no hardware installation. 

It takes the feed from the cameras and uses ITC’s vision analysis technology to identify objects in the road and their speed and location, in order to manage the flow of traffic by adjusting the timing of the road signals. 

The technology will be in use in approximately 10 intersections in the city of Peachtree Corners, on one of its routes with heavy traffic. 

The city says its 5G infrastructure allows for the use of the technology, which is already in operation in locations in Israel and Australia. 

“That ecosystem is the perfect opportunity for us to demonstrate the effectiveness of our solution with consistent mixed traffic, public transit and pedestrian activity along the corridor,” said ITC co-founder and CEO Aharon Brauner.

The ITC platform stands out due to the fact that there is no need for hardware to be installed, says Brandon Branham, executive director of the Peachtree Corners Curiosity Lab, a local testing facility for urban tech.

The post Israeli Traffic Management Tech Debuts In US City appeared first on NoCamels.

When the terror attacks on October 7 unfolded in southern Israel and it became clear that dozens of Israeli civilians – among them women, children, the elderly and the infirm – had been dragged into Gaza by Hamas, a group of high-tech experts offered their know-how to help identify them. 

Working out who is captive and who was murdered in the attacks has been complicated by the desecration of the bodies of some of the victims, making identifying them a difficult and painstaking process. 

Hundreds of people have yet to be accounted for, with hundreds of the more than 1,300 people who were murdered in the attacks still not formally identified. 

The group of around 300 volunteers from multiple Israeli high-tech companies are working together in a “war room” in Tel Aviv, trawling through vast amounts of footage posted on social media from the terrible events of that day in order to identify the Israelis who were abducted to Gaza. 

One of the main contributors to the initiative is Gal Vekselman, CTO of Elad Data, a Tel Aviv-headquartered software company. 

“[On] that bloody day there were so many videos and pictures from the site itself, from Gaza and from Israel… pushing into multiple social media [platforms],” Vekselman tells NoCamels. 

“The idea was to try and find clues and information about the kidnapped from social media.”

The group is using a combination of human eyes and facial recognition artificial intelligence to spot the Israelis in footage available – including videos made by Hamas terrorists as they were carrying out their abductions. 

The volunteers are combing through the footage posted everywhere from Telegram and X (formerly Twitter) to Facebook and Instagram, he says. 

As well as the human efforts, the group is using machine learning to train algorithms to try to spot those who were kidnapped. 

Without revealing the actual processes involved due to the sensitivity of the operation, Vekselman says that there is a data scientist onsite who is running the machine learning algorithm for facial recognition. That person is working in conjunction with volunteers from around the world, who wrote specific code to help with this endeavor. 

According to Vekselman, the idea for the operation came from the Brothers in Arms group – a network of Israel Defense Forces reservists whose protests against planned judicial reforms swiftly transformed into a massive effort to help the victims of the October 7 attacks and subsequent war. 

They reached out to Vekselman, asking for his expertise, as well as others in Israel and around the world whom he declines to name without authorization. 

“This is more than a technological effort,” he says. “This is really the apogee of Israel at its finest. You can see how Israelis are really working together, putting all egos aside.” 

This includes, he says, any divisions over the controversial judicial reforms that triggered months of weekly protests. Everyone pulled together to create one coordinated effort. 

“All of these people come here to this facility, working together just to contribute; learning new tools, new technologies, just to try to help these people,” he says.  

“It’s just heartwarming to see all these people working together.”  

The war room has a whiteboard that features the names of the people who are still unaccounted for, and makes a note on it every time someone is identified through these efforts. When a person is identified, it galvanizes the people in the room, he says. 

But hunting for any shred of information about the abducted Israelis means scouring videos that often include graphic violence, and the project has psychologists onsite to help mitigate the emotional trauma of such scenes. 

“They’re very sensitive about the mental health of the people participating in this endeavor,” Vekselman says.

There are other, similar efforts to identify the missing Israelis, he says, but this is the largest in scale.

The information that the volunteers find is passed onto the authorities, Vekselman explains, again declining to specify which channels they are working with, out of security considerations. He similarly declines to provide a number of people that they have been able to identify. Nor does the group have direct contact with the families of the missing. 

“I think it’s important to the world to see that Israelis are here not to hate anyone,” Vekselman tells NoCamels.  

“We are doing what needs to be done in order to make sure that everyone can live in peace and with love, and with a sense of humanity.“ 

The post Israeli Tech ‘War Room’ Scours Social Media For Signs Of Captives appeared first on NoCamels.

Israeli pharma giant Teva Pharmaceuticals has announced that its migraine treatment AJOVY has been found to also reduce symptoms of depression.

AJOVY halts the activity of the protein CGRP, which causes inflammation and the widening of blood vessels in the brain. At the onset of a migraine, an individual has high levels of CGRP in their bloodstream, leading scientists to believe that the protein plays a key role in causing the neurological disease.

Results from a new study conducted by the company found that their AJOVY jab not only reduced the participants’ number of monthly migraine days (MMD), but their symptoms of depression as well.

Patients treated with AJOVY had a reduction in MDD for 5.1 days, compared to 2.9 days for patients treated with a placebo. The patients treated with AJOVY also experienced less severe depression symptoms than the patients treated with a placebo, as indicated by clinician-administered depression assessment scales.  

According to the American Migraine Foundation, a person who suffers from migraines is about five times more likely to develop depression than someone who does not. 

“Patients who suffer from migraine and mental health disorders such as depression face a far greater burden than those suffering from either migraine or depression alone,” said Dr Verena Ramirez Campos, Global Senior Medical Director at Teva.

“[The study’s results] provide further insights into the potential efficacy, safety, and quality of life benefits of AJOVY for people with migraine and major depressive disorder.”

The post Teva’s Migraine Therapy Found To Reduce Depression Symptoms  appeared first on NoCamels.

Global finance automation platform Tipalti says it has raised and donated 2.5 million shekels in humanitarian relief for Israelis affected by the October 7 terror attacks in the south of the country. 

Five charities will receive an equal share of the funds raised from the company, its employees, investors and online donors. 

The five charitable organizations are: 

Israid, which helps those caught up in a humanitarian crisis by partnering with local communities; Israel’s national emergency service Magen David Adom;  NATAL, the Israel Trauma and Resiliency Center; Shoresh Fund, which is providing immediate assistance to the victims of the attacks; and the United Hatzalah rescue service. 

“Tipalti stands with Israel and our Israeli employees at this difficult time. As a company with strong Israeli roots, our thoughts are with those impacted by the attacks,” said Chen Amit, the co-founder and CEO of the Herzliya-based company. 

“We thank our global Tipalti employees, customers, partners, investors, and friends who have been reaching out to us with heartfelt messages and offers of support,” Amit said. 

“We are thankful for the support we’ve been able to provide to those in need through the good work of these organizations and to do our part in supporting Israelis.”

The post Fintech Firm Raises Millions To Aid Israelis After Terror Attacks appeared first on NoCamels.

An electrically-powered sleeve that’s designed to enhance performance and accelerate recovery among athletes is now being repurposed for the Israeli soldiers readying to battle the Palestinian terror group Hamas that rules the Gaza Strip. 

Startup Healables embeds electrodes into an elasticated sleeve controlled by a smartphone app, which generate microcurrents of electricity to stimulate affected cells into repairing themselves – all without the need for medication.

Units of its ElectroGear device were intended to be used in a new pilot with a professional soccer team abroad. But the massive terror attacks in Israel on October 7, in which at least 1,300 people were murdered in their homes and communities by Hamas terrorists, led to the startup finding a different – and more personal – use for them. 

“Those units are now going to be repurposed for our soldiers, because the types of needs that soldiers have in the field are very similar to the types of needs that athletes have,” Healables founder and CEO Moshe Lebowitz tells NoCamels. 

One sniper in the Israel Defense Forces’ elite Duvdevan Unit, which works to prevent terrorist activities, was experiencing knee pain and had difficulty getting into positions that required him to kneel or lay down, resulting in him being unable to aim accurately. 

“After using ElectroGear, he was able to move freely without any problem in his range of motion,” says Lebowitz. “The pain was gone.”

Another soldier from a communications unit had pain in his legs and could not keep up with his brothers-in-arms when transporting heavy specialist equipment.

“With our product he was able to get back and to keep up with everyone,” says Lebowitz.

Each treatment session using the ElectroGear lasts for an hour. The user attaches the patented device to their knee, ankle or shoulder, and activates it using the accompanying app. The ElectroGear device then uses electrodes to send microcurrents of electricity directly to the affected area.

Lebowitz explains that the electricity stimulates the body’s cells to produce more adenosine triphosphate (ATP), its main source of energy. When cells have higher levels of ATP, they have more energy to repair themselves, leading to quicker recovery time. 

Using electric currents is already well-established and widely implemented as a therapy for chronic pain. For example, the TENS (transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation) is a small, battery-operated device used to relieve pain during labor and by people suffering from arthritis, period pain, knee pain and sports injuries.

But Lebowitz says these kinds of devices overload the nervous system with electricity so that the brain is unable to process pain signals, but does not actually help the body recover.

Additionally, electrotherapy is mostly a complicated procedure involving multiple wires and adhesive electrodes, and is better suited to use in clinics rather than in homes or on the go.

The ElectroGear device, on the other hand, is lightweight and flexible. The sleeves are made of washable, stretchable sports fabric, and the electrodes are dry, rather than sticky. It also uses 1,000 times less electricity than a TENS unit, which Lebowitz says is not optimized to recharge the body the way his device does. 

The device is also embedded with sensors that measure the body’s response to the treatment – like heart rate variability, range of motion and respiration – and it uses that information to determine whether the treatment the user is receiving could be improved. 

Smart algorithms within the accompanying app analyze this information and adjust the treatment accordingly. Lebowitz, however, cannot specify how the treatment is optimized.

“There are a lot of different qualities of how electricity interacts with the body,” he says. 

“We’re able to adjust the different settings to be able to go and make sure the user is getting exactly what’s right for them. There are millions of different variables.”

The device had to undergo a couple of alterations before being combat ready, with the way in which it is used to treat soreness and injuries first optimized for soldiers. 

Additionally, the Healables team created an offline mode for the smartphone app to ensure that the security of the soldiers was not compromised – meaning their data is saved on the phone itself and is not uploaded to the cloud. 

“But it’s pretty much the same,” says Lebowitz. “People need to rest and recover, whether they are playing soccer or are on the battlefield.”

The Jerusalem-based startup, too, has been affected by the ongoing war, with members of its team drafted into the army. And one of the startup’s facilities, in the area surrounding Gaza, was affected during the October 7 terror attack.

Healables is now accepting donations on the ElectroGear website for people wishing to purchase the device for Israeli soldiers.  

“When you’re deployed in the field, you don’t have the same access to medical care that you would have otherwise,” Lebowitz says. “A product like this can really be a game-changer for having soldiers that are combat ready.”

The post Startup Repurposes Sports Tech For Israeli Soldiers In Battle appeared first on NoCamels.

Global business analytics company CB Insights has named five firms with an Israeli presence in its 2023 list of the most promising private fintech companies in the world. 

CB Insights says this year’s Fintech 100 includes companies from 24 nations at varying stages of development, who together have raised almost $22 billion since 2019. 

The five companies are: 

AccessFintech – a platform for financial brokers and institutions to automate the settlement of securities trades, reducing costs and potential errors 

Fairmatic – a fleet insurance company that uses data and AI to create a more personalized insurance option, incentivizing safety with savings 

Liquidity Group – allows business to access funding with minimal delays, providing term sheets from $2 million to-$100 million to eligible late-stage tech companies, usually within 48 hours 

Novidea – the company’s cloud-based platform for the insurance sector consolidates all the data required for managing the entire insurance distribution lifecycle

ONE ZERO Digital Bank – Israel’s first internet bank and the country’s first new bank in over 40 years. Owned by Mobileye co-founder Amnon Shashua, ONE ZERO has no physical branches and conducts all its banking activity online. 

The post 5 Companies With Israel Ties Make List Of Top 100 Fintech Firms  appeared first on NoCamels.

An Israeli startup has found a way to cultivate nutrients from berries, without needing to extract them from the fruits themselves. 

Novella identifies plant tissues with the highest concentration of nutrients, such as in stems, fruits and flowers, and grows these specific cells in bioreactors in a method that is similar to cultivated meat.

The plant tissue is preserved in the startup’s cell bank and is utilized for all future productions, making it possible to bypass cultivating the entire plant and preventing variability in nutrients.

Novella says that it can maintain the berry’s various nutrients, including vitamins, minerals, and even the nutrients known as anthocyanins – the deep red, purple and blue pigments found in these fruits.

Now, the startup has unveiled prototypes of its new berry-derived nutrients, as well as a new facility that comprises both its operational headquarters and a pilot plant that will accelerate the plant cell cultivation from five varieties of berries. 

“Berries cultivated solely for supplements on average require about 2,000 acres to yield just one ton of polyphenolic [micronutrients] compounds,” said Itay Dana, co-founder and chief business development officer of Novella.

“We have condensed that vast tract of agriculture into a 10K liter bioreactor that produces the same quantity of pure, high-value ingredients,” he said.

“This frees up valuable land for cultivating food crops and provides a host of other economic and environmental benefits, beginning with the complete elimination of waste,” explained Dana.

“Our method requires minimal land, energy, and water usage and exerts a minimal carbon footprint. We can produce high-quality ingredients at affordable prices, independently of climate fluctuations, logistical challenges, or social and political constraints.”

The post Israeli Startup Creates Berry Nutrients With No Fruit Required  appeared first on NoCamels.

An Israeli startup has identified tens of thousands of fake social media accounts that are supportive of Hamas, most of which were created more than a year ago and were largely inactive until the massive terror attacks in Israel on October 7. 

At least 1,300 people were murdered when Hamas terrorists from Gaza struck Israeli homes and communities. Dozens more – including children, women and the elderly – were dragged into the coastal enclave as Hamas hostages. 

In the aftermath of the attacks, Tel Aviv-based Cyabra, which monitors threats and misinformation on social media, has identified more than 40,000 fake accounts supportive of Hamas across all platforms. 

And Cyabra’s VP of Marketing Rafi Mendelsohn tells NoCamels that they all sprung into action in a social media war that ran parallel to the brutal October 7 attacks. 

This coordinated action by such a vast number of fake accounts, he says, points to an “enormous level” of planning and organization. 

“Over 40,000 fake accounts that were pro-Hamas and Hamas sympathetic across the social media platforms… many of them had been created a year, year and a half in advance, and were kind of sitting [and] waiting,” Mendelsohn says. 

“Then once everything started over the course of Saturday and Sunday [October 7 and 8], these accounts had actually posted hundreds of times having not done much previously in the year and a half before,” he explains. 

The company describes itself as a “social threat intelligence” company, which works to expose online risk to individuals, institutions or even governments. It says its mission is to fight misinformation, claiming it can root out even the most sophisticated threats. 

Unique AI software created by Cyabra quickly identifies malicious actors using social media and other online spaces such as comment sections, to spread false information. 

According to Mendelsohn, Cyabra spotted three primary narratives being pushed on social media by these accounts, which he says required “a lot of coordination.” 

The first narrative, disseminated by the fake accounts largely in Arabic for an Arab audience, claimed that the sheer number of Israeli hostages seized by Hamas meant that Israel was about to release Palestinian prisoners held in its jails.  

The second narrative, which Mendelsohn says was mainly being pushed in English, highlighted the alleged humanity and compassion of Hamas towards its hostages. 

Mendelsohn calls this second narrative “an influence operations campaign,” which rather than creating fake news, manipulates existing footage and imagery that people have likely already seen from reputable news sources and recontextualizes it to fit the Hamas narrative. 

He cites the example of footage of Israelis being taken by force into Gaza, something that was widely aired by the established media outlets, but which was later cropped in such a way as to make it appear that they were not being ill-treated. 

It is a phenomenon called “deceptive imagery persuasion,” Mendelsohn says. He points out that disinformation is not always about false information, but can also be about trying to sway people into believing a certain narrative over another. 

“If you create a lie, you’ve got to convince people of that lie. Whereas if you take something that is kind of rooted in truth, or exists, and then you’re recontextualizing it in order to put out a false narrative, you might think it’s more real.” 

The final narrative being promulgated by these fake accounts, he says, focused on the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, a long-standing flashpoint for tensions between Israel and Palestinains. 

This third message was spread in English and Arabic and claimed that the purported threat by Israeli security forces to the mosque and its Muslim worshippers was so great that Hamas “didn’t really have a choice” but to act as it did. 

The fact that these three narratives were being promoted in different languages, he says, shows “another layer of sophistication” in the activity of the fake accounts. 

A similar level of sophistication, according to Mendelsohn, can be seen in the way in which these fake accounts use both pro-Hamas and pro-Israel hashtags in order to insert their content into as wide an audience as possible. 

This “incredible” sophistication, he says, “is definitely more akin to a state level actor type operation.”

Cyabra is working with intelligence agencies, Mendelsohn says, without elaborating which. One of the things that the company has imparted to those intelligence agencies is how much personal information about the hostages themselves has been shared online. 

This information, he warns, is a weapon that is being utilized by Hamas.

Mendelsohn says that the fake social media accounts such as the ones apparently created for the Hamas terror attacks on October 7 are one of “the key channels” that today’s enemies would look to using. 

They have been successfully deployed by Russia during its invasion of Ukraine, and, according to Mendelsohn, they are an increasingly effective tactic. 

It is, he says, “certainly cheaper than creating an army.”  

The post Hamas Planned Social Media War Alongside Terror, Startup Finds   appeared first on NoCamels.

A group of high-tech entrepreneurs has launched a new initiative focused on helping and empowering children who have lost one or both of their parents in the massive terror attack by Hamas terrorists on October 7. 

The goal of the Israeli Children’s Fund (ICF) is to offer the beneficiaries sustained support until early adulthood by committing $100,000 to each child, along with mentorship and support.

The ICF has a fundraising target of $100 million. 

Their hope is that the aid will help the children feel supported as they reintegrate into normal life, find adoptive homes or new legal guardians, all of whom now face additional financial responsibilities.

The organization’s first action will be to meet the financial needs of the guardian families now responsible for the care of these children. 

The ICF was founded by high-tech entrepreneurs such as Amit Rosenzweig, CEO of Ottopia; Michelle Latzer, CEO of Tweed; Tom Livne, CEO of Verbit; and Tomer Levy, CEO of Logz.io. Various venture capitalists such as Eyal Niv, a partner in Pitango, also took part in the creation of the fund. 

All participating companies are volunteering their resources and will serve as virtual mentors and guides, connecting these children to the industry and various opportunities while offering as much support as possible and leveraging the strength of the Israeli high tech industry.

“When we embarked on this project, we had the tragedy and the humanitarian crisis following the brutal Hamas terrorist attack on Saturday, October 7, 2023, firmly in our hearts and minds,” said Rosenzweig.

“These children, now forced into a harsh reality, represent our collective future, and we are committed to doing everything in our power to help them overcome and thrive.”

For more information and donations: https://www.israelichildrensfund.org/

The post High-Tech Entrepreneurs To Raise $100M For Israeli Orphans appeared first on NoCamels.

More than 100 Tel Aviv restaurants have rushed to acquire kosher certification so they could cook meals for soldiers, hospitals, and the evacuees of the Gaza border communities. 

The city’s Haachaim (the brothers) restaurant alone has been turning out some 20,000 meals every single day, with the help of around 300 volunteers, according to the Times of Israel. Other Tel Aviv restaurants are also dishing out thousands of meals every day.

But Haachim, like many of the other Tel Aviv restaurants aiding the war effort, are nonkosher restaurants, which rules out their food for many of the soldiers, hospital staff and displaced and evacuated citizens who do observe Jewish dietary laws. 

Thus, they have received emergency temporary certification from the city’s rabbinate to be able to provide those meals, the report says.  

The certification was made possible by former chief rabbi Yisrael Lau, who issued a Halachic (Jewish law) ruling to allow nonkosher restaurants to have emergency kosher certification for this period. 

Shalom Simcha Elbert, a head chef at OCD, one of Israel’s best restaurants and also located in Tel Aviv, also received emergency kosher certification so as to aid the war effort. 

“Two-thirds of the people we’ll be feeding are kosher,” Elbert told the Times of Israel.

“For about seven hours, we had to hold 10,000 meals because we didn’t have the certification,” he said.

“So now we’re closed on Shabbat,” said Elbert. “We don’t believe in keeping kosher and it’s not what we do day to day, but we want to feed people in a way that honors them.”

The post Tel Aviv Eateries Go Kosher To Cater For Soldiers, Evacuees appeared first on NoCamels.

Members of the international business community are rallying in support of Israel following the terror attacks in the south of the country on Saturday that killed more than 1,200 people. 

Global investment banking and capital markets firm Jefferies announced that it has raised $13 million from its clients, partners, and employees, which will be passed on to Israeli charities providing aid to the victims of the attacks.

One of those charities is the Magen David Adom ambulance service, which will receive a donation of $2 million from Jefferies, an amount matched by former New York mayor and long time MDA donor Mike Bloomberg. 

Similarly, a donation of $2 million to the United Hatzalah rescue service will also be matched by Rabbi Erica Gerson and her businessman husband Mark.  

“We are devastated by the violence and terror that has affected families and communities in Israel,” Jefferies CEO Rich Handler said, according to the Times of Israel. 

“Charities working to provide aid and services to those wounded, traumatized or displaced will receive our support,” he said.

The New York-headquartered company has offices all over the world, including Tel Aviv.

The post Global Financial Firm Raises $13M For Israeli Aid Groups appeared first on NoCamels.

An Israeli developer of a remote healthcare monitoring system that helps senior citizens live independently in their own homes is expanding its operations within the UK.

Essence SmartCare’s platform uses detection devices and smart software to track a senior’s daily activities. It notifies family, caregivers or monitoring centers and offers preventative care and emergency assistance if necessary.

Now, the Herzliya-based firm is expanding its UK logistics hub to offer its services to more than 12.7 million seniors living in the country.

City councils that have already used its solution include Liverpool, Essex, Dorset, Devon County and London Borough of Barking and Dagenham. 

Prior to the expansion, Essence conducted a survey with Kantar, a leading analytics company, and found that 70 percent of UK-based seniors do not have a monitoring system in place, making it difficult for caregivers to provide better care. The study also found 50 percent of family caregivers experience high levels of stress around their parents’ wellbeing.

“This logistics hub serves as testament to Essence’s unwavering commitment to provide best-in-class healthcare solutions that bring about a better and safer future,” said Dr. Haim Amir, CEO and Founder of Essence Group, parent company of Essence SmartCare.

“Our investment into the market is driven by a need to bring a superior service to our customers and partners, and the augmentation of our UK presence with this new facility is a major step towards optimizing a fast and seamless service for all.”

The post Israeli Remote Monitoring System For Seniors Expands In UK appeared first on NoCamels.

Tesla boss Elon Musk has announced that superchargers for the company’s electric cars will be free in Israel as the country copes with devastating attacks from Hamas in Gaza that killed at least 1,200 people. 

“All Tesla Superchargers in Israel are free,” Musk wrote on Wednesday evening in a brief message on the social media platform he owns. 

The company later said that the policy was in place until further notice. 

Tesla began selling its electric cars in Israel in March 2021, and there are now more than 10,000 of the vehicles in the country, according to Globes. 

Superchargers, as the name suggests, are the company’s fastest way of charging its vehicles, able to extend the cars’ range by up to 200 miles in just a quarter of an hour. There are 17 of them across Israel, according to Tesla’s website. 

The post Tesla Makes Superchargers Free In Israel In Wartime appeared first on NoCamels.

The umbrella organization for Israel’s high-tech and life sciences sectors has pledged to support the country following the Hamas attacks on Saturday that killed at least 1,200 people. 

Israel Advanced Technology Industries (IATI) said its members have been involved in activities to support both soldiers preparing for action in Gaza and civilians who have been under repeated rocket fire from the Hamas-run Strip since Saturday morning. 

“The Israeli and global high-tech companies incorporated into the IATI, have been engaged in recent days in a series of actions designed to help the war effort, both on the home front and on the front,” said Karin Mayer Rubinstein, the CEO and president of the IATI. 

“As much as it is unbearably difficult, we are obliged to continue our business and personal lives, to continue our investments, to strengthen the tech companies, for the sake of our families, our colleagues, our companies, our employees and our investors, and in doing so we will make a significant contribution to the economic and national resilience of the State of Israel,” she said. 

Other members of Israel’s high-tech sector have also taken action to support the country. These include Mobileye, a leading autonomous driving company, which is launching an aid program for victims of the conflict, and tech guru Yuval Keshtcher, who has created a searchable database of the names of those believed abducted to Gaza. 

The post High-Tech Umbrella Group Working To Support Troops, Victims appeared first on NoCamels.

An Israeli biotech company has unveiled an AI platform to help accelerate the development of new vaccines and therapeutics that target specific tissues in the body. 

Mana.bio uses machine learning models to predict desirable properties for the nanoparticles used in these new drugs. It then uses robots to synthesize these formulations, and uses artificial intelligence to screen them for their efficacy and safety. 

All experimental results are transferred into the AI platform, which helps the machine learning models improve on a weekly basis.

The announcement of the new Lipid Nanoparticle (LNP) platform comes on the heels of the startup’s recently closed $19.5 million seed financing round, which will help it develop the solution further. 

The startup’s technology is based on academic research from the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. 

“We believe that artificial intelligence methods provide a unique way to learn from the world’s previously generated LNP data, novel data that we generate every day in our own lab, and even the design principles of adjacent non-LNP delivery systems,” said Yogev Debbi, co-founder and CEO of Mana.bio.

“Mana.bio’s integrated experimental and machine learning platform enables the discovery of smarter, faster, more precise delivery formulations to unlock the field of nucleic acid-based and genetic medicines,” he said.

“We are encouraged by our platform’s early in vivo success and for its potential to deliver breakthrough therapies for a broad range of diseases.”

The post Startup Develops Drug-Improving Solution, Raises $19.5M appeared first on NoCamels.

Driverless cars are the future. But for the ordinary motorist, that future is still a way off.

The AI that drives autonomous vehicles is clever, but not clever enough. Yet.

It struggles with what engineers call “corner cases” – the unexpected and unpredictable set of circumstances that currently call for human, rather than artificial intelligence.

So if someone places a traffic one on the car’s hood, the AI will freeze. If high winds bring down a branch, a sink hole opens up in the road and a runaway shopping cart hits the car during a freak sandstorm, AI will be stumped.

We’d use our common sense and life experience to deal with these challenges. AI doesn’t have any.

That’s where Ottopia, a Tel Aviv-based startup, comes in. It provides human assistance to vehicles that are already operating on public roads, and elsewhere, without a driver.

At the moment we’re mostly talking about the robotaxis that are ferrying passengers around a small number of cities in the US, but in the next few years it will also include trucks operating on pre-defined routes.

It’s all about “controlling the environment,” says Paul Kandel, the company’s Director of Business Development.

The more variables there are, the more challenging it is for AI to cope.

By reducing those variables, some cities in the US, China and elsewhere are able to allow driverless vehicles on their roads. They’re classified in jargon of the driverless industry as Level Four, which is one step from total autonomy.

They may be restricted to certain roads or certain times of the day, to keep those variables to a manageable minimum.

The vehicles don’t need a full-time driver, but they may need their hand holding if the going gets tough.

Ottopia does that hand-holding – or “teleoperations” – with sophisticated software and a robust, patented technology that guarantees near-uninterrupted contact between vehicle and command center. The last thing you need in a driverless emergency is a patchy Wi-Fi signal.

“The simplest level of teleoperation is where the remote operator is monitoring a vehicle,” says Kandel.

“The second level is remote assistance, where the vehicle might say, for example, I’m not sure what to do in this scenario, because I came across a new construction site that’s not on my map, or there’s a there’s a car blocking my lane. And the third level is actual remote driving.”

That’s basically when an operator in the command center grabs the steering wheel, puts their foot on the pedal and takes full control.

Ottopia says the technology breakthrough that sets it apart from other companies in teleoperations is its ability to maintain contact with the vehicles it’s controlling.

“There are some other good companies out there,” says Kendal. “But when we’ve gone through the evaluations with customers and potential customers, I’d say we are pretty consistently in the lead in terms of the lowest latency, highest reliability and best cybersecurity architecture.”

Ottopia has a number of patents around what’s called network bonding, which means using any available data to “bond” into one data stream.

“Our technology has a bunch of layers of redundancies and fallbacks built in,” says Kendal. “So in a worst case, if you completely lose a connection, you will still have collision avoidance and safety critical systems on the vehicle.

“Our software squeezes a lemon out of everything that network has to offer, to get the best performance possible.”

BMW chose Ottopia as the “preferred multi SIM teleoperation technology” to support its autonomous driving services.

The startup also provides the teleoperations for US company Motional, which launched robotaxis last year in Las Vegas in collaboration with cab services Uber and Lyft. For the time being, they only operate on weekdays during daylight hours and on restricted routes. Passengers don’t pay during the current trial period.

If the vehicle encounters a problem it can’t deal with, a teleoperator will either offer guidance or take over.

Ottopia also provides remote driving and assistance software to US company Magna for its “last mile” delivery robots, which started delivering pizzas in Detroit, USA last March. Their vehicles fitted with the Ottopia platform drive on public roads at up to 20mph.

And last month Ottopia announced a partnership with San Francisco-based Serve Robotics to develop its autonomous sidewalk delivery robots.

Ottopia’s software also works with autonomous vehicles in industrial settings, such as forklifts, trucks, yard trucks and construction machines, where the environment can be controlled.

But drivers like you and me must wait for the technology to develop – best guess is a decade – and for the prices to become realistic, before we can fully embrace it.

“The industry as a whole is realizing that for consumer vehicles that you and I own it’s going to take a long time for our autonomy to really be there,” says Kendal.

But there may still be benefits in the near future. “I think that in the meantime, there’s  a lot that we can do with our customers to bring the value of  a driverless experience,” he says.

That means a remote human driver could take over the controls, drop you off at a restaurant, find a parking space, and collect you later, after you’ve enjoyed your meal – and a couple of glasses of wine.

The post How Human Intelligence Is Helping To Drive AI Cars appeared first on NoCamels.

An Israeli tech entrepreneur has created a database of the names of the people missing since Hamas terrorists attacked southern Israel on Saturday morning, killing at least 900 people and abducting dozens more into the Gaza Strip.

Former combat soldier Yuval Keshtcher and other tech experts began discussing ways to help shortly after the attacks began, CTech reported.

“There was so much chaos due to the surprising nature of events,” he said, according to the report.

“We understood that there were lots of missing people, especially from the rave, and lots of Whatsapp groups for missing people. The first thing that I wanted to do was try to organize the chaos.”

Within hours, Keshtcher had created the Swords of Steel platform, named after Israel’s military operation launched in the wake of the deadly attacks.

The database lets people search the names of those missing since the start of the attacks and even add names to the list. It went live Saturday night and by Sunday morning had already briefly crashed.

As of Monday afternoon, they had had around 3,000 enquiries, although there are multiple requests for information about one person.

Keshtcher said the creators are working with Zaka, Israel’s voluntary search and rescue organization, to keep the database updated, and have shared the platform with the Israel Defense Forces.

The post Tech Guru Creates Database Of Israelis Missing In Hamas Attack appeared first on NoCamels.

With a nation in mourning and under fire, Israeli civilians across the country have sprung into action: driving reserve troops to mobilization points in their own cars; collecting food and toiletries for soldiers; and donating essentials, clothes and toys for the traumatized residents of the south who have been evacuated. 

Israel’s high-tech sector has also mobilized, with companies donating money, manpower and even ingenuity to help what has been a war effort since last Saturday morning. Here are just some of them: 

Mobileye 

Mobileye autonomous driving tech company said it is launching an aid program for victims of the conflict. 

The company, which was purchased by Intel in 2017, said it is donating 5 million shekels (approx $1.2 million) to non-profit organizations providing aid to Israelis who have been evacuated from their homes close to Gaza. 

“At this time of uncertainty, we choose action and support, and are doing everything in our power to assist the war effort and support the home front,” the company said. 

“Mobileye expresses deep sorrow and shares in the grief of the families of those killed. We all hope that all the captives and those missing will return to their homes and their families, and wish for quiet days soon.”  

Cyabra

Tel Aviv startup Cyabra, which uses proprietary AI to expose false information online, says it is working with Israeli organizations and journalists to uncover malicious actors on social media. 

“Our mission at Cyabra has always been to fight those using social media for malicious intent [and] as an Israeli company, we are seeing these destructive forces on our doorstep,” said CEO Dan Brahmy in a statement released on Sunday. 

“Over the last 24 hours, we have analyzed close to 1M posts, pictures, and videos in order to uncover over 70K fake profiles, controlled by the same murderous groups you are seeing on your TV screens for the purpose of spreading disinformation, or to gather sensitive details about their targets. We have shared our findings with the relevant media and security teams,” he said.

Cyabra also said that anyone who wishes to join their efforts can email the company at help@cyabra.com. 

OurCrowd

OurCrowd, Israel’s most active startup crowdfunding platform, is also mobilizing support for various initiatives to help victims of the conflict.

The firm is raising money for the affected families and is organizing blood donations. 

“Israel is now in a state of war. We do not know how long this situation, and the fighting, will continue,” said OurCrowd founder Jon Medved in a statement Monday.

“To defend itself, the Israeli army has mobilized many of its reserve units, including some OurCrowd employees and their family members,” he said.

“Unfortunately, we have prior experience with these kinds of situations, and as in the past we will continue to serve you from our many global offices.”

The company has invited anyone in need of assistance to reach out to them via their contact page or email to support@ourcrowd.com. 

More Foods

Israeli startup More Foods, which uses pumpkin and sunflower seeds to create meat alternatives, will be donating its product to restaurants and caterers who are preparing food for the soldiers, hospitals and the residents in southern Israel.

“We at More Foods send our condolences to the families whose loved ones have been murdered, kidnapped and wounded,” the company said in a statement Monday

“We wish for this to end soon, and may we live in peace.”

More Foods also said that anyone who knows of caterers or restaurants wishing to receive a shipment of their product should contact them via eyal.shahar@more-foods.co.

The post Israel’s Tech Sector Mobilizes To Aid War Effort, Assist Victims appeared first on NoCamels.

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Israel and Azerbaijan will cooperate on developing space technologies under a historic agreement that was just signed between the two nations. 

The agreement was presented at the 74th International Astronautical Congress in Baku, Azerbaijan, which took place this week. It was signed by Uri Oron, the Israel Space Agency’s Director General, and his Azerbaijani counterpart Samaddin Asadov.

The agreement, which is the first of its kind between these two countries, will lead to joint space-related projects, including the development of satellites, space exploration robots and vehicles, Earth observation and monitoring, and more. 

The conference also saw the finalization of a $120 million deal between Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) and Azerbaijani space agency Azercosmos. Under the deal, IAI will develop surveillance satellites, space-related innovation and entrepreneurship centers and a joint business center, all within Azerbaijan. 

“The signing of the joint declaration between the space agencies establishes and strengthens the relationship forged between the countries,” said Uri Oron.

“In an era in which the field of space is growing rapidly, the agreement will allow the State of Israel to have business, research and academic collaborations that are essential for the development of the space field in [in the country].”

Israel’s ambassador to Azerbaijan, George Dick, said: “The joint work of all the parties on the Israeli and Azerbaijani sides led to the signing of the understandings, with the intention of expanding cooperation in the near future.”

“The relationship between Israel and Azerbaijan will deepen and expand into new technological fields for the benefit of both countries and peoples.”

The post Azerbaijan And Israel Sign Historic Deal On Space Tech appeared first on NoCamels.

An Israeli biopharma firm has developed an effective treatment for the rare and deadly Ebola virus, using an existing therapy for COVID-19. 

In a new study, RedHill Biopharma found that twice-daily oral doses of its opaganib medication boosted survival from about six days to 11 days in mice infected with the virus. 

Its treatment has previously been shown to treat COVID-19, radiation injuries, cancer and other viruses.

Opaganib is a host-directed therapy, meaning it changes the local environment in which the pathogen exists to make it less favorable for it to grow and live in, rather than destroying it directly. 

According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Ebola virus is transmitted mostly through contact with an infected animal or person. Symptoms of the virus – including diarrhea, vomiting and hemorrhaging – become more severe as the disease progresses. 

There are only two US Food and Drug Administration-approved treatments for Ebola, both of which are injected to prevent the virus from entering a person’s cells. 

The study was funded by the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), whose mission is to protect soldiers from biological threats, while also investigating disease outbreaks and threats to public health. 

“The more we learn about [opaganib], its novel host-directed mechanism of action, and its growing safety and tolerability database, the more promising it appears,” said Reza Fathi, PhD, RedHill’s SVP R&D.

“We believe opaganib offers a potential breakthrough for fighting a virus capable of causing devastating outbreaks of disease in the countries least equipped to cope with them.”

The post Israeli COVID Treatment Found To Be Effective Against Ebola Virus appeared first on NoCamels.

In 2010, 11-year-old Daniel Yuval was badly injured during a family hike in the Golan Heights when he accidentally wandered onto a snow-covered minefield and detonated a landmine. 

This terrible incident, which cost young Daniel his right leg, is unfortunately not an isolated case in Israel. 

Now, scientists at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have teamed up with biotechnology startup Enzymit to test a new, breakthrough method that uses the E. coli bacterium to sense trace amounts of a chemical that leaks out of buried landmines. 

Thousands of fields around Israel have been laden with mines since the 1967 Six-Day War, with little but yellow warning signs and barbed wire to ward off wayfarers, which can be hard to see. 

Efforts to remove these landmines have been painstaking and slow, especially since the most commonly used method today is still the metal detector – which is both dangerous for the person who must manually enter the minefield in order to use it, and inefficient as it raises the alert on any kind of metal, from discarded shrapnel to old soda cans. 

The bacteria, which has been engineered to light up when it detects the presence of dinitrotoluene (DNT), is simply sprayed above a potential minefield. A drone then flies overhead and snaps a photo using a specialized camera that reveals the location of the mines in luminescent colors.  

E. coli – formally known as escherichia coli – is a bacteria found in the intestines of healthy people. And while most forms of the bacterium are harmless or cause mild stomach upsets, some strains can lead to more severe symptoms.  

The E. coli strain used in the process, however, has been engineered to die out shortly after it is dispersed, ensuring that it poses no risk to human health or the environment. 

Sensitive Solution 

The new mine-detecting method has been under development for over a decade at Professor Shimshon Belkin’s Environmental Microbiology and Biosensor Laboratory at the university.

The team was inspired by the natural properties of E. coli – which use specific proteins to detect DNT, a great source of nutrients for bacteria – to create their solution.

The lab recently partnered with the startup, a move that helped to accelerate their landmine solution by creating a protein that makes the E. coli more sensitive to detecting DNT, while also not giving off false positives. 

After the protein was added to the engineered strain of E. coli, it made the solution five times more sensitive to DNT and gave it much faster reaction times when compared to the original engineered strain.

“The problem with many natural proteins is that they’re not optimal for what humans need them to do,” Enzymit CEO Gideon Lapidoth tells NoCamels.

“Millions of years of evolution have optimized this specific protein to be great for what the E. coli needs, but what we needed was for it to be more sensitive, quicker to react and essentially serve a system that could be operational in real-world conditions,” he says.

Enzymit uses computer algorithms to create enzymes (the proteins that create a chemical reaction) with desirable traits. It then generates a new protein sequence that – when inserted into bacteria turns them into “factories” to produce those traits. 

“Think about your standard microphone, which often picks up background noises,” Lapidoth explains. “The ideal mic would only pick up the voice of whoever is speaking at the moment.

“That’s essentially what we did with this specific protein. We optimized the signal-to-noise ratio, so it doesn’t give off false positives when it detects something – it only gives off a signal when it actually detects the molecule of interest.” 

This process, he says, is already being used by alternative protein companies, who inject DNA that encodes for milk proteins into yeast and extract the protein from the yeast to create dairy products without the need for cows. 

Multipurpose Options 

Enzymit and the team at the Belkin lab have already proven the efficacy of the jointly engineered strain. Now, they’re conducting field testing of the entire solution, which involves dispersing the bacteria and verifying that its luminescence always shows up in photographs. They believe that the system will be operational for “non-civilian use” next year. 

Both teams believe that this solution – which is the first of its kind – can have many use cases. They’re already expanding the bacteria’s capabilities to detect chemicals used in other kinds of explosives, such as RDX. 

The solution’s potential, says Lapidoth, may be able to go even further – from detecting gas and oil leaks, to even being used in airport security.

His computational algorithms have been used to produce prebiotics found in breast milk as well as hyaluronic acid, which is used in cosmetics to reduce scarring and wrinkles and help wounds heal faster. 

Lapidoth himself served in the Magan Unit of the Israel Defense Forces, which rescues people stuck in minefields and deals with mines found outside of a designated minefield. 

“I think what’s exciting for me is that this really shows you the applications of synthetic biology that go way beyond pharma or food,” says Lapidoth.

“The fact that we’ve shown that we can actually take this way beyond those applications for stuff that people haven’t thought were possible shows you its enormous potential,” he says. 

The post Using E. coli Bacteria To Detect Landmines From Afar appeared first on NoCamels.

Israeli researchers have made a breakthrough in understanding the mechanism that causes the onset of Alzheimer’s disease. 

The Amyloid beta protein is believed to be one of the primary causes of Alzheimer’s, as it causes what is called amyloid plaque to build up in the brains of people with the disease. The plaque forms in the spaces between the nerve cells, which disrupts cell function in memory.

Now, researchers at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa believe that this toxic protein accumulates in the brain because of a disruption in the body’s mechanism to clear proteins, known as the ubiquitin-proteasome system.

To test this, the team created a model of human neurons in order to examine the role of the ubiquitin system in the development of the disease. 

Their results found that damage to the ubiquitin system leads to the accumulation of toxic proteins even in healthy tissue, mimicking symptoms of Alzheimer’s. 

They then engineered an RNA molecule – which contains instructions for cellular behavior – to treat the damaged parts of the ubiquitin system, which alleviated Alzheimer’s symptoms in the experimental model. 

The researchers believe that this platform that they have developed could be used to screen drugs for the treatment and prevention of Alzheimer’s disease. They say that this platform will help reduce animal experiments in the development of new Alzheimer’s therapies, because of the use of a model of human neurons. 

The full study was published in the academic journal Nature Communications.

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Israeli technology that uses pineapple proteins to treat severe burns will be used to treat wounded US soldiers in the field. 

Biotech company MediWound has created a non-surgical treatment that is applied to the dead tissue of patients with second- and third-degree burns, and removes it within four hours.

The NexoBrid treatment is enriched with bromelain, an enzyme found in the pineapple stem and pineapple juice, which helps the body to fight pain and swelling. It also helps to mitigate a wound deteriorating as well as future scarring.

The US Department of Defense (DoD) has now awarded $6.5 million to advance the development of a new, temperature-stable formulation of NexoBrid, so it can serve as a first-line solution to treat burn injuries outside of the hospital. 

The DoD grant was funded by MTEC, a biomedical technology consortium working to advance innovative medical solutions for US military personnel. 

Severe burns are normally treated through debridement – the surgical removal of dead tissue that may result in loss of blood and viable tissue. 

“We are honored to further our collaboration with the US Department of Defense,” said Ofer Gonen, CEO of MediWound.

“Our shared vision of enhancing treatment outcomes for traumatic burns on the battlefield will ensure NexoBrid’s availability for military use,” he said.

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An artificial intelligence platform developed by an Israeli startup can reveal whether a patient is at risk of a heart attack by analyzing their routine chest CT scans. 

Results from a new study testing Nanox.AI’s HealthCCSng algorithm on such scans found that 58 percent of patients unknowingly had moderate to severe levels of coronary artery calcium (CAC) or plaque. 

CAC is the strongest predictor of future cardiac events, and measuring it typically subjects patients to an additional costly scan that is not normally covered by insurance companies. 

HealthCCSng was tested on the scans of 326 patients at Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikva, central Israel.

Among the patients who participated in the study, 101 (31 percent) had severe CAC, 88 (27 percent) had moderate CAC, and 137 (42 percent) had low CAC. 

“The patients in this study received routine CT scans that had nothing to do with a cardiac concern,” said Professor Ran Kornowski, Director of the Cardiology Center at Beilinson Hospital, who led the study.

“Nanox’s AI technology can enable physicians to route these unsuspecting individuals with high CAC levels to the appropriate care pathways and treatment,” he said.

“While the study’s findings were staggering, we are encouraged by the important role AI can play in early risk identification and prevention of cardiac events.”

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How do you maximize food production and prevent waste in your supply chain at a time when climate change and a growing global population are placing an increasing strain on resources? 

According to Israeli startup Blue Circle, you do it in the same way you protect your technology from hackers: with artificial intelligence, machine learning and huge amounts of data. 

This data-led approach, the company says, helps to reduce the approximately 30 percent of food that is wasted worldwide each year along the production chain – a statistic borne out by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). 

The FAO says there are around 870 million on the planet who do not have enough to eat, and reducing the world’s food wastage by just one quarter would end global hunger. 

Blue Circle CEO Ilai Englard tells NoCamels that the company aims to build on existing agricultural practices, using sophisticated technology to better help understand the situation on the ground and how the supply chain can be optimized. 

“We have a [supply] chain that is extremely complex, and it’s impossible for a human being to understand what’s going on across the network, all the time,” Englard explains. 

“We look at the entire value chain from the climate and environment all the way to the consumer and everything in between,” he says. “The harvest and the production and inventory and sales and distribution, all of that – end to end.” 

Added to this information is all the scientific research available about a particular crop, including weather and climate data, information about disease and pests, and prices and inventory.  

And then, Englard explains, all of this information is fed into the company’s specially built AI platform, which uses it to provide insights into a particular crop. This helps farmers to better understand what is happening on the ground, and whether the multitude of factors that go into crop production are all on track. 

The Tel Aviv-based company was founded in 2018, with backing from venture capitalists and private investors. And with such a forensic approach to the food production process, it is no surprise that the creators have defense tech experience, coming from the Israel Defense Forces’ renowned signal intelligence unit 8200. 

This deep experience of digital processes and the holistic focus on the food supply chain are what sets Blue Circle apart, Englard says, rather than concentrating on individual issues such as irrigation or pest control like many other companies in the field.  

“The chain is very, very complex,” he says. “So you have to understand – in order to really make an impact, you need to understand the entire chain.” 

Englard gives the example of the wine industry, whose long years of meticulous record keeping makes it “ideal” for the data-conscious Blue Circle platform.  

“This industry has decades of very rich data,” he says. ”They know exactly what happened in the vineyards and what they planted; how they treated each and every vineyard over the years and when they harvested and what the grape profile was.” 

This data-focused method covers every stage of the wine growing process, which he says will allow Blue Circle to help increase the flexibility across the entire production chain, allowing wineries to improve efficiency, quality and profitability, while also conserving resources.

He cites the example of wineries in Napa Valley, an area of California famed for its vineyards, where a period of little rain and slightly lowered temperatures led the platform to predict a longer growing season, which in turn meant an increased risk of yield loss due to disease. This allowed the wineries to be ready for these outcomes. 

The company works with a number of vineyards in Israel and abroad, including some of the largest wineries in the world, as they manage current and prepare for future challenges due to climate change. And it wants to expand its reach across the food production world. 

“The basic intelligence for our system is something that we want to make accessible to everyone – this is our vision,” Englard says.

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Two Israeli drone companies have joined forces to create a package that gives authorities a more effective way of managing drone airspace activity. 

Tel Aviv-based High Lander has developed the Vega UTM software, which autonomously manages drone traffic in real time and is capable of detecting even when multiple drones take off and land simultaneously. 

Under the partnership, Sentrycs, which is also based in Tel Aviv, will incorporate its technology into High Lander’s software. Sentrycs has developed a solution that detects, identifies and disconnects drones from their remote controls without line of sight.

The new, integrated solution can coordinate flight plans at scale, detect unapproved flights and the location of their pilots and force unauthorized drones to land safely with no collateral damage.

“We are very excited by this partnership. These are two solutions that complement each other perfectly,” said Alon Abelson, CEO and co-founder of High Lander.

“Vega UTM sets a global standard for consolidated airspace awareness and Sentrycs’ impressive counter-drone technology empowers authorities to directly enforce U-space management decisions,” he said.

“Working together, these solutions create a powerful package capable of combating noncompliant airspace activities, while enabling a drone-based economy that operates in harmony with crewed aviation.”

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Israeli researchers have developed a computer model that proposes ways to use daylight to improve the health of patients in hospitals. 

The computer model developed at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa creates guidelines for hospital rooms, including simple architectural designs such as fully opening windows, adjustable blinds and light shelves that reflect natural daylight into a room. 

The researchers believe that their model can be applied in other environments such as workplaces and educational institutions. 

They additionally stress the importance of re-evaluating daylight availability of a hospital room as the orientation of sunlight changes with every season. 

Prof. Guedi Capeluto of the Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning and master’s student Rinat Hadashi Gannon created their computer model by measuring seasonal daylight in inpatient rooms at the Soroka Medical Center in Be’er Sheva, southern Israel. 

They chose to conduct their research at the most common kind of hospital room in Israel: a two-bed, semi-private room, where the patient in the bed furthest from the window is exposed to insufficient daylight due to the distance from the glass, the screens between beds and the control of curtains and blinds by the patient nearest the window. 

Previous international research has shown that the incorporation of daylight in inpatient wards contributes to lower medication use, reduced length of stay, improved sleep quality, reduction in depression and stress, and even a decrease in mortality rates.

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