Israeli giants of industry such as 3D printer Stratasys and defense technology company Elbit have spent the last eight months developing innovative solutions – not to benefit their businesses, but to ease ongoing issues faced by wounded veterans. 

Restart, a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the lives of Israel’s wounded veterans, recruited these companies to design and produce innovative solutions to the specific needs of 21 vets. 

Each year, the organization’s annual Makers for Heroes program recruits teams of volunteers with relevant qualifications and knowledge to solve problems faced by the vets every day.

The teams of volunteers recently unveiled their solutions to the public at the Makers for Heroes 2023 Finale, held at Bloomfield in Tel Aviv, the country’s national soccer stadium. 

And this year’s turnout was the best the organization has seen so far, according to Restart COO Boaz Hochstein. 

“A lot of people got to be exposed to the veterans and the challenges they’re facing, as well as the organization and the solutions we’re creating through the program,” he tells NoCamels. 

Every year, Restart uses the program to address a major challenge faced by the veteran community. This year, the organization tackled complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) – a condition that leaves a person feeling pain that is disproportionate to their injuries, even years after they were sustained. 

Himself a wounded vet, Hochstein says that while many Israeli veterans deal with CRPS, the syndrome is not truly understood outside of their community – even by medical professionals. 

“We found that more and more vets have been coming to us with CRPS every year,” he says. “So this year, we chose that to be in our spotlight.”

Half of the challenges suggested by this year’s vets were directly related to the personal struggles they face due to this condition. 

Tzahi Atedgi, 47, lost the lower part of his left leg during his service almost 30 years ago, leaving him suffering from CRPS. He had not been able to stand on his leg without deeply hunching his back, and relied on a wheelchair or uncomfortable crutches for mobility.

His dream to stand straight on his leg without pain was made a reality by his team at Restart, which included volunteer specialists from Elbit.

Tzahi’s tailor-made solution came in the form of a leg brace that supports his knee, straightens his leg and elevates his foot so that he can walk with his crutches without feeling pain. 

At the Makers for Heroes finale, he was able to straighten up for the first time in years. This changed his outlook on everything, says Hochstein, helping him reconnect with his estranged family and even land a permanent job just weeks later. 

Hochstein called Tzahi’s experience one of the most emotionally rewarding solutions the program has come up with thus far.

“This is an example of it never being too late to ask for help,” he says. 

Yahel Landau, another one of this year’s vets, is a 24-year-old former member of the Border Police who was wounded during a car ramming. She had lasting foot pain following the attack, to the point where she could not find any shoes that were comfortable to wear. 

Stratasys, a leader in 3D printing, created built-in custom insoles for a pair white Comverse sneakers that let her walk pain-free for the first time since she was wounded. Four days after the Makers for Heroes finale, Landau actually wore the sneakers to walk down the aisle at her wedding, and could even take to the dancefloor at the celebration. 

“When she came to us eight months ago, she said, ‘All I want to do is dance at my wedding and not die walking down the aisle’,” Hochstein recalls. “Seeing pictures and videos of her twirling around the dancefloor was incredible.”

Other solutions from this year’s program included an app that helps CRPS patients monitor their pain and determine whether the treatments they are taking are helping them, and a custom PlayStation controller that attaches to the user’s upper leg so that they can play video games one-handed. 

Tailor-Made Teams 

Each year, the Makers for Heroes program begins with Restart accepting 50 applications from wounded veterans.

The organization then narrows that down to 20-25 proposals, based on the capabilities of its volunteers and partners. It then tries to match each vet with a team it believes are best suited to develop their solution. 

While the program officially comprises just four meetings (a brainstorming session, two hackathons and the finale), Hochstein says most teams meet once every week or two weeks. The wounded veteran is also encouraged to attend to provide input. 

Restart tries to also ensure that each team includes someone who cared for the vet during their rehabilitation. This means that the team includes someone who already knows the vet’s background and the challenges they face, and makes sure that the rest of the team does not push them too hard.

Restart was founded in 2014 to help the many soldiers who were hospitalized during Operation Protective Edge, the military operation in Gaza launched following the abduction and murder of three Israeli teenagers by members of Hamas, the militant group running the coastal enclave. 

Then-Restart CEO Niv Efron told NoCamels last year that the program was created after some members of the high-tech sector visited wounded soldiers. 

“They wanted to volunteer and give something back,” he said. “But they didn’t want to just make them happy – they wanted to do something meaningful.”

Restart hopes to soon mass produce some of these solutions and offer them to other wounded veterans in Israel, and even non-vets dealing with similar challenges.

Hochstein cites one of last year’s solutions as an example – a magnet clip for crutches that ensures they don’t clatter to the ground every time a person sets them aside. 

“This year, we gave out copies of the product to almost 30 different veterans who needed them,” he says.

Hochstein hopes to open up product distribution so wounded veterans can simply apply for them online, and have volunteers offer service repairs when needed.

“It’s the first time we’ve actually done this in such a widespread way,” says Hochstein. “We’ve taken big leaps this year into becoming more substantially impactful.”

The post Tech Innovators Come Together To Help Israel’s Wounded Warriors appeared first on NoCamels.

Israel has long been known for its innovation, earning its moniker of startup nation for its technological advances in medicine, climate change, agriculture and more.

And that innovation has reached the country’s wine market, with sellers and growers alike turning to unique methods of growing, development and even hiring workers.

And as Jews all over the world toast to celebrate Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year), NoCamels celebrates some of those Israeli innovators whose creativity and hard work helped to fill the wine glasses we hold aloft.

Modern Solutions To Ancient Traditions

A trailblazer in the field of modern desert viticulture, Prof. Aaron Fait of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev has played a major role in reviving the once-common wine industry in Israel’s hot, sandy south.

Grapevines are not new to the Middle East’s desert environment, Fait tells NoCamels.

In fact, he says, there is evidence of wine production throughout history in Israel, including presses and quite large-scale production of grapes found in the northern Negev. It was only the advent of the Ottoman Empire in the 13th century that wrought the end of desert viticulture.

But the Israeli wine boom of the past three decades has encompassed the Negev and revived a lost art, Fait explains. Today Israel has hundreds of different wineries of varying sizes, including several dozen in the Negev alone.

A plant biochemist originally specializing in tomatoes, Fait moved to what he calls the more “fun” field of viticulture when he arrived in the Negev from Europe in the 1990s.

He says he saw small wineries sprouting up in the desert and “felt it was really the moment to get into it.”

Because of the desert climate that is vastly different to the conditions in the north and the center of the country – home to most of Israel’s wineries – different growing methods have to be used, Fait explains.

But, he says, the wine growers were experiencing difficulties as they were trying to use the same growing and irrigation practices as vintners in the center and the north of Israel.

“To customize practices that can deal with the environment means a multi-level approach,” he says.

“I felt that there was a lack of understanding and lack of knowledge on how to really grow grapes. And this is why I started multidisciplinary research.”

The first thing to consider was which grapes could thrive in the arid climate of the Negev, and Fait carried out trials of 30 different varieties.

The study showed that white grape varieties were better suited to the climate, mainly because they mature faster and require less exposure to the harsh elements than red varieties. Similarly, grapes in the desert are not grown in clusters on the traditional vine as this also increases exposure to a burning sun in cloudless skies.

Developing greater green canopy cover for the grapes also helped with the issue of irrigation and water conservation, he says, with water scarcity a fact of life in the desert.

And now with the world’s climate changing, Fait is advising wine growers around the world who are dealing with an industry in flux.

“Wine is not dying, but the wine sector needs to adapt,” he says, just as he has done over the past 30 years.

Community Cultivation

Tulip Winery has innovated in a more unusual way – bringing the community of adults with special needs that houses the vineyard into the wine-making process.

Kfar Tikva (Village of Hope), some 10 miles from Israel’s major northern city of Haifa, is a residential community of around 200 adults with cognitive, developmental and emotional disabilities.

The village encourages residents to be as independent as possible in all aspects of their lives, including where they live and work, how they spend their leisure time and even in the relationships they form.

The winery sees itself as a “social business.” To support this ethos, the winery employs members of the community in various areas of the business, including the grape harvest and bottling process.

Kfar Tikva residents also work in the visitors’ center, where guests at the winery discover Tulip’s wine-making processes, sample the products and even learn about the village itself.

“The idea [for the partnership] came from the Itzhaki family who established the winery, as they wanted to do something good for the world and for the community,” Lotan Wiessman Atar, Tulip’s marketing and export manager, tells NoCamels.

Tulip CEO Roy Itzhaki and other members of the family simply knocked on the door of the Kfar Tikva manager and told him about the idea, she says.

“He couldn’t have been happier.”

The winery started in 2003 in a single small room in Kfar Tikva, producing just 7,000 bottles. Twenty years later, it employs 40 people from the village and produces 400,000 bottles annually, while still using a boutique winery system.

“[The Kfar Tikva staff] bring us joy,” she says. “They appreciate the little things, have a lot of patience and every employee makes us the family that we are.”

Pairing Your Wine With Your Palate

Designed by wine connoisseurs for wine novices, Tel Aviv-based Winest recommends the perfect plonk for your taste and even delivers it to your door (within a certain distance).

The company’s website invites users to answer a short survey about their tastes and palates, asking questions about preferred coffee, scents and even salad dressing to work out which wine best matches with each individual.

Co-founder and COO Katya Shokhina, a self-admitted wine lover, tells NoCamels that Israel, with its growing wine industry, aspirational attitudes and strong service-based sector, was the natural location for such a company.

“People need more comfort, more convenience, more care,” she says. “They want to be part of a lifestyle where it’s not hard to get your products.”

Shokhina says that the company is based on the “crucial” concept of a digital sommelier. But to maintain a truly expert experience, all the suggestions come from a list compiled by renowned Georgian sommelier Tazo Tamazishvili.

His list of wines from around the world spans famous, beloved brands and the products of small, innovative wineries that few have even heard of.

“Learning about wine is a part of the process of drinking,” Shokhina says.

“We want our service to be useful for people who are not wine enthusiasts and who do not know much about wine and also for people who are digging into wine and who want to know more.”

A Truly Rosh Hashanah Wine

A little north of the Sea of Galilee, sits a creator of wine whose main ingredient is a staple of the New Year holiday – the pomegranate.

Taking its name from the Hebrew word for the fruit, Rimon Winery was founded in 2004 by father and son Gaby and Avi Nahmias, who come from three generations of Israeli agriculturalists.

The award-winning winery was the very first in the world to make wine from the fruit. The key to this successful innovation, according to Rimon, is its use of pomegranates specially cultivated by the adjacent Moshav Ben Zimra to have a higher sugar content than normal.

The wine is made by taking out the many grains found inside the pomegranate, extracting their juice and fermenting it over a period of several months before aging it in French oak barrels. The process is slower and cooler than those involving grapes, in order to preserve the health benefits for which pomegranates are famous.

Rimon produces over 700,000 bottles each year – a range that includes port, dessert, dry and even rose – selling to wine lovers in Israel and abroad.

The post A Rosh Hashanah Toast To Israel’s Wine Innovators  appeared first on NoCamels.

Hundreds of people gathered recently at Israel’s largest college to hear 10 entrepreneurs show off their fledgling startups designed to make the lives of autistic people easier.

The 10 had spent the previous six months developing their ideas in an accelerator program held by Hackautism, an organization that helps entrepreneurs to create viable startups to ease the daily lives of people with autism. 

The organization’s annual program culminates in the demo day at the College of Management-Academic Studies in Rishon LeZion, where investors, members of established high-tech companies, nonprofits and the general public assemble to hear about the new ideas. 

Many of this year’s ventures, says Hackautism founder Rimon Tubin, have real potential to penetrate the market and change lives.

“They’re like my kids, so it’s difficult for me to say which initiative I like better – they’re all special, each in their own way,” Tubin tells NoCamels. 

Even autistic people themselves have submitted ideas. One such initiative is DiVE, an AI platform that helps employers recruit workers with autism. It was co-founded by Udi Heller, the first autistic officer in the Israel Defense Forces and founder of the military’s program for people with autism.

Another company appearing at the demo day was Alerti, which uses AI to monitor the emotional states of autistic children in real time to predict when an outburst may happen, and send alerts to caregivers. 

Call To Action 

Every year, the organization issues invitations to over a million stakeholders – ranging from parents of autistic children to people who discovered the needs of this community through military service or volunteering.

The stakeholders are contacted through social media, newsletters and WhatsApp groups and invited to submit impactful and entrepreneurial ideas.

Hackautism first draws up a shortlist of 100 initiatives, and then narrows that down 25, which are presented at a two-day hackathon held before the accelerator program begins. Programmers, designers and product developers from various disciplines then work with the creators of these 25 initiatives to develop their ideas.

After the 25 initiatives have been presented, a panel of judges narrows the list down to just 10, who are invited to participate in the program.

The panel of judges includes the founders of various nonprofits, investors, representatives from Microsoft, Google and other leading companies and Tubin himself. 

“I call them the Sanhedrin [an ancient tribunal of Jewish elders], because they’re a group of very intelligent people,” Tubin jokes.

The 10 ideas are chosen based on how closely they align with Hackautism’s criteria, which include developing real solutions for autistic people, and ensuring that they are innovative, scalable and will have a strong impact.

The accelerator program, also held at the college in Rishon LeZion, lets the 10 entrepreneurs work with students across all of the institution’s faculties to develop their idea into a startup with a real chance of success. 

“It benefits both the entrepreneurs and the students,” explains Tubin. “The entrepreneurs receive some manpower, and the students get to be a part of a real initiative and experience being in managerial positions.

“Of course, they also learn about the world of autism and about impact entrepreneurship.”

Following the demo day, the entrepreneurs with the most mature initiatives pitch their business models to investors.

“At this point they need to present a viable product, a business plan, how they will earn capital, and how they plan on entering the market,” says Tubin.

Since Hackautism was founded in 2019, it has produced 42 ventures, 15 of which have thus far raised initial funding. 

Initiatives from the last few years include Fun Friends, an AI app that connects autistic children based on their geographical location and interests, and Poppins, the world’s first streaming channel designed specifically for people who experience and interact with the world around them in different ways.

Poppins CEO Gilad Piker calls it “Netflix for the neurodiverse.”

All For His Son

Tubin, the former chief technology and innovation officer at the digital security services company Pangea, has an autistic son himself: 23-year-old Yuval, who inspired him to establish Hackautism.

“I had fulfilled the dream I had as a business administration student years ago,” he says. “But while sitting in my big office, I realized that my heart was not in it. I wanted to do something for Yuval, and the other 300 million autistic people around the world.”

Tubin launched the first Hackautism hackathon to mark Yuval’s 19th birthday, with the participation of entrepreneurs showcasing with 20 ventures.

In the first year, Yuval actually crowned the crowd favorite with his very own initiative: a zebra sanctuary. When asked why he chose this idea, Yuval replied: “Zebras are like kids with autism. Everyone admires them from afar, but nobody stops to actually play with them.” 

By 2022, HackAutism held its first international hackathon, which featured 50 ventures from 10 different countries. And next year, Tubin aims to expand the event to include 200 ventures from 25 different countries.

As for Yuval, he’s slowly achieving his dream of an equine sanctuary.

“Today, he has a donkey that goes on walks with him at our home,” his father says.

The post Israeli Organization ‘Hacks’ Solutions For Autistic People appeared first on NoCamels.

In an area of northern Israel known as Wadi Ara, in the Arab town of Ar’ara, sits a British Mandate-era stone building.

An abandoned schoolhouse that became an illicit hangout, this newly renovated structure is today the focal point of a plan to foster innovation among Israel’s Arab population, spearheaded by members of the community. 

It took years of work to create a bustling center for innovation out of this abandoned lot “where only bad things happened,” Rabea Zioud, co-founder and CEO of Hasoub, tells NoCamels. 

Hasoub (Arabic for computer) is a multi-pronged program to develop the high-tech sector in Israel’s Arab community, with input from members of the broader Israeli innovation world, investors and even the government.

“We approached the municipality and we told them: Give us this space, we will turn it into an innovation center. We will make it a place where people come to innovate, to make great things, to have an impact,” Zioud recalls. 

Hasoub Garage opened in 2022 after several years of renovation. The celebratory opening ceremony was attended by members of the local community, representatives of the high-tech sector and the German and American ambassadors to Israel. 

The building is currently 500 square meters, but there are plans to transform it into an 11,000 square meter regional center for culture, economic development and education. 

Wadi Ara is situated in the heart of what is known in Israel as “the Triangle” – where some 300,000 people live in close to 30 Arab communities of varying sizes.  

“This place brings all the communities together, all the different stakeholders in the community to gather in one place,” Zioud says of the building.

The outreach of the Garage is just one element of Hasoub. The program also includes Hasoub Angels, an investment arm for early-stage startups, and Hasoub Labs, an innovation hub where the organization says “fresh ideas are transformed into reality.” 

The grassroots organization was established in 2014 by Zioud and Hasan Abo-Shally, both veterans of the Israeli high-tech industry who wanted to foster innovation in their own community. 

“We are trying to fulfill the potential of the Arab society to attract an entrepreneurship ecosystem and attract the needed funding. So people can invest and give more access to funding for our entrepreneurs,” says Zioud.  

Those investors – giving time and money – come from the Israeli business world. Hasoub’s partners include Herzliya-based Vintage Investment Partners; the Afifi Group, a transportation, travel and investment firm headquartered in Nazareth; Appleseeds, an Israeli NGO working to develop the tech sector in economically disadvantaged communities; and MassChallenge Jerusalem, a nonprofit that builds connections between startups and institutions in the high-tech world.

“The goal of Hasoub Labs is to create a pipeline with more entrepreneurs and really bring Arab talent to its full potential,” says Zioud. 

Building Bridges

Zioud explains that for young Arabs entering the field of high-tech, one of the biggest challenges is overcoming a lack of networks, which he says their Jewish counterparts often enjoy, such as through relationships formed during military service or existing connections in the United States. 

“It takes so much time” to establish these networks, he says. “I think we are very much behind in terms of time.”

As such, alongside garnering Israeli support, Hasoub is looking further afield. This year, the organization is taking a roadshow of six startups to Germany to meet with government officials and tech leaders in Berlin and Frankfurt. 

The trip follows a similar one last year, when Hasoub took a different set of companies to London to showcase their work. It was a joint project with the British Embassy in Israel, which in 2011 opened its own UK Israel Tech Hub to advance businesses in Britain by using Israeli technology. 

In London, Zioud says, the entrepreneurs met with representatives of governmental organizations, institutions, universities and accelerators. There were meetings with “many, many, many stakeholders,” and he hopes to recreate that success in Germany at the end of September. And for next year, he has his sights set on New York and Silicon Valley.

Hasoub is not the sole Israeli project aimed at bolstering the Arab community in the high-tech world. In predominantly Arab East Jerusalem, Israel has established another innovation hub, with the mission of bolstering employment among the community. 

One of those involved in efforts in East Jerusalem is veteran Israeli entrepreneur Erel Margalit, who has already established tech hubs in the capital, Tel Aviv and the Galilee. 

“This has been a lifeline to allow young individuals from East Jerusalem to be integrated into Israeli society,” Margalit tells NoCamels.

Over the years, he says, his organization has worked with many thousands of young people in East Jerusalem. Margalit says his investment in the project is matched by the municipality.  

“These kids, they just need a chance, a sense of what can be,” Margalit explains.  “When they see some of these centers of excellence, their imagination works. It’s more than just what happens in school.”

Home-Grown Endeavor 

This year, Hasoub will host its fifth annual conference. Last year, Zioud says, there were 1,200 people in attendance – far from the tiny project he and Abo-Shally began less than a decade ago. 

“We started very small,” he says. “The first phase was all about building awareness about the whole thing. Then we started to build communities. We have today communities on campus, we have a community of entrepreneurs. And now we are entering a new phase.”

That new phase includes 18 million shekels in funding for five years from the Israel Innovation Authority, a branch of the government tasked with supporting research and development within the country.  

And some of the startups incubated and accelerated at Hasoub are already making a splash – in Israel and abroad. These include Haat Delivery, a food delivery company created by Umm al-Fahm native and former Google employee Hasan Abasi. 

The company specializes in food delivery to locations without street names or house numbers, a common phenomenon in Arab communities. And, unlike many other app-based services, it accepts cash as well as credit cards.  

Haat, Zioud says, has raised $15 million in funding so far and is now expanding in the Palestinian territories and in Morocco. The company was one of those to join Hasoub on the 2022 London trip.  

For Zioud, the Hasoub project is by the Arab community, for the community. 

“Every event that we do, every program that we do, the community is so involved; they are volunteers, they are the beneficiaries. They feel it’s theirs. They are contributing and they are benefiting.” 

The post In Northern Israel, Tech Veterans Are Nurturing Arab Innovation appeared first on NoCamels.

An Israeli startup has found a way of mapping how each food tastes – its levels of sweetness, saltiness and even sourness – with the aim of creating the perfect meal tailored to your taste buds every time.  

MAMAY Technologies uses an AI-powered algorithm capable of determining the “objective” taste of a food or beverage product – and plans to expand it to evaluate every taste in order to create the meal with just the right balance of flavors. 

The basic principle behind the mapping “is pure science,” MAMAY founder and CEO Yuval Klein tells NoCamels. 

Molecules of different foods and drinks are analyzed in a lab for 75 different kinds of sweeteners, such as sucrose and fructose. 

The lab process is based on high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), an existing chemical process that separates all the components of a mixture and then identifies and quantifies them.  

With AI assistance, the mass of data produced through HPLC is transformed into a “sweetness profile,” based on how much of each sweetener – both natural and artificial – is present in the molecules.  

“We did the same for sourness, bitterness, saltiness, umami,” Klein says. “This is how we know how to actually digitize the full range of our sensations regarding food and beverages.”

The results are then placed on MAMAY’s proprietary Taste GAGE scale, which gives each level of sweetness, saltiness and so on a number (called a “val”) depending on its impact. 

He says that the lab test even led to them understanding why Coca Cola tastes different in different countries. 

“We found out it’s not the same sugars,” he says. “And we found out it’s not the same sweetness. Coca Cola in Spain is 35 sweetness [on the GAGE scale] and Coca Cola in Japan is 31 – which is kind of a big difference.”

Klein is a serial entrepreneur, with decades of working with startups under his belt. His most recent foray in FoodTech before MAMAY was with a company called Blue Tree, that reduces sugar content in food while leaving the taste intact. He created that startup, he says, before Israel even had a FoodTech sector. 

His vision for MAMAY was the consequence of a youthful taste experience, he says. When he was 16, in the immediate aftermath of the 1967 Six-Day War, Klein accompanied his father to Jerusalem, where they enjoyed a beverage called Rosetta. 

“This is my best memory from Jerusalem,” Klein says, explaining that his efforts about eight years ago to recreate the drink and quantify its taste components led him to establish MAMAY.  

“I started to think that taste needs to be quantified,” he says. “Sweetness of 20 and bitterness of 4, and I’m going to get my Rosetta.” 

Klein says there are other companies trying to quantify what food “feels like,” but insists there is no other company breaking down food by taste using artificial intelligence to process the data in the same way as MAMAY. 

The company is focused for now on a business to business (B2B) future. In Israel, it has worked with the Israeli food giant Strauss Group on “a few projects that I can’t tell you too much about.” He says that MAMAY is also collaborating with Tempo, Israel’s leading beverage company, where “for the first time we are defining taste.”

MAMAY is based in Kiryat Shmona – a city on the northernmost tip of Israel and along the Lebanese border. The city has become a hub for FoodTech startups, in no small part due to the efforts of leading Israeli entrepreneur Erel Margalit, who established his Startup City Galilee there with a focus on this sector.

Klein previously worked on MAMAY in China in 2019, with major backers from the pig farming industry there. But, he says, he had to relocate back to Israel when African swine fever swept through the country, decimating the industry and bankrupting his backers. 

He now plans to return to China to work with food companies that use automated systems to mass produce food for school children. And MAMAY’s technology to quantify food tastes will allow them to create individual dishes based on individual preferences.  

Each person will have a computerized log of their preferences using the Gage scale for sweetness, saltiness and so on, and that will inform the robots making the food just how to personalize it for maximum enjoyment. 

“When a robot makes pasta, we can make it differently – less spicy, more spicy,” according to Klein. “And every kid should get the one that they like.” 

Personalized food is the future, he says, and MAMAY technology will enable us to determine exactly what that tastes like.  

“You’re going to be able to print food; you need to interact with the machine on how tasty you want this food to be,” he says. 

“And I think we are building the first steps for this future.” 

The post Startup Maps Tastes To Create Your Ideal Meal Every Time  appeared first on NoCamels.

Imagine learning about Mars from the Martian, leadership from the Lion King and inspiration from Inside Out. 

For some students this could be a reality, thanks to an innovative learning platform devised in Israel that uses blockbuster movies to teach multiple subjects to school and higher education students. 

 AcadeMe+ creates educational lessons for colleges and K-12 classrooms using movies made by major film studios, including Warner Brothers, 20th Century Fox, Disney and Sony. 

For the younger generations who were born into a digital world, screens are a part of normal life. And AcadeMe+ says its interactive, media-based approach is helping classrooms adapt to a digitally integrated learning style. 

“We came up with AcadeMe+ to really bring the availability and the access for the teacher to use movies for educational lessons,” founder and CEO Yuval Kalati tells NoCamels. 

The company has partnered with US-based educational nonprofit Journeys in Film to create the lesson plans based on movie resources.

Journeys in Film describes itself as an organization that transforms entertainment media into educational media, in order to help the younger generations become “globally competent and socially active.” 

The AcadeMe+ platform has an AI search facility, that allows teachers to locate lesson plans that align with their curricula and helps them search the database to locate resources while preparing their own lessons.

For example, teachers planning a lesson on environmental sustainability can find suggestions based on the animated Pixar movie Elemental, in which characters based on the four elements – fire, water, earth and air – learn about one another as they strive to unite their different communities. 

Similarly, the platform proposes using the movie Hidden Figures, based on the true story of female African-American researchers at NASA in the 1960s, to teach about prejudice and racism. 

“You can tell the story or the subject of the lesson in a very engaging way. This is the purpose of AcadeMe+,” says Kalati.

The company also allows teachers to monitor and record their students’ progress and provides a social media platform for educators to talk to and support one another.

AcadeMe+ was a finalist in the Start-Up Company of the Year competition at last year’s Gess Education Awards, which recognize excellence, quality, and diversity of resources and people in the education community. 

It was honored for providing teachers with a wide range of lesson plans based on its extensive library of short clips and full movies. 

While other companies also produce educational material using popular culture, such as the American website Teach With Movies and FilmDoo Academy from the UK, Kalati says these competitors rely more on documentaries and open source material from YouTube. 

AcadeMe+, he says, has the most extensive library of media resources and covers the greatest range of subjects, not to mention a unique and strong partnership with the major studios.

“We work very closely with the studios, and they love us because we are taking their content and making it into something that they never thought to do,” he says. 

Kalati spent two decades in digital entertainment and media before he began working closely with Israel’s Ministry of Education in 2018 to create an accessible learning platform for Israeli schools, based on the AcadeMe+ digital movie library. 

The following year,  the company was licensed by the Education Ministry and is now used for free by 154,000 teachers in over 4,100 Israeli schools and colleges. 

But while there is no cost for Israeli schools, Kalati says the company is likely to charge a fee for use in other countries as it expands. 

In September, AcadeMe+ will launch in schools in 10 nations, including Turkey, India, Brazil, the United Arab Emirates, Germany and the United Kingdom, catering to an estimated 2 million students. 

The platform’s user interface, film subtitles, and film dubbing is fully customizable to many languages, including Spanish and Arabic.

According to Kalati, AcadeMe+ will also soon feature an immersive English learning component, which will feature Disney TV shows to help students learn English. 

Furthermore, AcadeMe+ has announced an upcoming partnership with Microsoft Education that will use AI technology to make the lessons more customizable, helping to meet the needs of students with a range of academic abilities.   

Kalati says the company is also working on expanding its curriculums to more socially aware topics, such as climate change and gender equality.  

“By infusing learning with the magic of film, we create an engaging and immersive learning experience that resonates with today’s screen-focused generation,” he says. 

The post Israeli Startup Using Movie Magic To Teach Classroom Lessons appeared first on NoCamels.

On Tuesday, July 25, 2023, a day after the Knesset (Israel’s parliament) passed legislation reducing the influence of the judiciary over the decisions of the political echelon, the major newspapers in Israel all sported the same cover: a page of solid black broken only by a small slogan in white at the bottom that read “A black day for Israeli democracy.” 

The cover was actually an advert paid for by the “High-Tech Protest” – a group of hundreds of people working in Israel’s high-tech sector, from entry-level employees to CEOs and venture capitalists. 

The group’s members have taken to the streets on a regular basis to protest the judicial overhaul, out of what they say is a sense of “mission and responsibility for the future of the State of Israel.”

The controversial “reasonableness” legislation limits the ability of the High Court (which in Israel also functions when necessary as the Supreme Court) to review government actions, preventing the judiciary from striking down any government decision that it believes is not a reasonable measure. 

Supporters of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-right coalition say the law is needed to curb an activist court trying to govern from the bench; its critics decry it as anti-democratic and a power grab by the government – and one that has only just begun. 

The legislation has been met with fierce opposition in Israel for the past six months, with tens of thousands taking to the streets across the country every week in protest. 

A survey carried out by state broadcaster Kan earlier this month found that 43 percent of Israelis opposed the new law, while just 31 percent backed it and 25 percent were unsure.

The protests by the high-tech industry have been a prominent feature in the ongoing dissent. 

“There’s a clear distinction between the current government, which is extreme and right wing, and the warriors of democracy, which include the high-tech sector, the doctors, the soldiers, the pilots, the teachers and many people around the country, who are saying no to the change in the judicial system and yes to democracy,” Erel Margalit, one of Israel’s most prominent high-tech entrepreneurs, tells NoCamels. 

There is no central leadership to the high-tech protest, but rather it was an organic emergence of concerned individuals, industry veteran Erez Shachar and one of the first people in the movement tells NoCamels. 

“The high-tech sector is very sensitive to political stability, to liberal democratic values,” says Shachar, who is managing partner at Qumra Capital in Tel Aviv. 

“We don’t have any physical assets – our assets are intellectual property and the talent of people, and these people are, by definition, extremely mobile.” 

The high-tech protests have not remained within Israel’s borders, and Margalit has been at the forefront of demonstrations in the United States. On Monday, he led a march across Brooklyn Bridge against the judicial overhaul. 

“We say no to dictatorship, no to anti-pluralism and no to a non-independent judicial system!” he told the protest. 

The protesters have been very visible in New York, which is home to many Israeli companies as they move to expand. Among those companies is Israeli Mapped in NY, a platform created to shine a light on Israeli innovation and help startups make their mark in the city. 

On Wednesday, Israeli Mapped in NY CEO Guy Franklin joined New York Stock Exchange President Lynn Martin and leading lights in the Israeli high-tech industry, including Wiz CEO Assaf Rappaport and Taboola boss Adam Singolda, to ring the opening bell at the NYSE to honor his company. Many of the Israelis present donned black t-shirts emblazoned with “Save our democracy” in white letters. 

Brain Drain

Erez Shachar warns that the economic impact on the Israeli innovation ecosystem is tremendous and potentially long lasting. He explains that while in recent years, 80 percent of Israeli startups have registered in the country and only 20 percent have registered abroad, since the start of 2023 those figures have effectively reversed. 

And he says this is due to foreign investors – who account for 90 percent of the funds received by Israeli startups – telling those companies that they must register outside of Israel due to the political instability in the country. 

“These institutional investors have very strict ESG [environmental, social and governance] standards, are very concerned about political instability, are definitely very concerned about human rights and all of this is at risk from this current government,” he says. 

So while those companies still physically operate to some degree inside Israel, their taxes go to the country – primarily the United States – in which they are registered. 

“The high-tech sector is dependent on foreign investors and foreign investments and these are affected by the [legislation],” explains Jonathan Saacks, the managing partner of Tel Aviv-based F2 Venture Capital. 

“We believe the high-tech sector is extremely important to Israel’s stability, strength and success as a country and nation,” he tells NoCamels.  

And Shachar does not believe that the sector will remain as stable as it has over the past decade or so. 

“When [a country] becomes less stable and more at risk of losing some of the liberal democratic values, it’s really, really easy to reallocate funds – even people – to different geographic locations,” Shachar says. 

Ultimately, he warns, the people who will suffer due to this relocation are not the ones working in the high-tech sector, but rather weaker members of Israeli society who rely on government stipends to get by and who will likely see those stipends shrink as tax revenues to the state shrink. 

“The government will have a diminished tax base in the next few years as a result of what’s currently going on – and this is already happening,” he says. 

Saacks is less than sanguine about Israel’s future, in the face of a potentially massive departure of talent in the tech sector. 

“The most important factor and key success factor is the human capital and strength of the Israeli entrepreneurs, scientists, engineers and operators,” he says. 

“If these professionals decide to relocate out of Israel this will be extremely negative and probably irreversible to the success of the high-tech sector.” 

Shachar stresses, however, that while the situation currently looks bleak from an industry perspective, he remains optimistic that the sector will ultimately flourish once again fully within a democratic, thriving Israel, even if an entire generation of startups – from seed to exit – has been lost. 

Margalit agrees that the sector’s funding will rebound. 

“I think that investors are looking for direction. And once they understand that the Israeli companies are continuing to build great ideas, I think the investments will continue,” he says. 

“Thanks to many of the people that are protesting and are raising their voice… I think the world will understand that there’s a big enough group in Israel that will continue to build this country in a way that’s innovative, in a way that’s open, in a way that democracy is an integral part of everything that we’re doing.”

This positive perspective is not shared by Amir Mizroch, communications advisor for several leading Israeli tech companies and the former director of communications for Startup Nation Central. 

“I don’t see any real positives for Israeli tech in the current political configuration and especially with the future legislative plans the government has,” he tells NoCamels.

“This government and its growing political base prioritize Torah over technology,” he says.  

“My assessment is that it will be much harder for Israeli startups to raise funding if they are based here – there’s too much risk, too much volatility, and Israel‘s external image, which is already complicated, is becoming increasingly murky in the eyes of global institutional investors.”  

Despite the scattered hopefulness, the numbers bear out the financial concerns. 

Diminishing Returns

The high-tech industry was the largest contributor to the national GDP in 2022, accounting for just over 18 percent or 290 billion shekels ($78B), according to the Israel Innovation Authority, the branch of the government dedicated to promoting the sector on the global stage. It was also responsible for 50 percent of the country’s foreign exports. 

And despite predictions that the sector was on track to keep expanding in the coming years, the events of the past six months have shown that is not the case. 

With the caveat that the rest of the world has experienced a slowdown in their tech sectors (although the US is beginning to show signs of recovery that are not echoed in Israel), the country has seen a massive downturn in investment in high-tech.  

The Israel Innovation Authority reports that Israeli high-tech companies raised $3.7 billion in funding in the first half of 2023, the lowest amount for that period in five years. And, according to the independent Start-Up Nation Policy Institute, this is a 31 percent drop from the second half of 2022 and a 68 percent decrease compared to the same period last year. 

This dramatic downturn was even cited by US-based Moody’s Investors Service – one of the “big three” global credit ratings agencies – when it issued a warning after the law passed that there are “signs that Israel is decoupling from global trends.” 

The agency also cautioned that the legislation bore “negative consequences for Israel’s economy and security situation.” Spotting the trend back in April, when it expressed concern over a “deterioration of Israel’s governance,” Moody’s lowered Israel’s credit rating from “positive” to “stable.”   

And even though Netanyahu this week was quick to dismiss Moody’s warning as a “momentary reaction,” insisting that “Israel’s economy is very strong,” it was not the only global financial institution to sound the alarm over the legislation. 

American multinational investment bank and financial services company Morgan Stanley also reacted negatively to the legislation, downgrading Israel’s sovereign credit to a “dislike stance.” 

“The recent events point to continued uncertainty and thus the potential for an increased risk premium that would lead to weakening FX [foreign exchange] and higher borrowing costs,” the financial institution said.

“Such economic shocks tend to lead to weaker GDP growth due to lower business investment and private consumption growth.”

US investment bank Citi also entered the fray, on Tuesday putting out its own commentary on the potential fiscal fallout of the legislation.

“Now that the government has empowered itself to ignore Supreme Court decisions on its actions, it gets much more tricky and dangerous,” the bank’s analysts wrote in a response titled “Reasonableness Test bill has passed without a compromise – now what? – Nobody knows.”

On the impact on Israel’s credit rating, the analysis warned that “local media speculation is growing that [the credit rating agencies] might give a negative outlook given the reforms have pushed forward with no agreements. Up next is Fitch in early August and while from a fiscal perspective, Israel is in a very strong place, they noted in their previous rating that they assumed agreements would be reached on the Judicial Reforms.”

Despite the financial fallout and the protests, Netanyahu and his government are determined to stay the course. After the victory in Monday’s vote, offers were extended to negotiate with the opposition over the continuation of the overhaul. 

But with efforts to find a compromise failing to reach a successful conclusion in the months leading up to the vote, the opposition parties are mistrustful of the government and skeptical that it genuinely intends to search for a middle ground. 

The future of the legislation, the protests and even the entire high tech sector hangs in the balance. 

As Margalit puts it: “The world is looking to see where Israel’s going from here.” 

The post How Israel’s High-Tech Sector Went To War Over Court Reforms appeared first on NoCamels.

It took six years and $50 million, but last month the Tower of David Museum in Jerusalem finally opened its renovated doors to an immersive experience that uses cutting edge technology to bring to life thousands of years of history.  

The museum – a distinctive feature of the Jerusalem skyline that welcomes visitors to the Old City through the adjacent Jaffa Gate – is actually a citadel first built more than a millennium ago atop the remains of human civilization dating back 2,500 years. 

The museum weaves through the ancient stone fortress, with exhibits placed in multiple spaces and on multiple levels, where a combination of animation, touch screens and audiovisual media is designed to bring you as immersive an experience as possible. 

Yoav Cohen, the museum’s creative director of media content, tells NoCamels that the biggest task his team faced was deciding how to digitally interpret the historical material with which they were presented. 

“We had a lot of documents,” Cohen says. “Now you need to take these documents and ask yourself how you make them into stories or a movie and if it’s going to be an animated movie [or] it’s going to be interactive screens.” 

A first step into the renovated site immediately brings you to a video screened on and incorporating an ancient wall of the citadel. This five-minute animation both provides a potted history of the city and acts as a harbinger of the technological spectacle ahead. 

The short film was created by Israeli director Ari Folman, whose 2008 animated feature Waltz with Bashir won him international acclaim and a Golden Globe. It incorporates multiple eras of the city with the original brickwork, culminating in modern day, when the bricks are transformed into a representation of the famed Western Wall, one of the holiest sites in Judaism. 

“We asked ourselves who we wanted to have in that entrance,” Cohen says. 

“We knew that [Folman] will give us this creativity and we wanted to use this video-mapping that will reflect the wall of bricks. And the wall of bricks is something that is very important for us because it’s telling the story of Jerusalem and the story of the material of the wall.” 

Moving into the museum, visitors encounter a 3D map, which was laser cut from Hebron stone to include every topographic feature of Jerusalem. The actual contours of the city itself through the ages are cast onto the carved map, showing how it has grown through the centuries.  

“We used a NASA picture from a satellite in black and white,” Cohen says of how the map was constructed. They then opened that satellite picture in 3D software and created a 3D model, even tinkering with it to make it more accurate to how it was 2,000 years ago, when “the river was deeper and the mountain was higher.”

Once they were happy with the 3D model of the map, it was cut from the stone. 

Beside the map sits a globe detailing the distance from every spot on the planet to Jerusalem. Touching any point on the globe will immediately give you the distance from there to Jerusalem, cementing the concept that the ancient city is at the center of the world. 

One step further and visitors encounter 12 touch screens joined together, allowing you to explore multiple time periods of the city, its people, events and culture in a feature called “Sands of Time.” Each screen is operated by a separate computer. 

The user interface (UI) for the touch screens involved careful planning, Cohen explains. They took into account the personal space needed for each user and differing heights of visitors (the whole museum is designed with accessibility in mind, and the renovation even included the construction of two new elevators).  

Cohen says all the display screens in the museum share the same user interface, making it easier for visitors to navigate through the citadel.  

“The languages will always be shown in the same place and will have the same font, so slowly the user will get familiar with that and will find it more easy.”

The mass of cables and electronics needed to run the innovative experience are artfully hidden beneath a raised floor and behind bricks and mortar seamlessly blended into the ancient walls. This preserves the authenticity of the experience inside the citadel, according to museum guide Shira Sadot. 

And the computers that actually keep the whole exhibition alive “are 200 meters from here,” according to Cohen. 

One of the biggest challenges, Cohen says, was the room where images of the city are projected onto the ceiling accompanied by music, creating a seven-minute dynamic mosaic of the religious life of the communities that make up modern Jerusalem. Spectators are invited to lie down on benches to fully appreciate the experience, which was created with input from local residents of all faiths. 

The mosaic was put together by renowned Israeli illustrator David Polonsky, who also worked as art director on Waltz with Bashir. Cohen says that from a technical and artistic perspective, this feature was very complicated to construct. 

“We didn’t ask [Polonsky] to make an illustration, we asked him to make a montage – to take all of the different pieces from thousands of photos in the city and to cut it to make it one big 360-degree [experience],” he explains. 

“It was very hard to make one room where everything combined together, and we were so happy that we could do it.”

While many of the exhibits are new, some build upon features of the old museum – with an innovative twist. Among them is the revamped depiction of the Arch of Titus, a 1st century relief made by the Romans to celebrate their conquest and sacking of Jerusalem in 70CE in response to the Jewish rebellion against their rule. 

The original is located in Rome and the replica formerly on display in the Tower of David has been updated to show not only the piece but also how it would have looked when it was created with colors. 

To achieve this as accurately as possible, museum guide Shira Sadot said, the team even went to Rome to scan the original.  

Cohen says the digital content is ultimately there to facilitate the experience of Jerusalem through the ages. 

“It should feel authentic, and it should feel interesting, but it shouldn’t feel dusty,” he says. “We wanted to have a new way to get information, something that will be exciting and [display] this antique information and historical information.”

The post Tower Of David: Modern Tech Brings Ancient History To Life appeared first on NoCamels.

Today, the ability to create videos with artificial intelligence is open to anyone with a computer and the internet – and now the entertainment industry is catching up. But this has opened up a debate about what such programs mean for the creative industry, and whether they will really be able to replace the writers, artists and animators. 

Israeli viewers were treated to digital animation on their own screens last month, with the arrival of new television series Red Skies, whose introduction is an AI-generated, animated mosaic of the Israeli and Palestinian experience, all set to a wistfully sad melody. 

The intro depicts young people swimming in the sea; guitarists that morph into heavily armored soldiers; flying birds and falling rocks; burning buildings intermingled with lavish skyscrapers; sirens and rockets and tanks; and a coffin draped in a flag that flickers from Palestinian green, red, white and black to Israeli blue and white. 

The jumpy imagery is a fitting introduction to a show that tells the tale of two friends, one Israeli (Saar) and the other Palestinian (Ali), and their relationship with each other and with Jenny, the girl they both love. 

Running at a shade over a minute, this animated opening is a harbinger of a new era of artistic expression – all created with artificial intelligence. 

Red Skies was released two days before another series  – Secret Invasion, produced by Disney’s Marvel Studios and starring Samuel L. Jackson – that similarly used an AI intro. 

Its green-tinged opening reflects the disjointed, confused nature of a show where anyone can be posing as anyone else and no one is really sure what is real and what is fake. But it sparked a broad debate over the prospect of creatives losing their jobs and being replaced by machines. 

The creation process on these platforms is extremely simple – simply enter a few instructions about who you want, where you want them and what you want them doing, and the algorithm does the rest.

AI-generated videos have been around for several years. Perhaps the first time they entered the public consciousness was in 2018, with a video purporting to be of former US president Barack Obama, warning of the dangers of what became to be known as “deep fakes.”

Ahead Of The Curve

Merav Shacham, the artist who created the Red Skies intro, tells NoCamels that she realized she had to get on top of this new phenomenon last year, as generative AI platforms such as Midjourney and DALL·E became increasingly popular. 

Aside from owning her own animation and design studio, BANANAMOON, Shacham is a lecturer in the visual communication department at Shenkar College of Engineering, Design and Art on the outskirts of Tel Aviv. 

So Shacham, an experienced designer for television (she also created the intro for the global Israeli hit show Fauda), began to explore the medium of generative AI, carrying out what she calls “really big research.”  

“I had a meeting with my head of department, and I told him, our students will get to use it, and we are the lecturers, we need to know what it is. We need to figure it out, to experiment because next year there will be students that are using it, and we have to join the club,” she recalls. 

“The results were very surprising,” she says, comparing the input method to feeding coins into a slot machine at a casino. 

“You give just the prompt, the text line and some parameters and then it’s like magic – stuff is coming alive,” she explains.   

So impressed was Shacham by what she could do that when Red Skies co-creator Ron Leshem approached her to create the intro for the series, she suggested using artificial intelligence to do so. 

The production team behind the show were initially cautious, says Red Skies executive producer Daniel Shinar, upon whose bestselling novel the series is based. 

“We were intrigued but also a little bit worried. [What] you hear about AI is mostly the negatives – will AI replace us,” he tells NoCamels. 

But, Shinar says, they discovered that the actual process of creating the intro was smoother than expected. The series production team would explain the concept, which Shacham would then work off of. 

Afterwards, they would examine the results together – and what they found was not always what they expected, but those surprises were not always unwelcome. In fact, Shinar says, it could be very different to what you asked for, but “very beautiful” nonetheless. 

“You have two kids with a sunset on the beach or two best friends with their girlfriend, but instead of the sea, the machine would spit out a sea of sand,” he says.  

“Anywhere you have a boat, the boat is not in a regular sea. It’s in a sea of sand, which we didn’t have as an input – it kind of imagines that. Or we would say we want to see a demonstration in the West Bank, and you see a demonstration with a coffin, but the coffin will have the Israeli flag and then Palestinian flag.”

The coffin with the flags was kept in, and Shinar likens the imagery to “a political statement by the computer, by the AI.” 

Shacham also found unexpected results for the directions she entered into the program, comparing the work process to a collaboration between artist and machine. 

“When you are starting to work with it, and you’re starting to talk with the machine, back and forth, you see that it’s not only your prompt and different styles – there is something in it that has lots of unpredictable visuals. And I was really curious about this interpretation,” she says.  

Nor was it a case of simply inputting some instructions and hoping for the best. The entire process saw Shacham create more than a hundred different versions before they were happy with the results. 

And despite the debate over the potential threat posed by AI-generated content, neither writer nor artist sees it replacing people.  

Shacham views AI as “just another tool to experiment with visuals,” one which “needs to develop more, to become more sophisticated, more professional.” 

For Shinar, the heart of a piece of work is its humanity – “the part that’s magic, that makes people connect emotionally.” And this, he says, is something that artificial intelligence will never be able to supersede. 

“I don’t think people will cry over an AI opening sequence. You need some magic touch there – the secret ingredient that, in my view, still has to be human.” 

The post First AI-Generated Video Hits Israeli TV For ‘Red Skies’ Series appeared first on NoCamels.

Imagine eating chocolate that did not cause your blood sugar levels to spike.

Israeli startup SOLVEAT says it can offer just that, with its edible blend of herbal extracts that can be used in chocolate and other foods to support healthy blood sugar levels.

SOLVEAT’s clinical team observed that the chocolate that includes the startup’s formula had significant clinical efficacy in controlling blood sugar levels. 

They found that the infused chocolate actually lowered blood sugar levels by 10 to 24 percent in almost all test participants with prediabetes (when blood sugar levels are higher than normal but not high enough to signify type 2 diabetes). 

The startup says that its aim is to deliver the benefits of traditional herbal remedies by adding them into everyday foods without having to actually taste the herbs.

“A major problem with herbal medicine is its taste, which, let’s say, is unpleasant,” Dr. Zakhar Nudelman, co-founder and Chief Business Officer of SOLVEAT, tells NoCamels. 

Apart from the need to mask their flavors, companies producing herbal-infused foods also face the challenge of ensuring that the quality and benefits of the extracts do not wane. 

Nudelman says that not many of these companies have conducted clinical trials of their products to verify whether the herbs’ benefits remain after being infused into foods and supplements. This, he explains, is why SOLVEAT is planning to launch a larger clinical study of its formula with a leading Israeli healthcare institution. 

According to Nudelman, SOLVEAT has a holistic solution to the issues of taste and quality maintenance. 

First, it uses a smart analytics platform to determine whether each herb that it imports (mainly from China) contains the active ingredients it needs for its formula.

The startup then uses proprietary methods to extract the highest amount of active ingredients from each individual herb, before blending measured amounts of each to create its patent-pending formula. Once the blending stage is completed, it again analyzes the final formula to ensure that the quality of each ingredient was not compromised during the combining process.

“This is how we control the quality of the composition, and ensure that it is reproducible,” Nudelman explains. 

Making Foods Functional

SOLVEAT then turns the herbal extracts into a powder using an existing, advanced method of food processing known as microencapsulation. This encases the extract in miniscule capsules the size of 15-20 microns (each micron is one thousandth of a millimeter).

This not only disguises the flavor of the herbs, but also maintains the shelf life of the product and guarantees that the contents of each final product are consistent, explains Nudelman. 

“We want to make it very easy for food manufacturers to integrate [the blend] into their products,” he explains, pointing out that companies tend to drop a product that creates issues with integration. 

The first blend, which is now patent-pending after the team proved its efficacy, is made from eight different herbs, including goldthread (Coptis chinensis) and Chinese foxglove (Rehmannia glutinosa). Nudelman won’t disclose the rest, but says each is essential to the success of the formula.

“We’ve seen from our pharmacological screenings that combining any four of these herbs, for example, is not effective. It only works when we combine all eight together,” he says. 

Foodtech is a growing industry that was worth $247 billion worldwide in 2022. Israel in particular has a blooming foodtech sector, ranking second in the world in terms of investment. 

One element of this sector is the functional foods market, where food is fortified with herbal or plant extracts or other vitamins, minerals and probiotics, which was valued at $186 million in 2023.

Among the companies entering this market is global food giant Nestlé, which in 2020 signed a partnership with French biotech company Valbiotis on a product containing a plant extract that aims to reduce the risk of developing type 2 diabetes. 

Other Israeli startups are also incorporating functional ingredients into their products, such as Yofix, which develops plant-based prebiotic and probiotic dairy alternatives.

Personal Practices

Nudelman says that the difference between SOLVEAT and these companies is that it alone creates herbal compositions. He says the use of multiple herbs together “is more holistic” as different active ingredients are beneficial for different organs in the body.  

“There’s synergy between the herbs, so we believe it is more effective and safer,” he says. 

Beyond that, he says that unlike its competitors, SOLVEAT makes compositions that are “plug and play” – so that food manufacturers only need to minimally tweak their formulas before incorporating it into their products. 

“Today there are many companies selling probiotic products like yogurts, but many of them do not conduct clinical trials on their products to prove their benefits,” says Nudelman. In this industry, he says, companies producing functional foods tend to make a lot of theoretical claims. 

Udi Peretz, CEO and co-founder of SOLVEAT, was managing an herbal biotech company in China when he was diagnosed with prediabetes. He was advised by his local partners, professor of Chinese medicine Xia Long and herbalist professor He Yuxin to take herbal medicine, and while this method brought his condition under control, he found the herbs to be incredibly bitter and too much work to prepare. 

So in 2019, he founded the startup along with Nudelman and Chinese medicine practitioner Tal Naveh, determined to mask the taste of the herbs but keep their health benefits. The company’s team today also includes Long and Yuxin, and Executive Chairwoman Ilanit Kabessa Cohen.

It took them 18 months to develop the technological platform and integrate the first formula. “In the beginning, the taste was terrible,” Nudelman admits. “But today we have completely overcome this challenge.”

Since then, the company has been awarded $1 million from the Israel Innovation Authority and the Trendlines Group of accelerators in Israel’s Galilee region, where SOLVEAT is based. 

SOLVEAT has thus far partnered with Israeli chocolatier Ornat, which infuses its herbal powder into its chocolates. It expects to launch a pilot to sell the chocolates in the coming months. 

The startup has also recently started to develop a new formula, which Nudelman says will boost the immune system through a combination of different herbs and fungi. 

“We want to combine the experience of eating tasty food with receiving health benefits from these ingredients,” says Nudelman. 

The post Herb-Infused Chocolate Supports Healthy Blood Sugar Levels appeared first on NoCamels.

An Israeli entrepreneur has developed a drink that he claims will end the notorious “post-lunch dip” that leaves many drowsy, less alert, and unproductive.

This troublesome tiredness is actually the result of a natural phenomenon that helps the body regulate the sleep-wake cycle, known as the circadian rhythm.

As darkness sets in, the body’s biological clock instructs the cells to slow down, increasing the hormone melatonin and reducing the body’s temperature – all processes to encourage sleep.

Startup InnoBev says its WakeUp! formula – a syrup that is a blend of botanical ingredients –  will naturally wake you up within minutes and stave off tired feelings for hours.

The formula includes elderberry (which may support the immune system), guarana (which contains natural stimulants like caffeine that enhance alertness, focus and cognitive abilities), ginkgo biloba (which is associated with increased brain function and blood circulation), and carob, which is used as a natural sweetener and has little effect on blood sugar levels.

It is now being sold as a new carbonated drink called BioLift, and the syrup itself (which is produced in Valencia, Spain) is already being tested by household food, snack, and beverage corporations in cereals, bars, beverages, dairy products, and supplements.

“We started by trying to address the changing physiological parameters in the body,” Eli Faraggi, CEO and co-founder of InnoBev, tells NoCamels. “But we also accidentally discovered a new mechanism of action along the way.”

He explains that carobs contain myo-inositol, which by itself doesn’t do anything, but when combined with the other functional ingredients in the extract, acts as a neurotransmitter – a chemical messenger that helps regulate body functions like concentration, sleep cycles, and mood.

The company says its patented combination, which took 12 years to develop, has been validated in six clinical trials led by Prof. Giora Pillar, the head of the pediatric sleep laboratory at the Rambam Medical Center in Haifa, northern Israel, and head of the sleep clinic in the Haifa district of Clalit Medicine, the largest health maintenance organization in the country. 

The formula itself was created by product development specialist Eitan Granot and a team at an Israeli flavor and ingredient manufacturer Frutarom. The ingredients used in the botanical blend are sourced from American food processing company ADM.

Ditch The Coffee

In the company’s first clinical study, 30 participants who ingested the formula after lunchtime experienced a greater ability to focus and had better performance than those who drank coffee. This was analyzed through reliable concentration and short-term memory tests, as well as a subjective rating of their vigilance and ability to focus.

The effects of InnoBev’s formula lasted even after two hours, while the effects of coffee had already begun to fade. 

And in the second clinical study, 95 participants drank WakeUp! for 30 consecutive days to test for tolerance to long-term consumption. There were no major changes, and in fact, concentration of the participants actually improved from day one to day 31, in addition to falling blood pressure levels during the course of the study.

There are many existing nootropic drinks – beverages infused with medicinal substances whose action improves thinking, learning and memory (like caffeine, or other ingredients like ginseng or L-Theanine) – on the market today.

Los Angeles-based More Labs, a functional beverage company, has developed Liquid Focus, a focus shot that contains nootropic ingredients like ginseng and huperzia serrata extract – as well as 150mg of caffeine. The average cup of coffee contains 95mg of caffeine, by comparison, and a can of BioLift contains 10mg.

Faraggi says that BioLift has many advantages over the other nootropic drinks and supplements, calling it the first beverage in its category that does not rely on caffeine to help the consumer feel alert. Furthermore, he says, it is the only company of its kind that has conducted six clinical studies on its product, and is the only one that can integrate its product (the syrup) in various applications.

“And the biggest thing – apart from being invented in Israel – is its immediate effect,” he says. 

Faraggi says he was inspired to found the company when he discovered that fatigue actually results in a loss of $136 billion a year for the US workforce alone.

Since InnoBev was established in 2010, it has won several awards, including Best Functional Drink at Drinktec Germany, an annual summit meeting for the beverage and liquid food industry, in 2013. And In 2017, BioLift was a Product of the Year finalist for the World Beverage Innovation Awards. The company has raised around $6 million in funding from Shiff Group Investments. 

Today, hospitals in the US order BioLift for its medical staff, and SpaceX buys it for its employees, says Faraggi.

And as for Faraggi himself:

“Me, my rabbi, my kids, my parents… We drink it daily.”

The post Beating Post-Lunch Sleepiness With A Botanical Buzz  appeared first on NoCamels.

There’s nothing more convenient than sliding on a pair of flip flops during the hot, sticky summer months.

But their convenience comes with a price. They slide off too easily, they don’t provide support for your heels or toes, and wearing them too much may actually cause tiny tears in the ligaments and muscles in your legs.

All this led Yehuda Azoulay to create what he calls the “flipshoe,” a distinctive piece of footwear by his company Link Shoes, which he says offers the freedom of a flip flop combined with the comfort and safety of a closed shoe. 

It took seven years of developing and testing numerous prototypes – and a successful crowdfunding campaign that raised over $100,000 – before he could begin to sell the shoe through his company in 2019.

The shoe’s fragmented and patented design allows it to bend and flex with the user’s foot, provide arch support, and serve as a protective bumper to prevent stubbed toes and banged heels. And unlike flip flops, you can bike with them, take long walks, and even break into a short sprint.

It’s made of three separate layers, which are glued together manually: EVA (the material used in Crocs) for the insole, TPU (thermoplastic) for the midsole, and rubber for the sole.

Each pair is available in three colors and 11 sizes, and users must follow a step-by-step video explaining how to measure their feet to find their optimal sizing (which involves the use of a piece of paper, a pencil and a ruler). 

While the process is unconventional, Link says it ensures that the shoes wrap correctly around one’s feet. 

“The target audience is the city dweller who is looking for a convenient and simple replacement for flip flops, which do not protect the perimeter of the foot and are very uncomfortable for strenuous walking in the city,” Azoulay tells NoCamels. 

Azoulay, who has a master’s degree in industrial design from the Technion – Institute of Technology, has already sold some 6,000 pairs of the flipshoe globally. 

Comfort, But Not At Any Price

Now, he’s working on a new, 3D printed version of the shoe, which aims to do more than provide a comfortable experience for the user – it is also intended to be far more eco-friendly than its predecessor.

“I only want to make a positive impact on the environment, but [the first version of the shoe] is made of materials that are not ecological,” he explains. 

The materials used to make the flipshoe – plastic and rubber – are not recyclable. But as it turns out, virtually all companies within the footwear industry are grappling with the same problem.

Of the over 20 billion pairs of shoes produced every year, less than five percent get recycled, according to the academic journal Resources, Conservation, and Recycling. It’s mainly because most products contain a complex mixture of rubber, textile, and polymer (plastic) materials, which makes it difficult to separate and repurpose them.

The footwear industry as a whole takes a heavy toll on the environment. The production of one pair of shoes alone requires the use of 8,000 liters of water, according to DHI Water Group, a research and consulting firm, as well as 30 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions. 

“I tried to find eco-friendly materials, and discovered that many of the companies that claim their shoes are eco-friendly are greenwashing, and only use a small percentage of algae or recycled materials in their final products,” says Azoulay. 

That’s why he’s pivoting to 3D printed shoes, which will be produced using only one kind of plastic (that can be recycled). And rather than stock up on a supply of plastic and rubber that may never be fully used, this new production model will only print shoes by demand.

The footwear itself will sport a latticed pattern, and maintain a similarly unconventional style to its predecessor. Azoulay takes pride in it, and is no stranger to people turning their nose up at his unusual footwear. 

“It’s good that people reject something, because it means that it’s something that is really innovative. I love that rejection – it shows that this is the real deal,” he says. 

“I believe that in the end, people will change their mind when they understand just how functional the shoes are, in addition to their low environmental impact.”

The post Topless Footwear: Support Of A Shoe, Ease Of A Flip Flop appeared first on NoCamels.

Tidy mind, tidy desktop. Not me. I have dozens of tabs open on my computer. I have no idea if the information I want is on a WhatsApp message, one of several email accounts, a LinkedIn post, a voice note, or on a scrap of paper in my pant pocket.

So I was intrigued to learn about an app that offers to help me declutter. Not my whole life. That would require more of a miracle than app. But to declutter my “urban experience.”

I didn’t realize I had an urban experience, or that it needed decluttering. But Urbaniser sounded like a cool idea, so I downloaded it, spoke to the founder, and here’s what I discovered.

Urbaniser is a neat way to put all your favorite cafes, bars, restaurants, shops, delis and random interesting venues into one place.

You type the name and Urbaniser does the rest. It imports all the relevant info – address, directions, opening times, website – and allows you to add your own notes.

You build up a collection and can share some or all of it with other people. Or simply feel a sense of pride at having curated them. A little like the olden days, when you’d put your CDs in alphabetic order.

I started a collection for the city that’s my home in central Israel, with a pizza place, another pizza place, a falafel place and another pizza place. I looked at them on a map, I labelled them as a breakfast, lunch or dinner venue (or all three). Then I started to wonder what more Urbaniser could offer.

Curating the places you like is only the start, says Orit Gal from Israel, who has a doctorate in international political economy from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and who is the driving force, CEO and founder behind Urbaniser.

The next stage, currently under construction, will connect businesses with the people who have chosen – or “Urbanised” – them, so they can directly target them with offers and news about events.

After that, in stage three, the app will start using AI to generate personalized recommendations based on the individual preferences of each user.

“We could actually give you great suggestions of places to go, things to do, communities to join,” says Gal. “We could start connecting the dots between different people who might never met each other, but actually share quite a lot of passions for certain lifestyles.”

She sees her app as an urban matchmaker, pairing city dwellers who are overwhelmed by choice, with businesses that have a tough time retaining customers in the internet age.

Urbaniser will make money when users book tables, rides or tickets, and from businesses who subscribe to communicate directly with interested customers and sign them up for loyalty programs.

“So far, we have just over 40,000 users, we’ve created over 61,000 city collections, and over 600,000 places urbanised across the world,” says Gal.

Most users are in Europe and the US, and Urbaniser has been building its presence in London in particular.

“Two thirds of the places people ‘Urbanise’ are food-related – bars, restaurants, cafes, delis – then there are galleries, shops, markets, even parks, playgrounds and places for kids,” says Gal.

“It’s a really cool tool that simply allows you to save, organize, and share literally anyplace in any city in the world, a bit like Spotify, but for places. You’re creating your very own playlist for every city.”

That’s likely to be the city where you live, but could just as well be one you’re visiting for a vacation or for work.

Urbaniser is unlike social media platforms, with followers and likes. It’s designed for a more targeted transfer of information.

“We pull in all the information for you, the visuals, opening times description, a get-me-there button, everything you need, and you just save it to one or more categories.

“We no longer have to run errands today, Amazon knocks on my door twice a day. But we are social organisms, we really crave everything that is not online,” says Gal.

The internet meets many of our needs, but it can’t replace the joy of chancing upon somewhere new, and sharing it with a friend.

Those happy discoveries will, through Urbaniser, build into meaningful relationships that work both ways, she says, for users and for businesses.

“Stores want you to come in and have an experience that will really build a connection, evenings with an author, a pop-up sale, pasta making class, whatever it is.

“Their pain point is that the only way they can let their customers know that these things are happening is either by sending us emails that we hardly open, or social media posts that immediately get lost in people’s feed.”

Urbaniser launched in 2021 after a Covid delay and is available for free on Google Play and App Store.

And in case you were wondering, Gal opted for Urbaniser, the English spelling, instead of the American Urbanizer because she lives in London.

The post Urban Matchmaker Helps You Make The Most Of Your City appeared first on NoCamels.

Steve Avery is bringing the world’s greatest chefs into thousands of home kitchens.

He’s on a mission to share their secrets with ordinary cooks, who are fed up scouring the internet for recipes that might be great. And might be terrible.

YesChef is an online education platform that currently features the culinary wisdom of seven chefs.

The plan is to add a dozen more chefs, all of them internationally renowned, in the coming year. Subscribers pay an annual fee and have unrestricted access to every lesson by every chef.

It goes far beyond the formulaic approach of a TV cook in the studio. YesChef spends months working with each chef creating a bespoke format to suit their style of cooking.

It then sends a 35-strong crew to wherever in the world they are to film them over eight days, distilling their expertise into more than six hours of video.

The results are beautifully produced, highly informative and worryingly addictive.

“We come at it from a fly in the wall documentary style narrative. And that allows them to just be really natural, and from us to have the best quality production and the best experience for the end user,” says Avery.

“We really ask them a lot of questions behind the camera, to get them to verbalize the secrets behind their technique, skills or method.”

It was a huge challenge to recruit the first chefs, says Steve, who is well acquainted with the startup world, but had no professional experience in either TV or cooking.

“They are amazing chefs, their time is very precious and we’re just a small Israeli startup,” he tells NoCamels. “I don’t have any formal experience in production or in chefdom (the state of being a chef).

“But I managed to convince a handful based on the vision, which was to create the first ever knowledge base, where we gather the most important chefs who have really made the world of food what it is today, and puts them together under one roof.”

The tables have now turned, he says. “Chefs are now coming to us. In the beginning, I was pitching an idea, I was pitching a dream. But now chefs can actually go to our website, they can see our talent, they can see the content, and they want to be a part of it.”

Among those featured so far are Francis Mallmann, Argentine celebrity chef, author, and restaurateur; American chef, baker, and author Nancy Silverton; Israeli chef, baker and educator Erez Komarovsky; Italian butcher Dario Cecchini; and Edward Lee, the Brooklyn-born celebrity chef, author and restaurateur.

YesChef is aimed at anyone who cooks, and wants to cook better.

“This is not a passive experience,” says Avery. “You’re actually watching, you’re going into the kitchen, you’re cooking, you’re coming back, you’re watching some more. You’re rinsing and repeating. It could take a few months to get through a class, because there really is a lot of content.

“Every class that we produce is around six-and-a-half hours of content and that includes a 50-minute documentary film. It’s a film that we create ourselves, and we produce ourselves that really takes you on a journey with the chef.

“That’s followed by about 20 lessons in the kitchen, to learn their recipes, techniques and skills. You come away at the end of every class, learning how to cook like that chef, how to make their food, how to recreate it for your family and friends.

“But you’re also empowered by the stories, the culture, the history behind that food. It’s not just about the recipes.”

As a keen amateur in the kitchen, Avery was disillusioned by what the internet had to offer.

“Recipes were one of the first things that people shared online, going back to the early 90s. Anybody could upload their grandma’s apple pie recipe and [the internet] soon became flooded with low quality content.

“Ask the average home cook today how they find recipes and they’ll tell you they went to 10 different sites, watched 10 different YouTube videos, and ended up ‘Frankensteining’ their own version,” he says.

“It’s ironic considering we have not just a home, but a dedicated premium subscription site for music, meditation, spinning, all these other things that are really important to us in life, but cooking has somehow been forgotten.”

He was inspired, in part, by Masterclass, the online learning platform where you can learn skateboarding from Tony Hawk, singing from Christina Aguilera, filmmaking from Martin Scorsese, and photography from Annie Leibovitz.

“When Masterclass came along, I got the Gordon Ramsay cookery class and thought it would be a great opportunity to learn from one of the best.

“Now I don’t want to bash Masterclass. I think it’s done something phenomenal, but I don’t think it works for food and cooking, because it’s not an academic approach.

“The YesChef approach is really the merging between online video classes with documentary storytelling. What we’re doing is a Chef’s Table documentary storytelling approach.”

He says every class is unique. “We don’t have a format for producing our content. We have an infrastructure, we have a methodology that allows every class to really be on its own as its own standalone experience.

“Part of the problem with platforms like Masterclass, that have a cookie-cutter format, is that it gets really boring really quickly.

“On YesChef you watch Asma Khan in Calcutta, India, with the music, the feel, the food, the vibes. You feel like you’re in India, and we want to immerse you in that world.

“But then, you know, you’ll go to Jamaica next week with Kwame Onwuachi and you’re going to feel like you’re in the Caribbean. And it’s a very different experience. And we do that across the board for every new class that we produce.

“The world has enough recipe websites. YesChef is about teaching you how to become an amazing cook at home, and doing it on a global scale.”

“Most people in the world will never get to meet these chefs or even get to the restaurants. We’re able to give you access to the chef and their lifetime of knowledge and experiences, and to actually teach you how to recreate their food at home.”

I’ve been watching some lessons, and so far I’ve learned, among much else, that I must make my empanadas using lard (sorry, I’m kosher and vegetarian), and I must use a pestle and mortar (NOT a food processor) to crush chickpeas for hummus.

I’m improving, albeit slowly, and I’m sure older subscribers have come on in leaps and bounds. So what about Avery himself? “Before YesChef I had a handful of dishes, or you know, recipes that I would go to, that kind of thing,” he says.

Now, after immersing himself in the food world, he modestly admits that he is “phenomenal”.

The post Bringing The World’s Greatest Chefs Into Your Kitchen appeared first on NoCamels.

Tonight is Yom HaZikaron, the day Israel remembers and honors the soldiers who fought and fell to protect it.

The national remembrance day commemorates the 24,068 IDF soldiers, police officers, prison wardens, victims of terrorism, and Israeli intelligence agents who have been killed since 1860.

But there are nearly 60,000 wounded and disabled veterans who continue to grapple with mental and emotional trauma on a daily basis, and often feel forgotten.

Many nonprofits are dedicated to helping them. Among them is a small program at a farm in Beit Yitzhak, central Israel, where veterans have been given a new purpose: training dogs. 

They learn to train their pups by professional dog trainers – who are wounded veterans themselves – through the Dogs 4 Soldiers program.

At the weekly meetings, veterans not only strengthen their bond with their dogs, but are given a sense of community, meeting and connecting with others whose experiences mirror their own. They can even become certified professional dog trainers themselves.

Dorel Ben Haim, 30, was suffering from PTSD (Post-traumatic stress disorder). He served in the IDF’s Givati Brigade, stationed at Israel’s borders and in the West Bank, and was forced to shoot two gas grenades at close-range, after they were thrown at him while he was in a jeep. He emerged from the incident with a collapsed lung. 

“I was a very closed off person,” he says. “My life just didn’t work. A regular person goes to sleep at night and wakes up in the morning – but I wasn’t able to sleep at night, or wake up in the morning. I wasn’t able to hold onto a job. I had nervous breakdowns.

“I didn’t go through any kind of rehabilitation. It’s not like a physical injury, where your leg has been amputated and you need to undergo physical rehabilitation for a year or two. There wasn’t an obvious solution out there for me.”

He heard of the Dogs 4 Soldiers program through a friend, who suggested he go there to train his dog, Charlie.

Ben Haim was drawn to the farm from his very first visit. He got to know other veterans who have been through similar experiences, and they let their dogs roam free together. That was in 2020, and he’s been attending every week since. 

“When I first got in contact with them I was in a bad state mentally. I was depressed, and didn’t leave the house. I was in the middle of my degree and was really struggling.

“I can’t say that my life is all roses now, or that I’m perfectly healthy. But I can say that there has been an improvement. I have stability now, and I know that no matter what happens, I have a place to turn.

“It’s like I underwent my rehabilitation through the program. That’s how I feel.”

Dogs 4 Soldiers is a rolling program. Veterans can attend as often or as few times as they’d like. They can stick with basic commands (sit, shake) or advance their dogs’ training through obstacle courses. 

Dozens of veterans have already participated in the program, and around 10 to 20 bring their dogs to Beit Yitzhak every week – including Ben Haim, and of course, Charlie. 

“For those who sign up for it, the program becomes a camaraderie, a group who are struggling with similar types of situations, and they become a crew where they get closer to one another,” says Shevy Vigler.

She and her husband, Rabbi Uriel Vigler, jointly founded Belev Echad (Hebrew for “With one heart”), the international organization behind the program. 

“The dogs really give them some enhancement to their lives – they’re something to take care of, something to live for, something to transform themselves through,” she says.

Belev Echad is dedicated to ensuring that the wounded men and women of the IDF receive the support they need to live productive and well-adjusted lives after their injuries.

“The idea is to really see what each soldier individually needs, whether it’s getting married, whether it’s help buying an apartment, whether they need a job – it’s very individualized in that respect.”

Like its other programs, which include educational scholarships and legal and medical advocacy, Dogs 4 Soldiers was inspired by the needs of an individual soldier. Belev Echad brought him a dog from a shelter as a form of therapy.

“It was so incredible to see the change within him that it grew into a program,” says Vigler. “And that’s the case with most of our programs – we did it for a specific, individual soldier, we saw the benefits, and expanded it to help others.”

Today, Ben Haim is completing his MBA (Master of Business Administration) specializing in corporate strategy and consulting. His dog, Charlie, has also picked up a thing or two from the farm. 

“He can sit, lie down, roll over, ‘pew pew’ (roll onto his back when someone points finger guns at him), and spin,” says Ben Haim.

The post IDF Veteran’s Best Friend: Dogs Ease Pain Of PTSD appeared first on NoCamels.

Today is Yom HaShoah – Holocaust Remembrance Day – when Israel honors the six million Jews murdered by the Nazis.

Most young people here visit Poland with their high school, to see the concentration camps for themselves and to understand the horrors of what happened there during World War II.

Most, but not all. Such trips have never been part of the culture of the Haredi (ultra-orthodox) communities that account for about an eighth of Israel’s population. And Holocaust studies are not part of the curriculum in their schools or yeshivas.

Click and explore to see the 360-degree video, courtesy Triumph of the Spirit

But three enterprising women from that world are harnessing the power of cutting-edge technology to create “virtual” visits for those who can’t physically go.

Miriam Cohen, Chani Koplowitz and Yuti Neiman, who have been making “kosher movies” with an educational message together for over a decade, were allowed into Auschwitz-Birkenau during the Covid lockdowns to shoot a groundbreaking virtual reality (VR) film.

Audiences wear a VR headset that recreates the experience of actually being there, with a 360-degree view. They can look around, up and down, side to side, throughout the 65-minute movie.

More than 70,000 people, from the Haredi world and far beyond, have so far seen Triumph of the Spirit.

The movie is a tribute to the women’s determination and innovation.

Cohen, a mother-of-six who directed the film, said they managed to get inside Auschwitz to film, even though Steven Spielberg, who directed the acclaimed Schindler’s List (released in 1993) didn’t.

They also mastered the use of VR filming techniques from scratch and ignored those who told them the tech was for gaming and novelty videos, and not for a serious movie.

At the UK premiere in London in January, Matthew Sanders, the education and VR lead for global affairs, at Meta (the Facebook group), paid tribute to their use of the VR tech.

“This is one of the most trailblazing and inspirational projects that I have come across so far,” he told the audience..

Cohen says she always felt she’d missed out on something very important. “When my friends came back from their Poland trip and told us how powerful it was I promised myself that one day I would go,” she said.

What she didn’t realize at the time was that when she did finally visit, she’d be sharing the story wide and far.

They had Rabbi Yisrael Goldwasser, a leading Holocaust lecturer and researcher and a third generation survivor, on board to narrate the film. They had the whole movie mapped out.

But the world had shut down during the Covid pandemic, flights were restricted, and Auschwitz – now a state museum attracting over two million visitors a year – had locked its gates.

After weeks of chasing, being passed from pillar and post, and being told it was completely impossible, Cohen managed to reach the director at Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Persistence and prayer was about to pay off. “She was a Polish woman who also speaks French,” says Cohen.

“I’m from Montreal, so I speak French. I speak to her, she loves me, she loves the idea. But then she says ‘I’m sorry, to film in Auschwitz-Birkenau, that’s not something we allow, with this technology’.

“So I said listen, you’re the last key to my big dream, please help me. And then she said, ‘you know what, send me a brief’.”

Cohen sent the brief, waited anxiously with her fellow film makers. Then she got the phone call.

“’You can come on Monday morning. The museum will be open, only for you, for three days’. It was amazing, we really had a miracle.”

They managed to get there, traveling through Ukraine and elsewhere, in a 27-hour journey, and to shoot the movie.

They were all alone, in a place usually packed with people, and Rabbi Goldwasser, the guide, was worried about being filmed without the live interaction from a group.

But he needn’t have worried. Afterwards he told Cohen: “Usually I’m here with human beings. Today I was here with the neshamos (souls of the dead).”

He grew up with many survivors. “Our viewers are hearing stories that he actually heard from them,” says Cohen. “Through his stories, we’re connecting to the bigger, painful story that happened to the Jewish people.

“The survivors are disappearing every day. Our job now is to take their stories, and to tell them to our kids and to our children, to pass it on as a memory.

“History is something that is outside of you and far from you and something you learn about, but a memory is something you felt, you heard, you smelled, which is inside of you. So that’s our job.”

The movie – together with 200 VR headsets – is available to groups across Israel, and can also be viewed daily in Jerusalem.

The post Haredi Women Take 70,000 On Virtual Visit To Auschwitz appeared first on NoCamels.

The gender gap in Israel’s startups is slowly narrowing, with women now accounting for 35 percent of all jobs.

A report published by Start-Up Nation Policy Institute to mark International Women’s Day shows the number of women in startups is increasing, albeit slowly, up from 33.4 percent in 2021.

Still, women account for just 16 percent of senior (C-level or C-suite) positions, and just seven percent of CTO (chief technical officers) positions. They fare best in senior roles as CMOs – chief marketing officers – at 35 percent.

The findings are based on a database of all LinkedIn employees in Israel’s hi-tech sector.

Women are more successful in hi-tech’s impact sectors – those with a social or environmental impact, which also happen to be some of the fastest-growing industries in Israel.

The alternative protein sector, for example, raised over $1 billion of investment in the last two years, second only to the USA.

“More women choose to be integrated into impact sectors – like alternative proteins, which have a higher percentage of female CEOs,” says Yam Atir, VP Strategy and Policy for Start-Up Nation Policy Institute, the think-tank that strengthens Israeli innovation through policy recommendations.

“Based on our data, we know that these sectors will continue to grow. And because we know these sectors will continue to grow, we expect – and hope – that more women will have a role in these industries in the future.”

To celebrate International Women’s Day, NoCamels highlights some of these impactful Israeli startups that are led by women, for women – from providing them with a sense of security when walking home, to helping them succeed in traditionally male-dominated programming jobs. 

A community that helps women feel safer when walking home

Walking home at night can be a stressful experience for women who are whistled at, catcalled, or even followed. 

An Israeli startup has developed a free app to help them feel safe wherever they go.

SafeUP tracks their location, and lets them call other members of the community if they feel unsafe.

The ‘guardians’ undergo crisis intervention training through the app to support women who feel threatened.

If they are in the area, they can meet the user and accompany the woman to her home. If they fear the woman is in danger, they can call the police through the app, which taps into the phone’s camera and microphone to record evidence. 

Neta Schreiber Gamliel, the company’s CEO, was inspired to create the app after an incident she experienced as a teen at a party.

She realized a friend had disappeared, went looking for her with some friends. They found two men trying to take advantage of her while she was in a semi-conscious state.

She says that when they entered the room, the men ran away, and from that moment she realized that women had more power in numbers.

SafeUp says its members feel 82 percent more safe walking alone at night when using the app, and enjoy an extra five hours outside a week. 

A space for women to learn programming skills 

Women are highly under-represented in the tech workforce. In Israel, they account for 34 percent of the industry, and in the US, they only make up 28 percent of computing and mathematical jobs.

An Israeli organization is tackling this gender imbalance by offering women-only coding and programming courses across the country.

She codes (stylized as she codes;) has already taught 50,000 women programming skills since 2013. Once a week, participants meet at over 45 branches to learn and attend lectures on technology and career advising.

The meetups also function as a space for women to study and learn together, whether they have a background in programming or are learning to code for the first time.  

The organization offers five basic and eight advanced study courses. She codes; was founded by Ruth Polachek, who set a goal to achieve 50 percent female developers in the Israeli tech scene within a decade.

“The Israeli high-tech market has a shortage of about 30,000 programmers,” said Polachek. “Women have tremendous potential to fill this place.

“Now, when the number of recruitments is decreasing, it is the right time to professionalize, to gain a lot of experience and knowledge at a high level, so that talents are in demand for desirable jobs.”

Algorithm increases gender-equality in companies

Research shows again and again that ethnically- and gender-diverse companies are more likely to outperform their peers, and companies with women on the board statistically outperform their peers over a long period of time.

Israeli startup Joonko is working to increase diversity among global enterprises. Since 2021, it has helped 250 applicants find jobs every month in the US.

Its algorithm scans the databases of job applicants at American Express, Nike, Walmart, Booking.com, Adidas, Paypal and many other global enterprises that receive thousands of applications a month.

When it identifies a short-listed candidate from an under-represented group (women, people of color, or veterans) who didn’t make the cut, it reaches out to them and asks if they want to join the platform.

If they agree, it analyzes its subscribed pool of companies for suitable vacancies, and automatically emails them custom job recommendations twice a week.

Joonko’s talent pool is only open to professional individuals from the under-represented groups referred to the platform by one of its partnering companies.

“We analyze every candidate who doesn’t get an offer, and try to understand their gender, race, and veteran status using algorithms that we developed in-house,” said CEO Ilit Raz.

“And once we do, we are able to funnel them and determine if they are relevant for the pool or not.”

The company, based in Tel Aviv, is named after Junko Tabei, from Japan, who was the first woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest, in 1975. Raz says her perseverance shows them that no challenge is too big to overcome.

The post Startup Nation: Israel’s Hi-Tech Gender Gap Is Slowly Narrowing appeared first on NoCamels.

Forgotten sandal set Dead Sea sculptor on a 20-year journey of discovery

It started by chance. Israeli sculptor Sigalit Landau left her sandal in the Dead Sea, and found it a week later, coated in a layer of salt crystals. 

“By then, it was already starting to transform into a Cinderella slipper,” she says. 

She was visiting the lowest point on Earth to prepare for an artistic video of her floating naked within a six-meter long spiral raft of 500 watermelons.

That was nearly twenty years ago. Since then, she and her team of assistants have gone on to submerge hundreds of different objects in the Dead Sea, where the water is 10 times saltier than ordinary sea water.

Many of her salt-encrusted sculptures – including barbed-wire, musical instruments, shoes, and dresses – are on display today at the Israel Museum of Jerusalem. 

Now she says it might be time to wrap things up, and focus on other projects, like a bronze sculpture she is working on for the new National Library in Jerusalem. “I think I’ve done enough,” says Landau, 53, after two decades when she’s often started her working day at 3am.

The process is very demanding, her team’s working conditions aren’t improving – and they’re just not as young as when they first began.

There’s a story behind each piece. One sculpture, a dress, is an exact replica of the one worn by Hanna Rovina, the Israeli actress known as the First Lady of Hebrew Theatre.

Her most famous role was that of Leah in The Dybbuk, a play about a maiden who is possessed by the spirit of her dead lover, Khanan, who her father rejected as her suitor.

Landau wanted to marry her to the sea, and turn her black dress of mourning to a beautiful, salt-coated wedding dress. 

A lot of trial and error was involved when submerging the objects. Some materials don’t maintain their integrity under such a high concentration of salt water – like brass, which will corrode.

“When you make art, you’re in control to some extent,” she tells NoCamels. “But it’s very interesting to work with nature and to not know what the outcome will be.

“Artists and scientists are not so different when it comes to materials and learning. We both just have to experiment.”

Flimsy items like dresses, will lose their ‘waviness’, and will become rigid. So she ties them to frames until their forms are fixed. “We use weights, ties, knots, and frames to keep things underwater.”

For some pieces, she applies resin or a little wire beforehand. “But I try not to do too much – I let the sea do what it wants, and I like to be surprised.”

She then treats them with a lacquer to keep the “crying” to a minimum – that’s when humid air melts some of the solidified salt water.

“Two months into my current show, there’s much less mopping,” she jokes. “But we still announced the possibility of the works crying in the first few weeks while we were in the early stages of planning the exhibition for the Israel Museum.”

Landau and her team usually create the art pieces during the summer months. They leave their Tel Aviv studio at around 3 am, stock up on regular water (because there’s no place to shower at the Dead Sea) and other necessary gear, and get there at around 6 am.

“In the summer, the water is like soup, even in the early hours of the morning when it isn’t hot yet. But that’s what you need to create crystals. 

“If you come two months earlier, the water will definitely be more refreshing to work in, but we can’t get that same magic without high temperatures.”

In cooler temperatures, the crystallization is more powdery. “In summer, we call the crystals shesh besh (backgammon dice).”

She and her team check on the pieces three times a week, until Landau is satisfied with the way the salt has clung to them. 

There isn’t an exact science to coating sculptures with crystallized salt, and after years of doing this, some things still catch her by surprise. 

“At one point, I lifted a crystallized object from the water that was so heavy that I couldn’t even remember what it originally was,” says Landau. 

But from that, she was inspired to create a sculpture that would dissolve on a frozen lake to see what would happen. It only succeeded on the third attempt, when they understood that the salt would stop dissolving at temperatures lower than -17 degrees Celsius (1.4 degrees Fahrenheit). It rarely gets colder than 16 degrees Celsius (60 degrees Fahrenheit) at the Dead Sea.

Landau says that half of all the objects she submerges don’t become art works to her liking, for various reasons. And some objects, like the skeleton of a dove which she purchased from a laboratory, just don’t fit her vision once they emerge from the water. 

Big items take a few months to crystallize nicely. Small objects take a few weeks, especially in the summer. Any longer and they become so encrusted that they’re unrecognizable.

Landau has several objects she enjoyed submerging the most. Shadow lampshades which she constructed with barbed wire, for one. “We constructed these objects to resemble lanterns,” she says. 

“Barbed wire is usually used territorially to fence people out, and it’s by definition sharp and dangerous to pass through. But in my salt sculptures it’s transformed, because it is coated with salt crystals, and it’s on the verge of being unrecognizable. It looks like vertebrae, something even quasi-decorative.” 

And lately, she has really enjoyed coating pointe shoes, which were passed down to her from ballet dancers. “It was about taking something that was for me obsolete and bringing it back to my life and art.”

Some of her pieces also address the impact of mankind on the Dead Sea, which is rapidly receding at a rate of three feet a year.

The salt lake used to receive fresh water from rivers and streams from the mountains that surround it, and lose it by evaporation. The evaporation process, combined with its rich salt deposits, account for its extraordinary salinity, which is up to 33 per cent.

But in the 1960s, Israel built the National Water Carrier, an enormous pumping station on the banks of the Sea of Galilee, diverting water from the upper Jordan, the Dead Sea’s prime source, into a pipeline system that supplies water throughout the country.

Israeli and Jordanian companies also evaporate the Dead Sea’s water to harvest its rich minerals for export.

The Dead Sea is about 15 per cent more shallow than it was just half a century ago. It may continue to drop 330 feet over the next century.

The post Salt Of The Earth: Turning Everyday Objects Into Art appeared first on NoCamels.

Israeli pair blend art and and science in orbit… with unexpected consequences

It was a moment of high emotion for Liat Segal and Yasmine Meroz when they finally saw their artwork go “live” in space.

They designed and built their Impossible Object – a miniature ladder fashioned from brass rods and tubes – last October after winning approval from NASA through the Israel-based Rakia Art Project.

On Earth, water piped through their sculpture simply dribbled out through a series of holes. The expectation was that it in zero gravity it would cling, impossibly, to the outside of the ladder, as a water sculpture.

Impossible Object blasted off aboard the privately-funded Axiom Mission 1 to the International Space Station in April.

After several days of anxiety – would it actually happen or not – Eytan Stibbe, Israel’s second man in space, turned on the tap.

But it was only several months later that Segal, a contemporary artist, and Meroz, a physicist at Tel Aviv University, would finally get to see video of “the moment”.

Their object was impossible, but not quite in the way they’d expected. Instead of clinging to the brass surface, the water formed itself into large, beautiful and perfect spheres that acted as lenses, reflecting their surroundings.

Something of a surprise, but a unique and very welcome surprise, 420km above the Earth’s surface.

“It was emotionally exciting, just to think that something that we created had materialized in space,” says Segal.

“We’re both space geeks, so it really was a dream come true. To be honest I don’t think there could have been any result that wouldn’t have been a success. It was amazing.”

Meroz says it nearly didn’t happen at all. Everything in space is tightly controlled. After last-minute doubts over whether there’d be enough time, Stibbe finally activated the artwork. Video of that first activation was censored by NASA. Thankfully he did it a second time, and that version got the OK.

“I was sitting in a coffee shop somewhere,” says Meroz. “And then I got the email with the video and I opened it and I had tears in my eyes, I was really, really emotional about it, I just couldn’t believe it actually happened.

“The adhesion forces were different from what we expected, or let’s say the water tension was much stronger than we thought. And so we in the end, we got these nice crystal balls.”

The challenge had been to predict how the water would behave in the absence of gravity. They could only guess the impact of surface tension and adhesion forces, the other two factors in play.

Segal and Meroz first met during their MSc studies at Tel Aviv University. Meroz became an academic, researching computational processes in plants. Segal, who has a background in computer science and biology, diversified into fine art.

But they shared a passion for the place where art meets science, and had already collaborated on a work called Tropism, in which they had giant plant stalks respond to external stimuli.

When they were approached by the Rakia Art Project offering them the chance to send art into space as part of innovative microgravity exhibition, they jumped at it.

They were among a dozen or so projects that were approved, including a sculpture of radio waves broadcast from Earth to the ISS and a space ring, with metal follicles that rise and float gently on the finger.

But only their project had such an element of unpredictability. They thought the water would cling to the ladder, and it didn’t.

They’d been working under tight constraints at Segal’s studio. Once they got the go-ahead, they had just 10 days to create their Impossible Art from start to finish. And given the high price of space cargo – $1 million per kg – they had a strict 250g limit. They weighed in at 249.85g.

“There are restrictions concerning dimensions, weight and the materials themselves,” says Meroz. “So we had to give a list of all the materials that were included and it all had to pass through some NASA committee to check everything was OK for the flight.”

At some point in the future there will be an exhibition, here on Earth, of the projects that went into space, including the Impossible Object.

“We have a few ideas,” says Segal. “One is to show it in its failure, to show how it cannot exist on Earth, to have the water running through it, and falling to the ground.”

As space becomes – relatively – more accessible, there are likely to be more art opportunities.

“Suddenly space is not open only to NASA or scientists, now it’s open to everybody,” says Meroz. “So what does it mean to be a human in space and not a scientist in space?

“People lived in caves, surviving, but they still found the time to draw pictures. That’s what we do as humans.”

That’s why she says they wanted to create a sculpture that contrasted so starkly with its hi-tech display space, inside the International Space Station.

The post Impossible Space Object: It’s Art, But Not As We Know It appeared first on NoCamels.

Algorithm automatically finds job opportunities for minority “silver medalists”

Thousands of people from under-represented minorities are finding work, thanks to an automated artificial intelligence system.

Technology developed by Joonko, an Israeli startup, scans the database of job applicants at American Express, Nike, Walmart, Booking.com, Adidas, Paypal and many other global enterprises.

It identifies the “silver medalists” from minority groups – those who came close to landing a job but didn’t quite make it – and finds them similar vacancies to apply for at other companies.

Since 2021, it has helped 250 applicants find jobs every month in the US.

“We basically help companies source under-represented minorities through an automated solution,” says Ilit Raz, Founder and CEO of Joonko.

“Most companies spend tons of hours manually sourcing under-represented candidates, if they know how to tap into those pools – and most of them don’t.”

She set up the platform in 2016 to connect highly-qualified, under-represented candidates with global companies that care about diversity. They don’t have to lift a finger. Joonko has access, with permission, to applicant tracking systems and automatically seeks out opportunities across all the companies it works with. 

The company, based in Tel Aviv, is named after Junko Tabei, a Japanese mountain climber who became the first woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest, in 1975. Raz says her perseverance shows them that no challenge is too big to overcome.

Joonko is connected to the applicant tracking systems of companies, databases that receive thousands of applications a month. When it identifies a short-listed candidate from an under-represented group (women, people of color, or veterans) who didn’t make the cut, it reaches out to them and asks if they want to join the platform.

If these silver medalists say yes, Joonko analyzes its subscribed pool of companies to see if there are any fitting vacancies, and automatically emails them custom job recommendations twice a week. 

Joonko’s talent pool is only open to professional individuals from the under-represented groups referred to the platform by one of its partnering companies. 

“The nature of the platform generates a situation where the company, which is the demand, actually brings the supply with them,” Raz tells NoCamels. “It’s just a supply that they don’t need and other companies might want to be looking into.”

“We are solely focused on under-represented minorities, which no other platform is. The other thing is the ‘product’ itself, where all candidates have been silver medalists, which means they reach the last two steps of the hiring process. 

“Because they didn’t win this opportunity, they’re invited to our pool, potentially getting an opportunity for another company. So basically, everyone in the pool is an under-represented minority, pre-vetted highly qualified candidate.”

Joonko is able to access these candidates by connecting to its partner companies’ applicant tracking systems, a software program that manages the hiring process by screening thousands of resumes.

Companies pay a subscription fee based on the volume of jobs they have. So small companies with 10 open positions will pay less than companies with 2,000.

“We analyze every candidate who doesn’t get an offer, and try to understand their gender, race, and veteran status using algorithms that we developed in-house. And once we do, we are able to funnel them and determine if they are relevant for the pool or not,” she says.

“We plug into those systems and get access to them so that when you get rejected, we understand if you’re a silver medalist and have all your information,” says Raz.

“So we can analyze your demographic, identify the job you’ve been rejected from so we can actually go ahead and match you with a similar job.”

Other than the importance of spreading tolerance, diversity actually benefits companies in many ways. Research shows again and again that ethnically- and gender-diverse companies are more likely to outperform their peers, and companies with women on the board statistically outperform their peers over a long period of time.  

And yet, whites still make up the majority of the US labor force at 77 per cent. Joonko is working to change this statistic by increasing diversity among global enterprises.

“I really wanted to create a solution that is interesting enough from a technology perspective, but also solves the problem of under-represented minorities in the workplace,” says Raz.

Over the past two years, Joonko’s sales have grown by 500 per cent.

“I think it all started from the movement that began after George Floyd’s death, in 2020, that started forcing companies to be more transparent. And with that transparency, they have to improve.”

Joonko says the average business leveraging its platform sees a 25 per cent increase in under-represented candidates in their hiring funnel (the series of stages through which a candidate’s consideration for employment progresses), and hires one-in-six of the candidates sourced through the platform.

Within the platform, 97 per cent of candidates identify as under-represented in the workforce – 68 per cent as women or non-binary, 32 per cent as black, and 21 per cent as Latinx (a person of Latin American origin/descent).

The post AI Startup Boosts Workplace Diversity At Nike, Walmart, Adidas appeared first on NoCamels.

Social media algorithm pairs up people with same conditions

It’s somewhere between Facebook, Waze and Tinder, says Amnon Bar-Lev.

He’s created a social media platform that connects people with similar health conditions so they can share experiences, discuss symptoms and medication, and be there for each other.

Alike is up and running in the USA, where 100,000 users have so far uploaded their medical data – anonymously – plus details of age, gender, BMI, exercise, any vitamins or supplements they take – and started interacting with others.

The internet may have become the go-to place for instant medical advice, but it’s a hit-or-miss experience at best.

“Dr Google and Dr Facebook aren’t such great doctors,” Bar-Lev tells NoCamels. “They don’t see the overall picture and they lack context.”

That’s why he set up Alike, so that people with very similar health situations could connect with each other.

“If someone has been through something similar before, we can learn so much from them. It’s the wisdom of the crowd,” he says.

Users upload data from their healthcare provider – anonymously and for free – and receive a notification to say how many people are clinically alike, with each one scored out of 100 for “alike-ness”. Users can then reach out to each other and chat.

The alternative – a simple internet search – may allow a fibromyalgia sufferer, for example, to find a relevant group or forum. But narrowing the field to find people who also have Crohn’s disease and anxiety would be tricky.

That’s where Alike’s matchmaking capabilities come in. It employs cluster analysis – the grouping of objects, or in this case people, with similar characteristics – to establish connections.

Two users may, for example, both have diabetes, hypertension, osteoporosis and asthma. They’re both taking three of the same medications.

Alike is powered by an algorithm designed to analyze clusters. It trawls their health records, calculates these two users are 86 per cent clinically similar, and connects them.

Bar-Lev, who used to fly F-16s for the Israeli Air Force, says he’s harnessing the power of artificial intelligence, crowdsourcing and big data to empower patients, change healthcare and improve lives.

People subscribe, he says, for two main reasons – for practical advice and because they don’t want to feel alone.

He stepped down as president of Check Point, the multi-billion dollar Israeli software giant company with 90 offices worldwide – and went back to school in 2018.

He was 56 when he enrolled, alongside 20-something undergraduates, at the Sackler School of Medicine ,at Tel Aviv University, to study life sciences. He was looking for a “big problem” to solve, and he found it.

“I was sitting in class and there was a discussion about medications,” he says. “And I learned that a typical medication, is good for only about 20 to 30 per cent of people with the same condition.”

That set him thinking about how he could identify, or cluster, those 20 or 30 per cent. And how he could cluster people by other criteria, so that those with very similar health problems could share their experiences.

The result was the healthcare startup Alike, which he launched year ago, and which has a staff of 15 – a far cry from the 6,000 workers at Check Point.

One of the first concerns people raise about Alike is the quality of the advice users give and receive. What if it’s wrong or harmful?

“It can happen,” says Bar-Lev. “Physicians can also give bad advice, but in most cases, research shows that the crowd actually fixes itself. Other people will come in and say no, no, it’s wrong.”

Users who behave badly can be blocked, he says, but it rarely happens.

Doctors are generally supportive, he says, because patients using Alike get a more reliable source of information than they would from Google.

Another big issue is the privacy of users’ medical data. Bar-Lev says the system is completely anonymized. Users appear online as an avatar and can’t be linked back to their records.

The site boasts a high level of online interaction. “We are bringing the power of social media to healthcare,” he says. “We have more than 1,000 people who open the app every day and 35 per cent of them will either comment, answer, or ask a question.”

Alike is free to join and use. It currently generates revenue from referring users for clinical trials and, in the future, will open up sponsorship opportunities for digital health and wellness companies.

Bar-Lev says there are plans to expand to other English-speaking countries – initially the UK, Australia, and New Zealand – although there’s work to do because they have different names and coding systems for medication.

The post Healthcare’s Answer To “Facebook, Waze and Tinder” appeared first on NoCamels.

NoCamels Listicle: These five startups have ideas that could benefit you

Wellness is driving more and more of the decisions we make about what to eat, how to exercise, and the steps we take to care for our mental health.

Last year alone digital health startups in Israel raised $870 million to develop businesses in personal care, physical activity, healthy eating, nutrition, physiotherapy, cognitive and mental health, and other areas that allow consumers to incorporate wellness activities into their daily lives. 

At the annual Global Wellness Summit this week in Tel Aviv, over 410 wellness entrepreneurs and leaders from 50 nations met to help shape the future of wellness worldwide. Here are five Israeli companies that are improving consumer wellness and wellbeing in innovative ways:

CalmiGo

CalmiGo is a handheld device that resembles an inhaler and provides natural anxiety and stress relief. It guides users’ breathing patterns using lights and vibrations, and emits peppermint, lavender and other scents to encourage relaxation.

It was developed by Adi Wallach, who experienced panic attacks while pursuing her undergraduate degree at the Technion, in Haifa. After trying to change her diet, doing yoga, and going to therapy, she decided to develop her own solution. 

A study was conducted on 29 Israeli war veterans suffering from combat-related anxiety and PTSD by Reichman University. They used the device three times a day, for three minutes each time, and answered questionnaires after almost every week of use.

The participants experienced a rapid and long-lasting decline in both PTSD and anxiety levels, and scored their average anxiety much lower throughout the study than at the start.

X-trodes

A wearable skin patch measures brainwave activity, eye movement and more, and sends it to the user’s phone by Bluetooth.

Measuring our body’s electrophysiology – or the electric signals of the brain, heart, and muscles – is used to monitor sleep patterns and diagnose sleep disorders, measure athletic performance by monitoring real-time muscle patterns, and expand research beyond laboratory limits. 

But current methods of monitoring require the use of bulky equipment, electrodes, gel, or suction cups – and in some cases, an overnight stay at a clinic.

“X-trodes is a medical, wearable skin patch that measures the body’s physiology,” says Ziv Pereman, CEO of X-trodes.

“Instead of measuring the body’s electrophysiology in the clinic, we make it possible to do so in the home environment. Ours is a very simple solution – a skin patch that replaces all of these ‘golden standard solutions’ offered by clinics.”

It transmits data over Bluetooth to a small receiver, which it sends to the patient’s (or physician’s) mobile device. The data is meant to be integrated into a physician’s existing software systems.

X-trode’s electrodes can measure up to 10 hours of EEG (brainwaves), EOG (eye movement), EMG (skeletal muscles), ECG (cardiac activity) and EOIG (olfactory activations). It will be commercially available for clinical use next year.

Sency

Sency uses computer vision and AI to track and analyze motion, to improve workouts and physical health.

Using only a camera on a smartphone, it counts, tracks, and charts movement in real time while providing instant video review, deep analysis, and insights, all on the user’s device – something Co-founder Neta Osman says other motion-tracking software companies cannot do.

It has two mobile apps. WodProof helps crossfit athletes improve their performance by recording their workouts, and provides real-time feedback and custom-made exercise plans. And Sency Health creates daily exercises tailored to your body.

To get started, Sency conducts a computer-vision body assessment and analyzes the user’s movements to provide them with a tailor-made program. 

Amai Proteins

Amai Proteins has developed a protein that’s 3,000 times sweeter than sugar, and can be produced at a fraction of the cost.

These sweet proteins are normally found in jungles around the Equator, but are not used as a sweetener due to challenges including cost, stability, and taste.

Founder Dr Ilan Samish used computational protein design and precision fermentation – which is similar to brewing beer – to develop the proteins in a lab. 

Using these proteins instead of sugar will save trillions of liters of water used to grow and produce sugarcane, and millions of acres of land, as well as save billions for healthcare systems. 

The protein can been used to reduce sugar by up to 70 per cent in products like chocolate, granola, ketchup, and craisins. Amai Proteins’s first product will be launched in 2023. 

myAir

MyAir is a subscription service offering personalized nutrition bars designed to reduce chronic stress. Users complete a cognitive questionnaire to determine how they are affected by stress, and are offered nutrition bars with different adaptogens – extracts from herbs and plants whose properties can counteract the effects of stress – based on their answers. 

“We all want to manage our stress and be more mindful, but changing our behavior is so complex,” says Rachel Yarcony, CEO and Co-founder of myAir. 

“The best way to change it is to attach the new habit to a current one that you enjoy – which of course is eating. So we use food and nutrition as a behavioral tool, and offer a platform that combines mind and body parameters.”

The company has an app that connects to your smartwatch to measure your current stress status, and the effects it has on you. MyAir offers six formulations of bars with different ‘super-plants’ like ginseng and hops, whose effects range from boosting energy levels and brain function, to improving sleep quality and focus. 

The post Israel Helps Shape The Future Of Worldwide Wellness appeared first on NoCamels.

Israeli project gives them skills and resources to double their income

Mushrooms are saving women in Africa from life-or-death poverty.

Thanks to an Israeli social entrepreneur they are learning to grow them, sell them, and double their daily income.

Tzippora Nusbaum is driven by a desire to spare families from heart-wrenching choices between providing their children with food or medicine.

Her professional background is in engineering, but she took a dramatic change of direction during the Covid lockdowns.

She set up her first mushroom project remotely in northern Tanzania and aims to replicate it across Africa and beyond in a project called Entrepreneurs vs. Poverty.

Mushroom growing requires a bare minimum of equipment, resources and expertise, which is what makes it such a simple and attractive proposition as a business. And it provides nutritional food to help feed a family.

Put any kind of organic waste into buckets, add spawn – living fungal culture that’s the mushroom equivalent of seeds – leave it somewhere dark for a few weeks, then harvest the crop.

Any kind of agricultural waste will do as long as it is sterilized. Leftovers from rice, maize or banana crops are fine. Even cardboard is good.

“We work with women who have been earning less than $1.90 a day and we can bring them up incrementally to $3 to $5 a day,” Nusbaum tells NoCamels. “As they become more and more familiar with it they can grow more exotic mushrooms.”

She provides the women in a community with everything they need to start their own home-growing mushroom enterprise, then moves on to the next. Once the infrastructure is in place, the women are largely self-sufficient.

“We are starting projects in places currently suffering from extreme drought and food shortages, where families are having to choose between medicine and food,” she says.

“Generally, these are people living in life-or-death poverty in extremely rural settings. They don’t have access to very basic things like health care, clean water, or maybe food that they haven’t grown themselves.

“We empower women to fight climate change and extreme poverty by teaching them how to grow mushrooms and connecting them to the international market.

“Why women? Because if you want to really change, you need to target the mothers of the family.

“They will create educational opportunities for their children, increased health care, a decrease in maternal and infant mortality rates and more business opportunities for the family, as opposed to the individual.”

“We particularly work with women because graduation from poverty is contingent upon getting the mothers involved.

“Women in agriculture are often sold low-quality seeds and fertilizer. The men get first and the women get what’s left, if at all.

“We’re creating our own producers, of all the commodities we need, so we’re completely distancing them from this market that is so used to taking advantage of them.”

She says mushrooms are a tailor-made solution for marginalized women.

“They don’t require landownership, which is often a problem,” she says. “They don’t require mobility, you can grow mushrooms in your own home, and they’re extremely fast, they grow within six to eight weeks.

“So the turnover, the return on investment is very fast. Right now we have finished a pilot in northern Tanzania and we are working on one in East Jerusalem.

“There are other potential pilots that are being set up, one is in Israel and we are in the process of expansion throughout Central and East Africa, Kenya, Malawi, Uganda, and more in Tanzania, perhaps Ghana.

“I am providing them with a training center, bringing in the experts and creating the farm that provides them with the physical materials and the expertise they need.

“We hold their hand as they open their own farms. They then come back and bring us their fresh mushrooms, which we dry and package.”

She says she’s created a model that can readily be set up wherever there’s a need and that can accommodate a near-infinite number of women participants.

“We should be hitting 100,000 within two years maximum,” she says. “That’s definitely the goal. And it’s not even my most optimistic goal. It’s my more realistic goal.

“Once we’ve secured enough buyers to handle volume and enough grants to have the inflow to set up, we will move on because it’s a one-time investment.”

The women farmers can produce 500kg (just over half a ton) of top-quality oyster mushrooms in a year from just one square meter, holding 16 buckets stacked on top of each other. Each bucket produces 6kg and there are typically six harvests a year.

“The women will either sell to a local restaurant that is very proud of the fact that they sourced their mushrooms from people earning a reasonable and a respectable living wage, or we connect them to international buyers, who are themselves manufacturers of sustainable products.”

As the project grows, she’s targeting food giants Nestle, Unilever and Mars, in the hope of securing long-term supply contracts.

Nusbaum found during extensive research that mushroom projects had worked in India, Bangladesh, China and elsewhere in Asia, but the idea hadn’t been rolled to Africa, where she is operating.

“This is completely foreign territory,” she says. “I learned about it exclusively and theoretically during the preparation. LinkedIn is a very powerful tool and I would just write to people, to anyone I thought could help.”

She feels passionately that Entrepreneurs vs. Poverty should function as a business, rather than as an NGO (non-government, non-profit organization) and that it should protect women from what she calls market brutality.

“This is a social business, it is not an NGO,” she says. “If I am selling my solution, I must be on target or nobody will buy. If my solution does not actually solve the poverty that I’m coming to solve, nobody will purchase it.

“If I sell my product or my consultancy I’m committed to my clients, to these entrepreneurs that I’m teaching. On the flip side, if I’m an NGO, I don’t have the assurance that I’m actually hitting my target.

“What makes us so different, is that we are unapologetically farm-to-fork. I refuse to let anyone else come into the picture between the farmers and Nestle other than myself.

“And that’s how you fight for sustainability. The fewer middlemen there are, the more income for the farmers themselves, without anyone else taking a cut.”

The post Women Grow Mushrooms To Beat Poverty In Africa appeared first on NoCamels.

Volunteers use their expertise to improve day-to-day life for IDF veterans

Wounded veterans in Israel are developing tailor-made devices to improve daily life, with help from a team of experts.

The Makers For Heroes program recruits volunteers and companies to design products that aren’t available anywhere else.

Innovations created through the initiative this year alone include:

• An adapter that prevents a veteran’s prosthetic leg from slipping off of the pedals of their mountain bike.

• A magnet that connects two crutches so the user doesn’t have to lay one of them on the floor to free their hand. 

• An app on the Apple Watch for a veteran with a brain injury who has short-term memory loss. It helps his family find him when he gets lost.

It has also modified a surfboard for a veteran who was paralyzed from the chest-down.

Makers For Heroes is one of the life-changing programs offered by Restart, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping wounded IDF veterans.

Every year, the organization takes 20 to 25 wounded veterans with specific challenges and builds volunteer teams with relevant qualifications and knowledge to solve each of them.

Restart’s partners have included defense companies Rafael, Elbit, and Tomer, as well as Bank Hapoalim and AppsFlyer, a marketing analytics company. 

“There are so many needs that are not being tackled or solved,” says Niv Efron, CEO of Restart, “because there is no business model around them.

“Through Restart’s Makers for Heroes, a person who feels neglected and has so many difficulties can suddenly have a team of people who really work with him, and help him specifically with a tailor-made solution.

“When a soldier gets injured, they are in the highest physical peak of their lives, but for many it’s a very, very long fall when they get injured.

“One of the things that gets lost is the sense of capability, and here we give an opportunity for this person to do one thing he couldn’t do before. This gives them a whole new mindset, and helps them realize how capable they really are.”

The main aim is not to create businesses from these products, because Restart’s priority is to focus on each individual’s specific need. “We want to create a really big impact on the veteran, and not a small impact on many,” says Efron.

But he does see the value of making these products more widely-available, and says that it is on the organization’s agenda. “We want to make sure that we do it right, and in the proper way – we will get there.”

Among this year’s successful projects is a shield that allows David, a veteran with Chronic Pain Syndrome, to play baseball with his kids.

He suffers from pain even after his injury has healed. A team from Elbit developed a lightweight shield from carbon fiber for his wheelchair to stop the ball hitting his legs.

Another team, from defense firm Rafael, 3D-printed a minimalist wrist brace that connects to wristwatches for Shay Senior, a veteran with a wrist injury. He couldn’t wear a watch on top of a regular brace without feeling a lot of pressure and pain.

Senior is also the Co-founder of Palta, the world’s first certification program for inclusive clothing for people with disabilities. He’s used his expertise in the Makers for Heroes program to create solutions for other veterans. 

Restart has also created a specially-modified surfboard that allowed veteran Inbal Reichler to surf again after she was paralyzed from the chest-down. She went on to set up Wave-ability, a nonprofit that makes surfing accessible for people with disabilities.  

“When we asked her why she wanted to go into the water and why it was her goal, she said, ‘This is freedom for me. Being in the water makes me feel equal.’” says Efron.

Restart posts about the opening of their programs on their social media each year, but Israeli veterans have a tight-knit community – so many of them actually find out about it from previous participants. Restart also recruits participants through its collaboration with other organizations, such as the Zahal Disabled Veterans Fund. 

Restart assesses the needs of about 50 applicants, and finds partners to help with about half of them. “Sometimes there is a solution but it is too expensive, so we can develop something similar but more low-cost for that specific need,” says Efron.

After choosing the challenges, Restart has a launch event where it displays the different challenges so volunteers can come and decide which one they want to be a part of. Once the teams are formed, they have a one-day hackathon to see if they can complete a prototype. 

“We do this to make sure the team is working in the right direction, that it’s something that works, that it’s something that the veteran will be happy with – because the target is the veteran, not the solution,” says Efron. 

After a few weeks of working on the solution, there is a final event where the product is completed and delivered to the veteran. Restart holds a closing event, with a judging panel that chooses the best products of the year. “It’s a fun way to motivate the teams,” he says. 

“There are many organizations that help veterans, but not in the way that we do. That’s why we chose this niche. And that’s why we also work with these organizations together, because we believe that we will have a much bigger impact in this way.”

Restart was founded in 2014 to help the many soldiers who were hospitalized during Operation Protective Edge, the military operation that was launched following the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank by Hamas militants. 

“It started when a few people from the Israeli tech scene came to visit,” says Efron. “They wanted to volunteer and give something back to the wounded veterans, but they didn’t want to just make them happy – they wanted to do something meaningful.

“They tried to dig in and understand what challenges veterans face when they are injured. But once you get out of this injury, what do you do next? How do you integrate back into society?

“In Israel, there’s a very common routine. You turn 18, you go to the army, you get discharged, you save money, you go on a big trip. And once you’re back, you start your life through studies and careers. But many veterans don’t have these experiences because of their rehabilitation.”

He says that even after rehabilitation, there’s still physical and emotional difficulties that the veterans are left with.

“How can these veterans close the gap between them and their friends? How can they become people that feel productive and meaningful? This is what we want to do. We want to be this catalyst for veterans to reintegrate into society, to grow, to grow their careers, and to get back their sense of capability.

“We know that Israel is a startup nation. So we know not only how to invent things for the world, but also to invent things that help these veterans to get back on track.

“We have so many tech capabilities that we can leverage, and use them to invent different technological solutions for wounded soldiers and the challenges they face.”

In addition to its Makers For Heroes program, Restart has an employment program to help veterans get back to work. They have workshops every two weeks, and each program gives the veterans different practical tools, such as negotiation, body language, how to write a resume, and how to prepare for an interview. 

It also has a six-month long mentorship program where veterans build personal goals and a work plan together with a mentor, who is someone with experience from various industries. “We have veterans who started jobs after the program, and another that has a business under his name.”

Restart will launch its annual crowdfunding campaign in Israel to raise 25 per cent of its yearly budget in November. It is also collaborating with Palta to release a capsule collection of inclusive clothing, which will be available on the Restart website next month.

The post Making A Difference: Tailor-Made Devices For Injured Soldiers appeared first on NoCamels.

We’re more likely to cheat if we think everyone else is at it, says study

We’re more likely to cheat on our partners if we think other people are also being unfaithful.

That’s the conclusion of a team of university researchers who set out to discover whether infidelity was “contagious”.

They conducted a series of three experiments on student volunteers, all in long-term heterosexual relationships, who were recruited through fliers, social media posts and word of mouth.

They wanted to test the theory that the more we believe infidelity is the norm, the more likely we are to stray.

“Knowing that others are having affairs may make people feel more comfortable when considering having affairs themselves,” Gurit Birnbaum, professor of psychology at Reichman University, tells NoCamels.

“Of course, environments in which infidelity is prevalent do not necessarily turn people into cheaters. Even so, if someone is already vulnerable to cheating or if opportunities for infidelity arise, these environments can give the extra push needed to resolve the conflict between following moral values and succumbing to temptations in a way that promotes infidelity. 

“Research has indeed shown that social norms, which dictate what behaviors are accepted as normal, affect how people resolve a conflict between short-term temptations and long-term goals in other situations, such as alcohol consumption, gambling, and stealing.

“We wanted to explore whether this social contagion will be observed when it comes to intimate relationships.

“Specifically, we examined whether exposure to norms of infidelity would decrease the commitment to the current partner while increasing desire for alternative mates.”

In the first of three experiments, 145 participants (88 women and 57 men) watched a video about whether humans have evolved to be monogamous.

Half watched a version which reported that 86 per cent of adults admitted having cheated on their partner by having sex with someone else.

The other half watched the same video, but with the figure changed to 11 per cent, to see whether their perception of cheating as normal would affect their judgement (Research actually puts the figure at 70 per cent).

They were then asked to write a sexual fantasy, involving someone other than their partner, in graphic detail – with the assurance of anonymity.

The test was designed to determine whether the group who believed infidelity was widespread would be more enthusiastic about expressing their desires than the group who had just been told it was not.

Men expressed more interest than women in having sex with someone else – which didn’t surprise the researchers – but the study didn’t show a significant difference between the “11 per cent group” and the “86 per cent group”.

However the second experiment, conducted with different volunteers, showed clearer results. It was designed to see whether a discussion about cheating in general would arouse thoughts of infidelity, or whether it had to be specifically about sex.

One group of volunteers read a real-life confession about a woman sharing a passionate kiss with her boss, and a second group read about a student paying someone else to write their essay.

They were then shown 16 pictures of attractive and unattractive people of the opposite sex and asked to make an instant yes/no decision as to whether they rated them as a potential partner.

Those who had been exposed to the infidelity confession were more likely to show an interest in alternative partners. Or as the researchers put it, thinking about infidelity “erodes the motivation to protect the relationship from the allure of alternative mates”.

The team wanted to go a step further and determine how these thoughts about infidelity might actually translate into action. Their third experiment offered the volunteers an opportunity to make contact with an attractive stranger online.

One group was exposed to the discussion about adultery mentioned earlier and the other group to the cheating student discussion. Would the adultery discussion prove more provocative?

Both groups were then introduced to a “moderately attractive” real person of the opposite sex on the Instant Messenger service, who was blind to the research aims, but who had been briefed to respond warmly in a manner that conveyed contact readiness.

After a general discussion via text messages about hobbies and interests they were instructed to sign off with a message: “You definitely raised my curiosity! I hope to see you again and this time face-to-face.”

The volunteers’ messages were given a score of one to five for flirtatiousness by trained psychology students.

They were also asked how attractive they found their messaging partner, and how committed they were to their actual partner.

Some clearly deserved a five for their messages, such as: “It was great to get to know you! I’d love to meet you! You sound like a girl I can get along with.”

And “I enjoyed chatting with you! I’d love to see you soon. Would you like that too? Please let me know when we can meet.”

Those who had just been exposed to the infidelity discussion were more likely to pursue a face-to-face meeting than the cheating student group.

The experiment showed that, according to researchers, “greater perceptions of adultery norms were not only associated with greater desire for alternative partners but also with increased efforts to interact with them in the future”.

Monogamy still dominates in Western culture, although alternative lifestyles, such as swinging, open relationships, and polyamory have become increasingly acceptable, they say.

See also: FLIRTING ONLINE CAN RUIN YOUR RELATIONSHIP

But the high frequency of sexual fantasies with alternative partners is proof that desires for people other than the current partner persist. 

“Such environments may make people more vulnerable to, if not outright ‘infect’ them with, infidelity,” says Prof Gurit, who is also director of the Interpersonal Relationships Program at Reichman University.

“People should be more aware of the power of situations and the impact they may have on decision making in the intimate sphere.

“Couples in monogamous relationships who live in an environment in which infidelity is acceptable and are prone to engage in affairs might be offered counselling that encourages refocusing attention on one’s primary partner and has proven useful in intensifying sexual desire and the emotional bond between partners.”

The post Is Infidelity Contagious? University Researchers Think So appeared first on NoCamels.

Quarrels via text reduce emotional volume and provide time to reflect, say researchers

If you’re going to argue with your spouse or partner, do it on WhatsApp.

It’s a great way to understand yourself and understand your partner, say researchers, especially for Generation X – people born from 1965 to 1980 – who grew up before smartphones.

WhatsApp allows you to tone down emotional volume, reflect for a moment before screaming something you may later regret, and learn from the mistakes you – or possibly even your partner – have made.

“You can go back and read through it later on, when you’re not so upset, and better understand your spouse,” says Dr. Gali Einav, researcher at Reichman University, in Herzliya, who worked on the project.

She says exchanging messages provides couples with “another place to fight” and can offer benefits over face-to-face confrontations.

“You can hash out all your aggression on WhatsApp. And then when you meet face to face, you’re much more relaxed,” Einav tells NoCamels.

“Also when you read through it, you’re able to better understand your behavior. So if you’re aware of the way you respond, then you can maybe change it later on.

“And you can use it to add an additional layer to the relationship, send an emoji or something like that.”

WhatsApp, launched in 2009, is the world’s biggest messaging service, with 2 billion users and over 100 billion messages sent every day.

Einav worked with Tal Nadel-Harony and Prof. Yair Galili from the university’s Sammy Ofer School of Communications, researching 18 couples from different backgrounds, all aged 35 to 50 and living in Israel, who have been in a relationship for over five years.

Most couples agreed that their WhatsApp interactions mirrored their face-to-face dynamics, but were likely to be more measured and less intense.

One couple described their face-to-face fights as “loud and short”. On WhatsApp, they admitted they didn’t actually listen to each other any more than they would to face-to-face, but they did express themselves more resposnsibly.

Another couple described their face-to-face quarrels as “bullets flying in all directions”. On WhatsApp however they said it was “not heavy artillery”. They said that while they could both be unkind to each other on WhatsApp, the chances of a quarrel reaching fever pitch were low.

WhatsApp reduces the volume of disputes, but allows couples to cover the same issues as in a face-to-face quarrel.

One participant said that in the “real” world: “I shout, and I don’t care if the whole world is listening. I can bark and bite like a crazy dog without letting go.” On WhatsApp, by comparison, they said they would “nag” by sending multiple exclamation marks.

WhatsApp has the potential to bring the argument down a notch. One man described his wife’s reactions on WhatsApp, saying, “Face-to-face she shouts, over the phone she barks, and on WhatsApp she yawns.”

Most of the couples who took part in the year-long study said they only used the text feature on WhatsApp and avoided voice notes. “There’s no sound to WhatsApp text messages, and that’s what keeps the argument lower key,” said one male participant.

“Many things we say instinctively won’t be written, as we aren’t indifferent to our choice of words.”

He said WhatsApp filters and tones down the dispute. Others observed that “the force of the argument isn’t constantly being reignited by facial expressions”. The decline in intensity is a result of the time that arguers take to process their thoughts. Their arguments didn’t reach the same peaks as a face-to-face dispute, and the message exchange takes place over a longer period.

WhatsApp also allows humor to calm things down. “It takes one funny remark on WhatsApp to assuage anger and dissolve the conflict before dragging it out for a whole day,” said one participant. “When I’m finished being right, I send something interesting to change the subject.”

The researchers found that as well as turning down the volume and slowing the pace, WhatsApp arguments also provided an opportunity for review and reflection when things had calmed down.

One couple said: “Our correspondence via WhatsApp is a language we have developed, and it helps us find a way to resolve things, sometimes by laughing at the fight with the right emoji, or at least putting it in proportion.”

Einav says: “You can go back and see the way that you wrote what you were and how you responded. So you have that awareness, you can make changes and understand how you would like to manage these relationships later on.”

Or as one participant put it, “sometimes re-reading the correspondence (during a fight) helps me understand my partner’s motivation.”

Correspondence over WhatsApp not only offers another venue to conduct the relationship, but it can also help save it,” the researchers concluded.

Results of the study, Let’s WhatsApp! Generation X couples’ online and offline relationship patterns in the digital age, are published in New Media & Society, a peer-reviewed academic journal covering communication.

Einav says she now plans to do further research, on the dynamics of family WhatsApp groups.

SEE ALSO: Beware, flirting online could ruin your relationship

The post Why Arguing On WhatsApp Could Be Good For Your Relationship appeared first on NoCamels.

Startup certifies big-brand garments as inclusive for those who have difficulty dressing

Most of us button a shirt or tie our shoelaces without a second thought, but it can be a daily challenge for the billion people globally who live with disabilities.

A startup in Tel Aviv is addressing that challenge by encouraging fashion brands to make their clothes more accessible – using magnetic buttons, velcro closures, and clasps to make fastening possible when sitting, standing or lying down. 

Palta operates the world’s first certification program for garments and products deemed inclusive for people who have difficulty dressing because they are autistic, have cerebral palsy, arthritis, or other motor impairments. Its certification analyzes data and user feedback, and uses 3D modeling to improve the inclusivity of brands’ clothing. 

“Palta is leveraging data to democratize the fashion world and apply the next generation of shopping and dressing for the largest minority in the world,” says Shay Senior, CEO and Co-founder of Palta.

“We offer companies an entire package to become more inclusive, from the shopping experience to the dressing of the individual.” 

Many garments can be readily adapted so they’re equally suitable for people with and without disabilities. Examples include one-piece outfits, clothes with easy access points for medical equipment such as a feeding tube, pants that cut higher in the back and lower in the front so they are more comfortable for wheelchair users, and shoes that allow the wearer to step into them without force. 

Palta’s own inclusive design includes Braille tags, 3D printed Braille catalogues, digital (QR codes) labels that connect to a chatbot service, smart fabrics, and multifunctional clothes.

Senior founded Palta after he injured his right arm during his military service in the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) and underwent a long rehabilitation process. He suffered pain from many daily activities, such as grasping objects and shaking hands.

“I noticed that the conversation around me changed depending on the brand of clothes that I chose to wear that day. I realized how much influence clothes have on who we are and what we represent,”

“It made me so interested in this topic, and made me realize that people with disabilities aren’t really included and do not have a space within the fashion world.”

Palta’s first major win was designing the official uniform for Israeli athletes in the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games. It used its methodology, which involves data analysis, user feedback, and 3D modeling, to make an inclusive collection to fit all participants. 

Each outfit was designed to be as accessible as possible to accommodate the broadest needs and impairments. For example, some outfits had increased circumference width for those who had bionic arms. Others with mobility challenges had their uniforms adjusted, making the difference between being able to dress independently or needing assistance. 

​​“Clothes empower us and make our self-expression the best it can be,” he says. “That especially needs to happen on a team that is representing our country – that’s the one thing that unites them.”

A certification program and an educator on inclusivity

Palta’s main function is to grade brands on the inclusivity of their clothing. After giving garments a score, Palta assists the brand through workshops with their design teams that teaches the brands to create patterns that provide better mobility, and teaches them to deliver the message of inclusivity through better marketing and PR. 

“These three things influence the widest range of individuals who have a disability and determine whether they’d be able to wear a product and how they’d feel in it,” Senior tells NoCamels.

“Based on these parameters, we assess all the information we can receive from a brand. If it fits the defined parameters then the garment would get a score, and from there the brand can take action.”

Palta has also started to educate the next generation of designers. The company offers a course for first-year fashion design students, sharing with them the elements or the methodology of how to do things that fit people with disabilities. Senior believes that if they see the advantages of inclusive design in the early stage of their studies, it’s easier in the future to look at people with disabilities as an audience and as a potential customer. 

“When this next generation of fashion designers works for a brand or creates their own collection, they won’t be afraid of designing for other people,” he says. 

The Neri Bloomfield Academy of Design and Education, the leading professional and academic institution for higher education in art in Haifa, northern Israel, is the first college to offer Palta’s course. Palta plans to expand its curriculum to more Israeli cities and countries, and is in conversation with universities in the US, Italy, and London. 

Palta works with several Israeli firms, including Dorin Frankfurt, one of the most well-known designers in Israel, Delta Galil, an Israeli textile firm that owns several leading brands (Athena, Delta, 7 For All Mankind), and licenses selected garments for top global brands (Adidas, Calvin Klein Kids, Ralph Lauren), and Kornit Digital, a manufacturer of industrial and commercial printing solutions for the apparel and textile industries. 

It is also collaborating with streetwear and sportswear brands in North America, and an underwear company in Europe.

As for the future, Palta aims to expand its inclusivity into different categories of fashion (including shoes and accessories), help more brands become more inclusive for people with disabilities, and design collections for numerous delegations at the Paris 2024 Paralympics.

The post Clothing For All: Adapting Fashion For People With Disabilities appeared first on NoCamels.

“Tudo Bom” singers Static and Ben-El were the first to fuse Mizrahi and pop rap

Static and Ben-El, the musical duo who revolutionized Mizrahi music in Israel over the last seven years, have split.

Their artistic collaboration introduced new elements of pop, rap, and international influences into a genre formerly regarded by many as flat and formulaic. 

The combination of Ben-El Tavori’s ethnic Mizrahi vocals, and Static’s rap and pop verses introduced fans of each genre to the other. 

Every song they released was an instant chart-topper, accompanied by music videos that received tens of millions of views, from their very first single “Barbie” which amassed 48 million views on YouTube. They were able to fuse their completely different music styles for hit after hit. 

Popular songs include “Silsulim” (58 million views on YouTube), “Zahav” (59 million views), and “Tudo Bom” (73 million views). Their songs have over 800 million views on YouTube, and over 96 million listens on Spotify. They have performed numerous concerts in Israel and abroad. 

Liraz Russo, 32, known by his stage name “Static” (a nickname first given to him by a childhood friend), and Ben-El Tavori, 31, announced the split in a joint Instagram post today (Thursday).

“The decision was not easy but it was also not new,” they wrote in the Hebrew post. “We feel that we have reached a musical fulfillment of the project and each of us wants to explore ourselves and bring you all new music that breaks boundaries, just like we did seven years ago.” 

Several songs of theirs incorporated international styles of music rarely used in Israeli hits, such as Tudo Bom, which is based on Funk carioca, or Brazilian funk, a hip hop-influenced style from Rio de Janeiro that originated in the late 1970s.

Ben-El was brought up with Mizrahi music, a style unique to Israel, which combines elements of Arabic, Turkish and Greek music, and is mostly performed by Israelis of Mizrahi-Jewish descent (from the Middle East and North Africa). Mizrahi vocalists usually decorate their singing with distinctive trills. His father, Shimi Tavori, is a famous Mizrahi singer.  

Within five hours of announcing their split, the Instagram post already had over 32,000 likes. On Instagram alone, over 160,000 people reacted to the sudden announcement, and it was covered by every major daily publication in Israel. 

Static and Ben-El started their collaboration with a rapper’s single in 2015. In June 2017, they released their biggest hit “Tudo Bom”, which means “everything’s good” in Portuguese. It drew significant attention from Brazil – so much so that the pair were invited to visit the Brazilian Ambassador to Israel at his embassy. 

After years of success in Israel, the duo signed a 10-year deal with Capitol Records in 2018 to produce seven international albums in English. They began re-releasing their songs in English, but they didn’t prove to be as successful as the original Hebrew versions.

In 2020, Static and Ben-El released several original English songs with recognized international artists, including the song “Further Up” with Pitbull and “Shake Ya Boom Boom” with the Black Eyed Peas, all of which experienced only moderate success.

The pair seemed inseparable for years, serving together as a single judge on the panels of musical reality TV shows “Hakochav Haba” (Rising Star) and “Masked Singer”. They were also involved in numerous marketing campaigns, including Strauss’ Milky pudding – for which they wrote two songs – and the Israeli fashion companies Urbanica and Castro. 

They also created an official song for the Tel Aviv Pride Week in 2020, “Habib Alby“. The song has Hebrew, English, and Arabic phrases, including the song’s name, which means “love of my heart” in Arabic. 

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, they wrote a charity single called “Katan Aleinu“, which is literally translated as “this is small for us”, a popular Israeli phrase that more accurately means “we got this”. Every share of the video was matched with donations to Israeli hospitals and medical staff. 

At their final concert together, last night in Eilat, two girls, aged 10 and 15, were lightly injured when a stand holding large concert speakers collapsed.

The split followed Ben-El’s high-profile custody battle with his ex Ortal Amar, and a leaked recording of him screaming at her.

The future of Static and Ben-El’s $5 million record deal remains unclear.

The post End Of A Creative Era: Israel’s Biggest Musical Duo In Shock Split appeared first on NoCamels.

US filmmaker Quentin Tarantino has been awarded an honorary degree — Doctor Philosophiae Honoris Causa — by The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

The university also recognized 19 other distinguished honorees from a diverse range of disciplines (Leaders of Tomorrow) and 287 HU PhD students.

The Hebrew University awards honorary degrees to those who have distinguished themselves by academic or creative achievement, rendered outstanding service to the University, or whose activities have been of notable benefit to humanity, the State of Israel, or the Jewish people. 

“In recognition of his critically acclaimed cinematic success as a writer, director, and actor; honoring his ten blockbuster movies and numerous Academy Awards, BAFTA Awards, Golden Globe Awards, and the Palme d’Or award; in admiration of the scope of his artistic vision, creating films that span genres, historical periods, and themes; and in tribute to his strong ties to Israel through his wife Daniella, and for making Israel his second home,” Tarantino was cited.

The 19 other leaders included Lotte Bailyn, an early pioneer and role model for world-class female academics; Lee Epstein, a legal scholar; Sigalit Landau, an Israeli sculptor and artist known for breathtaking works of the Dead Sea; and Joshua Sanes, a neurobiologist.

“Leaders inspire. They show us the way forward and light up the path for those who follow,” said Prof. Asher Cohen, President of HU. “Our honorees are all driven by a pioneering spirit and a deep sense of mission, whether in the field of academia, business, civic service or philanthropy, and their contributions are boundless.”

The post Quentin Tarantino Receives Honorary Degree From Hebrew U appeared first on NoCamels.

Maya and Yehuda Devir, the popular artists who have gone viral with their humorous and poignant relationship webcomics, announced in December they were taking a break from posting on social media, with the promise to come back shortly with “something big.” Their millions of followers (5.7 million on Instagram, 1.3 million on Facebook, ), eagerly awaited their return and were not disappointed.

In February, the married couple and parents of two revealed to their community that they are launching an NFT collection. NoCamels has learned that the collection will be launched in two exclusive drops — one in mid-June and the other in mid-July.

NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, are unique units of data stored on blockchains. They have their own encryption codes, which act as certificates of authenticity for something that could otherwise be reproduced or duplicated again and again. NFTs are said to have revolutionized the art world and artists, as well as celebrities, have flooded the market, embracing NFT drops to offer exclusive, irreplaceable assets.

“We realized that the NFT space — and technology actually — gives us the opportunity to say what our original piece is and to put an ownership opportunity on an art piece like a digital art asset,” Maya Devir tells NoCamels in a video call that also includes husband Yehuda, “In the past, if you wanted to possess a high-quality artwork or Van Gogh or Roy Lichtenstein, you had to go to an auction or a museum to make a bid or with lots of money to purchase the original one. For digital artists, this does not exist. So it made it 10 times more difficult for digital artists to make a living out of what they do.”

“We said, ‘Ok, this can be an amazing opportunity for our community because we have millions of devoted followers that made us who we are today. And this is also an opportunity to give them something valuable and give them something back,” she adds.

The XOXO collection features 101 couples spanning 10,101 pairs of NFTs. Each image is of the Yehuda and Maya Devir holding each other and kissing, but dressed as different characters — king and queen, fire and ice, police officer and prisoner, and more.

The pair joined forces with PickCherry, an Israeli tech and marketing company founded this year that works on applications in the blockchain world as well as the NFT and metaverse space. The company was founded by Israeli tv personalities Assi Azar and Rotem Sela and Ido Regev and his wife Smadar. The Devirs had received a number of offers to create NFTs, and when they finally decided to pursue them, they had to pick the right team to guide them. They instantly clicked with PickCherry, Yehuda Devir tells NoCamels, calling the immediate connection like a trip through the jungle with a master guide. “You need a guide to walk you through and help you survive — and along the way, see the most beautiful signs you will ever see,” he says, “This is the same thing we’re doing with PickCherry.”

Maya Devir says that what’s most unique about this collection is that so many of the images have a story behind them. Many of them “contain a philosophy regarding relationships” and that “everyone can relate to every single piece” which “reflects our entire perception about relationships in the world.”

At the same time, “it has many stories because it’s very subjective,” Regev chimes in, “You can see one story and then have your own interpretation in a different story, with the same couple. Like with fire and ice, one person would say, ‘Hey, she’s melting him.’ Another person would say, ‘No, she’s keeping him warm because that’s what he needs.'”

Regev tells NoCamels the first NFT drop in mid-June, which he dubs the “Genesis drop,” will include specific perks for the holders. The collection as a whole offers unique benefits in the form of utility NFTs or valuations based on perks and opportunities for token holders. These benefits come in the form of trips to Israel to have dinner with the couple, books and merchandise from their successful comics, exclusive fan art, workshops and private courses with the artists, and more. Regev highlights the collection’s partnership with Israeli-founded hospitality firm Selina, a service that offers affordable accommodation, co-working space, entertainment, and wellness for travelers across 25 countries in North America, South America, Europe, and the Middle East. Selina will offer token holders free nights at their properties around the world.

Dynamic duo

For at least five years, Tel Aviv residents Maya and Yehuda Devir have chronicled the ups and downs of life and love, marriage, and the shift to parenthood with comics that are as meaningful and statement-making as they are talented and bold.

The couple, who have known each other since their Israeli army service and began dating as students at Jerusalem’s Bezalel Academy of Art, have built a community based on their hilarious and relatable artwork that has featured everything from finding an apartment in Tel Aviv to Yehuda’s postpartum depression after the birth of their first child. It is this honest, but colorful portrayal that has won the hearts of their devoted followers.

The couple’s popular webcomic “One of Those Days” has spawned five books, countless appearances at comics and design conventions, a YouTube award, and The Most Creative Content Maker Award at the Inflow Global Summit 2019 Awards. The pair also made a successful documentary series, named  “The Heartists“, where they present a week in their creative lives. Their documentary had over 20 million views.

Risks and rewards

The success of NFTs has made them a feasible monetization tool for celebrities and creatives, including artists who also wanted to find new ways to showcase their artwork and give the audience a reason to consume their content. But it’s not without risk. According to Regev, the Devirs are early adopters of the NFT, a relatively new industry that is still growing. Although it claims to be secure and efficient, many are not sure how to feel about it yet.

“It’s very early now for NFTs. People speak about it a lot but it’s still very, very early. I think Maya and Yehuda jumped on it as really early adapters. It might sound corny but you know the sentence that says, ‘The higher the risk, the greater the reward. I really believe in it,” Ido Regev tells NoCamels, “I live by it.”

“The decision to go to the NFT space was because the world is evolving. And we can ignore that or decide to join it, but do it right. So that’s why we wanted to join the NFT space and do it in the right way. When we explored the NFT space, what was lacking for us the most from an artist’s point of view was the art. And we felt that creators of NFT projects are disrespecting their community, their audience, and their holders. We said, if we do it, we’re going to do it right,” Maya Devir says.

“Anything big that you do — every move that is big and exciting — is risky,” says Regev, “It’s risky as an entrepreneur to open a brand new business. But technology is evolving. It’s either you keep up with it, and understand where the focus is going or you’re going to be left behind,” he continues, “I understand what it means to take a calculated risk. Exactly as they said — they wouldn’t jump on it or do it by themselves because they think they know everything. No, they made the decision that we get a team, and we’re going to do it with the right support. So that’s an educated risk. And I think it’s worth it.”

“I think that in every step that we do along the way — not just the NFT space — there is a risk because you change. From our experience, change is important,” Devir adds.

The post Popular Israeli Webcomic Artists Launch ‘XOXO’ NFT Collection appeared first on NoCamels.

Actor David Schwimmer of Friends fame has been tapped to be the face of the rebranding campaign for Israel’s Meitav Investment House.

The star was rumored to have been paid NIS 1 million ($300,000) for the part, according to Israel’s Channel 12 news, The Times of Israel reports.

According to Calcalist, Meitav wanted to go in a new direction following. a loss in earnings in 2021. The company also wanted its rebranding campaign to target younger audiences, and Schwimmer was an appealing candidate due to the resurgent popularity of Friends on Netflix.

Founded in 1979, Meitav Investment House manages more than NIS 133 billion ($39.1 billion) for thousands of private, business, and institutional clients in Israel. The company offers a range of management services and investment marketing to companies including private and institutional portfolio management, mutual and provident fund management, as well as institutional and retail brokerage and investment banking. 

“Meitav is not just a classic investment house, but a broad financial platform that enables the provision of broad financial solutions to a variety of clients and a variety of needs,” Ilan Raviv, CEO of Meitav Investment House, told Calcalist. “We feel this is the right time for us to update our language and value proposition to customers, which is built on strong foundations of technology, experience and knowledge. Our goal is to lead to a perceptual revolution in the concept of an investment house.”

“We chose an iconic character from an iconic series, bridging generations of clients; The rebranding expresses a long and deep process in which we have transformed from an investment house into a broad platform of financial solutions, which understands the client’s needs and puts him at the center,” he added. 

The post David Schwimmer Is The New Face of Israel’s Meitav Investment House appeared first on NoCamels.

Former Israeli NBA legend Omri Casspi, the first Israeli player to break into the NBA, announced this week that he has launched Sheva (Seven in Hebrew), an early-stage tech-focused $50 million venture capital (VC) fund. The former basketball player, who retired less than a year ago, launched the fund with veteran VC investor David Citron, a former Israeli partner of European VC firm Global Founders Capital.

The fund, which is directed towards pre-seed, seed stage, and opportunistic Series A investments, aims to invest $1-2 million in 20 young tech-centered companies. 

Sheva became active in the beginning of the year, and has already made a number of investments in fintech, cyber security, and web3 ventures. The fund’s investors include institutional investors, family offices, tech entrepreneurs, and highly active crossover funds that have made heavy global investments. 

Casspi played in the NBA for over a decade and served as the captain of Israel’s national basketball team. During his career, he played alongside athletes who were active tech investors, which influenced him to later become an active angel investor himself. Upon his retirement and return to Israel in July 2021, Casspi grew a portfolio consisting of more than a dozen early-stage tech companies before getting more invoiced in Israel’s VC ecosystem and crossing paths with Citron. 

“Omri initially reached out to me on LinkedIn. I’ve always been a fan of the game of basketball and grew up watching Omri represent Israel. But, a connection request from someone like Casspi seemed like a phishing attempt,” said Citron, who previously invested in Israeli startups like Frontegg, Sorbet, and Cyolo. “We hit it off immediately and started co-investing in a number of early-stage startups. Our chemistry was so good, that it got to a point that our joint portfolio companies suggested we team up on our weekly calls. We were already thinking about the viability of starting a fund, but hearing this message from founders more than once gave us a real indication of product-market fit, so we decided to go all-in and launch Sheva”

“I’ve always been the hardest worker; first one at the gym, last one to leave. I believe that the same level of energy is what’s required of an early-stage founder, and I’m eager to bring my hustle and robust network that I was fortunate enough to build over my career to provide real differentiated value to our founders” said Casspi in the statement. “David and I have very little overlap in the value that we bring to our portfolio, which we believe is a significant force multiplier. This combined with our fantastic community of  LPs (limited partners) who include celebrities, influences, unicorn founders, angel investors, and successful GPs is what we believe to be a winning formula for true value add.”

“We’re combining two successful VC models that have been battle-tested around the world; the celebrity and veteran VC pairing, and an early-stage investment model that focuses on investing in as many companies as possible at the early stage, and then doubling down on the emerging winners together with the LPs. We believe LPs should be far more involved in the investment lifecycle of the portfolio, and our investors are very eager to participate in direct investment opportunities together with us,” Citron concluded.

The post Former Israeli Basketball Player Omri Casspi Launches $50M VC Fund appeared first on NoCamels.

Tel Aviv University (TAU) renewed its academic relations with Turkey this week following the historic summit meeting held in March between Israeli President Yitzhak Herzog and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. 

TAU formed ties with three of Turkey’s leading universities; Koç, Özyeğin, and Sabancı, after an agreement to advance the Academic Bridge initiative was reached between TAU president Prof. Ariel Porat and the heads of the three Turkish universities during a meeting held in Istanbul last week. The initiative is built on a series of various academic collaborations such as student and faculty exchange programs and joint research initiatives. 

The joint research projects are expected to address a wide range of regionally important matters including climate change, entrepreneurship, archaeology, as well the complex geopolitical situation in the Middle East.

The meeting was also joined by TAU International’s VP Prof. Milette Shamir and resource development VP Amos Elad, Israel’s consul general in Istanbul Udi Eitam, leaders of the Jewish community in Turkey including the chairman of the Jewish community Yitzhak Ibrahim Zada, as well as several other Turkish academics, entrepreneurs, and industrialists.

“The purpose of the initiative is to promote academic research in both countries,” emphasized Prof. Porat. “Every year TAU welcomes thousands of Moslem and Christian students from Israel and around the world, and we will be delighted to extend this collaboration to leading universities in Turkey as well. Academia is a bridge between nations, and a key to economic and social growth everywhere.”

“I sincerely hope that after years of little contact between Israeli and Turkish institutions, our visit heralds a new era,” said Prof. Shamir. “Israel and Turkey are powerfully connected by a rich history, a range of both political and economic interests, and similar challenges in areas such as climate, health, and technology. Thus, the academic bridge we are building has great potential.”

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Facebook (Meta) and Israeli aid organization Latet, announced this week that they were partnering with top Israeli social media influencers and content creators ahead of Israel’s annual Holocaust Remembrance Day on Thursday to launch this year’s “Sharing Memories”( (Ma’alim Zikaron in Hebrew) project, an initiative that connects young people to the testimonies of the Holocaust survivors living in Israel today.  

The holiday, known in Israel as Yom HaShoah, commemorates the six million Jews who were murdered throughout World War II. It begins on Wednesday evening and lasts until Thursday evening.

As part of the project, high-profile Israeli social media influencers will record one-on-one conversations with Holocaust survivors on their smartphones for the project. They will film the survivors talking about their experiences during WWII and their lives in the present day. The celebrities will then upload the interviews to their official Instagram accounts as part of the Instagram Stories feature, where the clips will remain for a full 24 hours. Instagram is owned by Meta (Facebook).

The interviews will be featured beginning on Wednesday evening until Thursday evening, allowing millions of followers to watch throughout the day.

The aim of the “Sharing Memories” project is to establish a meaningful connection between young generations and survivors, raise awareness, and preserve the collective memory of the Holocaust by sharing testimonies through an accessible and globally used platform, according to a statement. More specifically, it is meant to expose youth, many of who are active Instagram users, to the real stories of survivors.

The project is also intended to reveal the current living conditions of many survivors in Israel, some of whom live below the poverty line. Israel currently has just under 166,000 Holocaust survivors, 50,000 of whom receive additional income from the state, according to data from the Holocaust Survivors’ Rights Authority.

The influencers participating in this year’s Sharing Memories project are: Kim Or Azulay (589K followers); Agam Buhbut (434K); Rotem Cohen (285K); Roni Dalumi (162K); Or Elkayam (56.8K); Frogi (247K); Galgalatz (123K); Corrin Gideon (293K); Ido Grinberg-Mismas (142K); Omer Hazan (365K); Hazinor (647K); Liran Kohener (234K); Ella-Lee Lahav (189K); Ori Laizerouvich (111K); Segev Moshe (229K); Moshe Peretz (530K); Liraz Russo – Static (607K); Yael Shelbia (1.4M); Ben El Tavori (512K); Noa Tishby (250K); Anna Zak (1.4M); and Shir Zuaretz (51K).

Several large Israeli Facebook communities have also joined the initiative, encouraging their members to donate to the Latet organization to support the livelihoods of the struggling Holocaust survivors. 

This year’s project follows the success of the previous year’s launch, which generated 3.1 million viewers on social media and generated NIS 500,000 in donations within 24 hours for Latet’s Aid of Life program which provides support to survivors subject to poverty. 165,800 Holocaust survivors live in Israel today, and about 50,000 of them receive supplemental income from the state, meaning that they are unable to provide for their essential needs on their own. 

“Facing the prospect of a generation that’s about to disappear, the traditional approach to commemoration must reinvent itself, in order to bridge the generation gap and ensure that these immeasurably important stories will continue to be heard for generations to come,” said Adi Soffer-Teeni, country manager at Meta in Israel. “Using the tremendous power of the social media, the Sharing Memories project provides a stage for these moving stories and creates a genuine, unmediated connection between Holocaust survivors, Israel’s most prominent content creators, and the young people who follow them every day.” 

“Sharing memories of the Holocaust, aiding survivors in need, and building a connection with young people are especially important goals during these years when the generation that lived through the Holocaust is fading away,” said Eran Weintrob, executive director of Latet. “Israeli society now has a narrow window of opportunity to do what’s needed to create continuity for the memory of the Holocaust among young people and to mobilize them to work for those who still remain and are in need of assistance.”

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Israeli cultivated meat company Aleph Farms, known for its beef steaks and 3D printed space meat, announced it has partnered with Tel Aviv-based art designer Daniel Elkayam, to explore how art and design can shift people’s perspectives and inspire reflection on Earth Day.

Elkayam’s installation is a handmade furniture collection centered around one of the most human experiences – the dining table.

“The main message is about nature, humanity, and inclusivity on Earth Day,” Nicky Quinn, Aleph Farms’ VP of Marketing, tells NoCamels, “His POV is complementary to ours because he’s inspired by nature and he’s a designer working with natural elements. So It feels like a perfect fit from the start.

The dining set includes a handmade table, chairs, and a backdrop made from cowhide-patterned wood.

“The dining set and backdrop will reside in our HQ for everyone’s enjoyment, and we will also exhibit it around Israel and beyond,” Quinn says.

Within the context of Earth Day, Aleph Farms and Elkayam offer the installation as a celebration of nature and humanity. It invites people to come together around the dining table and connect, which is central to Aleph’s inclusive approach. 

This collaboration is a second project with an artist for Aleph Farms and is part of an annual Earth Day program of the company.

Elkayam transforms natural materials and aesthetics into one-of-a-kind unique objects. For this installation, Elkayam’ said his technique involved playing with elements of fire and water exposed to the wood, preserving and capturing those moments of struggle between the elements in amorphous patterns on the final product. The resulting pattern that resembles a cowhide represents the alchemy of these different elements coming together in an unexpected way to transform the dining table into something even more meaningful.

“My work is a dialogue between myself, my materials, and my audience,” said Elkayam in the announcement, “Aleph Farms’ mission provided fertile ground to ideate from and I’m excited to take part in Earth Day in this meaningful way.”

The artist and photographer works in the field of materiality, sustainability and storytelling through objects. Inspired by nature, especially by phenomena and unconventional materials, the artist transforms natural materials and aesthetics into one-of-a-kind objects. His collections express different material studies that follow intriguing and varied narratives such as localism, ephemerality, and material degradation.

Specializing in conceptual design, Elkayam creates hybrids between different worlds of content, interfering in natural processes while leaving a gap for unexpected phenomena. In the last two years, he has been creating a collection of handmade burnt wooden objects, using unique techniques he developed into practice which allows fire to become a collaborator in the design process and leave visual imprints on the objects.

“Earth Day is filled with many brands saying the same thing with the same statistics about climate change. At Aleph, we explore ways creativity, in this case, art and design can create spaces for inclusive conversations around sustainability,” Quinn said in the company’s statement, “We are thrilled to have partnered with Daniel this year. We look forward to welcoming many interesting and inclusive conversations around our table in our headquarters and beyond.”   

The installation will reside at Aleph Farms’ headquarters.    

Founded in 2017, Aleph Farms grows cultivated beef steaks, from non-genetically engineered cells, that are not immortalized, isolated from a living cow, without slaughtering the animal and with a significantly reduced impact on the environment. The company was founded by Didier Toubia, The Kitchen Hub of the Strauss Group, and Professor Shulamit Levenberg from the Biomedical Engineering Faculty at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology with a vision is to provide unconditional nutrition for anyone, anytime, anywhere.

In February the Israeli cultivated meat firm announced its space program, Aleph Zero, would officially be heading to space as one of a number of experiments dealing with food and agriculture on the historic Rakia Mission launching March 31, 2022. The mission is led by the Ramon Foundation and the Israeli Space Agency.

The company also shared in a blog post that it has moved into a brand new 65,000 square foot silver-level LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) facility in the Stratasys building Rehovot as the site for its pilot production facility.

The establishment of this pilot production facility will help the company’s ongoing effort to acquire regulatory approval for its thin-cut cultivated steak and “optimize processes towards their large-scale production facilities which have plans to be built in 2022 through 2024.

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The world watched with bated breath as Eytan Stibbe, Israel’s second-ever astronaut, entered the International Space Station (ISS) on Saturday afternoon, with three other astronauts as part of Axiom-1 (Ax-1), the first fully private mission to space. While Stibbe admitted it took some time to get adjusted to zero-gravity conditions, Israel’s man in space also got to work, testing some 35 scientific experiments in areas like food tech, medical devices, astrophysics, agriculture, and optics, as part of Israel’s Rakia mission.

Led by the Ramon Foundation, Israel Space Agency and The Ministry of Innovation, Science, and Technology, the mission, which means “Sky” in Hebrew, aims to inspire the younger generation while advancing the Israel space industry.

On the agenda, experiments testing “space hummus,” or the cultivation of chickpeas in space, led by Dr. Yonatan Winetraub; finding a new type of cancer treatment by studying how microgravity conditions affect cancer cells, and trying a special helmet from brain-mapping data firm Brain.space to record brain changes during space travel, among other tasks.

Then, there’s the art. The Rakia Art Project features 11 selected works from a number of Israeli artists that have been tapped to create groundbreaking new pieces for the ISS in various forms, including, but not limited to, graphics, sculpture, fashion, and digital art, to be taken aboard Stibbe’s space flight.  Six of those artworks are supported by Mifal HaPais, the national lottery of Israel.

Udi Edelman, the director and chief curator of The Israeli Center For Digital Art (CDA) in Holon and founding director of the Institute for Public Presence, was approached to be the chief curator of the project because of his knowledge and research in the history of art in public space and in outer space.

Edelman called the one-of-a-kind opportunity to curate art for space a “mind-blowing” assignment.

“First you need to calm down and think about what’s so interesting about it…You need to shake off the magic,” he tells NoCamels, “Then you think about what contemporary art can say about these kinds of missions in our situation as human beings. What does it mean for humanity?”

The artists use the unique physical conditions of microgravity to deal with a wide range of topics, including the inhuman, the astronomical, the molecular, the virtual, the human body in space, psychology in space, sound, and communication on the space station.

The art projects participating in the Rakia Art Mission include augmented reality art which can be seen via tablet by artist Yael Frank; video art featuring the role of women (including Bedouin women) in society created by a group of female students from Sapir Academic College in the Western Negev; and a sound guide to the ISS based on noises and sounds recorded during the mission by artist Maayan Tzedaka.

There’s also Nothing In Space by Ohad Fishof, a “showpiece” where Stibbe is asked to stop everything he’s doing in order to film himself in front of a camera doing — you guessed it — nothing in space. The artist asks him to refrain from speaking, eating, drinking, and closing his eyes, in order to be present in the moment.

And there’s the first jewelry created for space by Freddy Shachar Kislev. The “Space Jewel” is a unique ring with thin metal follicles which will rise and float gently on the finger in space. The piece is designed to operate in microgravity.

“It was very interesting to work on this project in the sense that the forum became, in a specific way, what it means to do art in space. And I guess at first they thought more about bringing images or bringing paintings or videos to the ISS. But for me, it was all about trying to really create or invite artists to create specific artworks that might be more complicated for the audience to see. The potential of thinking about the situation and contemplating what it means to do art in space and what it means to be in space is more relevant and in turn, more effective,” Edelman says.

NoCamels highlights a few other art projects that are part of the mission, including art that uses sound waves to create an electromagnetic statue, a sculpture that only exists in microgravity conditions.

Earth Signal Universe Wide

Yanai Toister, an artist, writer, doctor of philosophy, and professor at Israel’s Shenkar College of Engineering, Design, and Art teamed up with fellow artist and Shenkar lecturer Nimrod Astarhan to create Earth Signal Universe Wide, an electromagnetic statue generated by transmitting radio waves from several transmitters on Earth and on top of the ISS and broadcasting it across the universe.

“We’ve been able to acquire some data from a sensor near the Dead Sea. That sensor is usually operated by The Geological Survey of Israel. They operate a chain or network of sensors throughout Israel to anticipate or forecast any major geological seismic activity — for example earthquakes. So we’ve been able to rig or connect ourselves to one of those sensors. And particularly the one we wanted to connect to — and we eventually did connect to it — is the one closest to the Dead Sea. So essentially, it’s reading, sensing, or recording the activities of Earth in the lowest place on Earth, “Toister tells NoCamels.

Toister explains that they could have chosen sensors located in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv or a holy site, but that they specifically chose the Dead Sea because “symbolically” it’s the location closest to the heart of the Earth.

Later this week, the radio waves from the Dead Sea will be transmitted to the International Space Station which Stibbe will eventually transmit onto the universe, says Toister. “So he’s going to essentially transmit a signal which is obviously invisible and inaudible for humans. But he is going to embody himself the relay or interface of signals from earth to space to the universe.”

“The idea is that it’s an art piece that is never going to die,” Toister explains, “If you transmit something with a radio transmitter from where you live in Israel…then it’s probably not going to be audible in India. The reason for that is that the atmosphere is filled with material that eventually causes the transmission to decay and disappear. Space, however, is empty — not only vast, it’s a vacuum. And so whatever you transmit from outside of the Earth is going to expand to infinity and it’s never going to stop.”

For Toister, artwork in the form of a canvas or paint is not only expensive, but it’s also “uninteresting because space exploration and space travel is actually about expanding the limits of humanity,” he says, “And conceptual art does exactly that. It kind of releases itself from material objects and attempts to direct the viewer and the artist’s attention towards the purity of the idea. The idea, in essence, is not only to call out, to say, ‘We’re here.’ but also to utilize the electromagnetic aspects of space, which are also very important for art.”

Impossible Object

‘Impossible Object’ is a three-dimensional sculpture made of water. The liquid does not take on the shape of any particular vessel and therefore, cannot exist on earth, but only in outer space in the absence of gravity. 

The sculpture is made of interconnected brass pipes and rods, through which water is flown. In the absence of gravity, the water adheres to the rods and forms a liquid layer shaped by water tension, which envelopes the brass structure, yielding a three-dimensional shape that changes over time. The underlying brass structure is reminiscent of a wavy and directionless staircase, raising questions about shape and form in the absence of gravity and directionality. In particular, what is the shape of water? What does a “slice of the sea,” or a “handful of a wave” look like?

Dr. Yasmine Meroz, a senior faculty member at the School of Plant Sciences and Food Security at the Wise Faculty of Life Sciences partnered with contemporary artist Liat Segal. The two first met when they were graduate students in the same lab at Tel Aviv University.

“There is much in common between art and scientific research: both are the result of a thought process in which creativity plays a central role and are motivated by the desire to ask interesting questions. ‘Impossible Object’ is a research-based artwork, where the medium is basically the physics underpinning water behavior in the absence of gravity. I learned a lot in the process, and I have no doubt it will contribute to research in my laboratory. In this respect, this work expresses the unrealized potential of the synergy between art and scientific research,” Meroz said in a statement.

The post Art Meets Space: Rakia Mission Includes 11 Works Created For Subgravity Conditions appeared first on NoCamels.

Philanthropist and former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg was in Israel on Sunday to announce the launch of The Bloomberg-Sagol Center for City Leadership at Tel Aviv University (TAU), a local leadership program designed to help mayors across Israel deliver better and more equitable public services to residents, strengthen social bonds, and deepen ties with city leaders in both Jewish and Arab communities.

This program is based on a similar program established by Bloomberg Philanthropies and Harvard University in 2016 called the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative, which engages 40 mayors and 80 senior city leaders on a yearly basis. 

The new TAU program will focus on strengthening the leadership and management skills of 20 mayors and key senior aides each consecutive year via five approaches: executive education conducted by Tel Aviv University and Harvard faculty at a later date in New York and Boston; support and training to lead city innovation projects; providing TAU students for 10-week summer internships in participating city halls; forging a local government alumni network; and assembling academics and scholars from across TAU for applied research on topics relevant to urban leadership.  

This program, which is funded by both Bloomberg Philanthropies and the Sagol Family Foundation, will cover all expenses for its participants. 

“Mayors are on the front lines of every crisis, whether it’s terrorism or a pandemic,” said Former Mayor Bloomberg, “The Bloomberg Harvard program has proved phenomenally successful, and now we’re glad to team up with our partners in Israel on a new program that builds on our success and will help local leaders across the State of Israel.”

“The job of mayor requires a vast range of managerial skills at the highest level and in our new program we intend to equip participants with helpful insights and a useful toolbox for making critical decisions and implementing innovation in the urban environment,” said inaugural faculty director Moshe Zviran. 

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Selina, the Israeli-founded international hospitality service, which already owns 150 properties spread across 25 countries, announced the opening of three new locations in Israel, according to Globes.

The first is the Selina Tel Aviv Beach, a 266-bed hotel at 2 Arie Shenkar Street near the seafront at the Carmelit bus terminal; the second is Mantur Parod, a 108-bed hostel in Kibbutz Parod in the Galilee region; and the third is Selina Kinneret, a 294-room hostel on the shores of the Kinneret.

Founded in 2012 by Israeli entrepreneurs Rafael Museri and Daniel Rudasevski, Selina combines affordable accommodation, co-working spaces, fine dining, wellness, volunteering initiatives, entertainment, travel, and adventure throughout its many locations in Latin America, Central America, and Europe. In April 2019, the company raised $100 million in a Series C financing round, bringing the company’s total financing to $225 million to date.

“We had a very busy and highly productive first quarter, building on the momentum of our strong 2021. During the quarter, we advanced multiple important initiatives that are fueling growth and driving brand engagement. Our goal is to not only deliver strong financial performance but generate meaningful and sustainable value by developing environments, experiences, and outcomes that inspire brand ambassadors, friendships, stronger communities, and a better world,” Selina’s co-founder and CEO Museri told Globes. “The success we continue to enjoy on these fronts is a direct result of the time and effort we put into understanding our customers, team members, and real-estate partners. We are building an enterprise that is entirely unique and look forward to capitalizing on the many opportunities we see ahead.”

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Danish toy giant Lego has revealed that its first exclusively Lego store in Israel will open in Tel Aviv’s Dizengoff Center mall before the summer, Globes reports.

Last month, the toy company announced it will open its first Israeli store devoted to Lego in Tel Aviv.

After a month following an announcement to open its first store in Israel, Danish toy giant Lego has now revealed that the store will open in Tel Aviv’s Dizengoff Center before the arrival of summer, according to a prior report from Globes. 

The store will be located in Building A where six stores are currently being renovated and converted into one space totaling over 200 square meters. 

Lego products are currently available in Israel at local toy retailers, but their prices are among the highest in the world. By contrast, the Tel Aviv store will come with a significant price cut on all of its products. 

“We are thrilled to bring the Lego store experience to Israel and make the brand accessible to the Israeli public,” said Lego franchisee Eran Tor, CEO of TorGaming and founder of the iDigital store chain. Tor was also responsible for bringing Nintendo to Israel. 

“We believe that the store will act as another magnet for families, children and those crazy about Lego,” added Dizengoff Center co-owner and co-CEO Dan Pilz. 

The Tel Aviv store will become Lego’s 679th worldwide.

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The Dead Sea Museum, a physical art museum planned to be built in the city of Arad, has launched its first NFT collection of Dead Sea photographs by environmental – art activist Noam Bedein, founder of the Dead Sea Revival Project.

The collection of 100 selected images, dubbed Genesis NFT, highlights the disappearing beauty of the Dead Sea in order to raise environmental awareness for the world wonder, a statement from the museum said.

Bedein is the first to document the Dead Sea World Heritage Site solely by boat and has a database of over 25,000 photographs from the past six years, showing fascinating hidden layers exposed at the lowest point on Earth, and revealed due to the drop in sea level, which is currently at its lowest level in recorded history.

The auction will start on March 22nd, which is World Water Day, the annual observance established by the United Nations that highlights the importance of freshwater and advocates for its sustainable management. It will end on April 22, which is Earth Day. All proceeds from the sale will be used for the museum planning and for legal and legislative efforts to restore water to the Dead Sea.

“We need to find creative ways to make an environmental impact for the Dead Sea, especially for World Water Day, by using everything that is new and advanced in the world, such as the popularity of engaging NFTs & the Metaverse. By providing ownership of a vanishing Dead Sea time capsule I hope to harness the responsibility of others to share and contribute to a practical positive environmental impact. With the help of the NFT, the digital art asset of the Dead Sea will directly contribute to the cultural preservation of the Dead Sea for generations to come and take part in the creation of the Dead Sea Museum of Art,” Bedein tells NoCamels.

Bedein’s Dead Sea Revival Project (DRSP) is the only non-profit NGO focused solely on promoting the Dead Sea cause. It has been recognized by NASA and academic sci-tech institutions in Israel and the US for its educational and activism work. The DSRP was featured in magazines such as National Geographic and on news programs from around the world. 

Ari Leon Fruchter, a US-born social entrepreneur who first brought renowned US photographer Spencer Tunick to Israel, set out to build a Dead Sea Museum in Arad in 2019 as part of a quest to both preserve the area and give back to a city that had made an impact on his life since it was his home in a World Union of Jewish Students (WUJS) program in 1997.

The city of Arad is just 16 miles from the Dead Sea, and Fruchter wanted to make it a base for visitors on the way to the natural wonder. He also wants to raise awareness about the proliferation of Dead Sea sinkholes. The area has continued to suffer as freshwater dissolves underground layers of salt deposits causing the ground above it to collapse. 

Preservation of the Dea Sea is important because “it holds a wealth of resources that help people and the planet, and it is deeply rooted in the vast history of this land and the people of Israel,” Fruchter explains.

The collection of photographs on US-based NFT marketplace OpenSea can be found here.

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Israel soared to the 9th spot in the latest annual United Nations World Happiness Report for 2022,. This is the highest rank Israel has ever achieved in the annual report.

It’s also the first time Israel is in the top 10. Factors that may have contributed to Israel’s strong showing on the report this year include a world-leading COVID-19 vaccination campaign, which has seen more than half of the population receive a shot. A very strong social network,” of friends and family, as highlighted by Tal Ben-Shahar, an Israeli professor of Positive Psychology in the Miami Herald, may also play a part in increased in happiness measurements this year.

The country ranked 12th in the 2021 World Happiness Report and dropped to 14th in 2020, as the pandemic began to sweep the country. In 2019, the company ranked 13th and in 2018, Israel took 11th place, a rank it held consecutively for five years prior.

The year marks the 10th anniversary of the World Happiness Report, ranking more than 150 countries on factors such as levels of GDP, life expectancy, generosity, social support, freedom, and levels of corruption. While the report has been published ahead of the International Day of Happiness marked on March 20th – as it has been every year since 2012 – the authors are not oblivious to the dark times the world is now facing in terms of the ongoing pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war. The report, produced by the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), mentioned the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on the world throughout the survey. This latest edition was completed before the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It ranked Russia in 80th place and Ukraine in 98th.

Finland took 1st place on the list as the world’s happiest country for the fifth year in a row, with other Nordic countries topping the list including Denmark in 2nd place, Iceland in 3rd place, Switzerland in 4th, followed by the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Sweden, and Norway. New Zealand rounded out the top 10. Afghanistan was at the bottom of the list, in the same spot it held last year.

The report has a triple focus this year, first looking back and then taking another close look at how individuals and countries are doing in the face of COVID-19, and finally looking ahead to how the science of well-being and the societies under study will evolve in the future.

“A decade ago, governments around the world expressed the desire to put happiness at the heart of the global development agenda, and they adopted a UN General Assembly resolution for that purpose. The World Happiness Report grew out of that worldwide determination to find the path to greater global well-being. Now, at a time of pandemic and war, we need such an effort more than ever. And the lesson of the World Happiness Report over the years is that social support, generosity to one another, and honesty in government are crucial for well-being. World leaders should take heed. Politics should be directed as the great sages long ago insisted: to the well-being of the people, not the power of the rulers,” said economist Jeffrey Sachs, a co-author of the report.

Measuring happiness content

For this year’s report, the authors detailed new computational approaches to measuring happiness content through social media data. The data captured emotional responses to current and social events in keywords and written language.

The report highlighted the machine learning and dictionary-based methods used to compute the social media data and filter out the significant words and phrases that related to emotions, including happiness. According to the report, data from these platforms provided new opportunities to trace the emotions and well-being of individuals and societies at new scales. Large social media datasets also combined data from many individuals to examine large group phenomena among populations.

Machine learning methods were also used to highlight emotions in different countries that were a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Emotions such as anxiety, anger, sadness, and even positive emotions were featured, as well as the duration of these emotional changes. The research found that anxiety was not only related to COVID-19 cases but also the increase in the stringency of measures and those anger expressions on Twitter decreased during the onset of the pandemic as populations got used to the idea of the “new normal.”

Automated text analysis using machine learning over the last decade also showed that references to happiness have increased sharply over the last ten years, while references to income and GDP have fallen and have become less common. The analysis changes in emotion over weeks (and days) among those who use Twitter. The report said that “measures of emotion on Twitter move closely in line with the replies about emotion given in social surveys – which reinforces one’s confidence in both methods of measuring emotion.”

COVID-19 and beyond

The pandemic not only brought pain and suffering, but an increase in social support and benevolence, the report’s authors said in a press release. “As we battle the ills of disease and war, it is especially important to remember the universal desire for happiness and the capacity of individuals to rally to each other’s support in times of great need.”

“COVID-19 is the biggest health crisis we’ve seen in more than a century,” said John Helliwell of the Vancouver School of Economics at the University of British Columbia. He co-authored the report’s 2nd chapter, “Happiness, benevolence, and trust during COVID-19 and beyond.” “Now that we have two years of evidence, we are able to assess not just the importance of benevolence and trust, but to see how they have contributed to well-being during the pandemic,” he said.

“Data considered in the World Happiness Report offers a snapshot of how people around the world evaluate their own happiness and some of the latest insights from the science of well-being,” said social psychologist Lara Aknin. “This information is incredibly powerful for understanding the human condition and how to help people, communities, and countries work toward happier lives.”

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The first full-distance Ironman Triathlon to be held in the Middle East will take place in Tiberias on November 25, 2022, triathlon race organizer Ironman Group announced Sunday.

The race will start and finish in Tiberias encapsulating the natural and historic elements unique to Israel’s northern landscape. It will begin with a 3.8 km swim course in the Kinneret, followed by cycling two laps around the Sea of Galilee, south of Tiberias to Tzemach junction to Kfar Nahum located on the north eastern side of the Kinneret.  

Athletes will then run four laps along the western shore of the Kinneret, from Tiberias to Migdal for a total of 42.2 km. 

There are only 75 qualifying slots for the 2023 IRONMAN World Championship race held in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, race organizers expect fierce competition among those looking to qualify for next year’s world championship race. 

First established in 1978, the Ironman Group is the world’s largest operator of mass participation, high endurance sporting events. With hundreds of events held across more than 55 countries, IRONMAN Group has amassed an extensive global portfolio of events including the IRONMAN Triathlon Series, the IRONMAN 70.3 Triathlon Series, and the Ironman Virtual Racing Series, among others. 

“After the success of the Ironman 70.3 event last year, I am pleased to announce that the follow-up will see Israel host the full distance Ironman Middle East Championship in Tiberias, overlooking the spectacular and historically significant Sea of Galilee,” said Honorary President of the Middle East Championship, Sylvan Adams. “As it is a regional championship, Ironman Israel will attract the finest athletes from all across our region and beyond. We are looking forward to welcoming thousands of athletes from neighboring countries to the beautiful Galilee for what will surely be an historic event.”

For more information on the Ironman Israel Middle East Championship, you can visit www.ironman.com/im-israel. Athlete inquiries can be directed to israel@ironman.com.

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Professor Yoram Palti will be awarded the 2022 Israel Prize in entrepreneurship and technological innovation, Education Minister Yifat Shasha-Biton announced this week.

The former professor of physiology and biophysics at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, was chosen for developing a groundbreaking cancer treatment using electric pulses, according to The Times of Israel.

The breakthrough required “thinking outside the box” and “Prof. Palti to face and change existing beliefs and perceptions in the field,” the panel wrote.

Prof. Palti founded Novocure, a global oncology firm pioneering a novel therapy for solid tumors, in 2000 and has been the company’s Chief Technology Officer and served as a consultant. He was a director of Novocure from 2002 to 2018.

“Prof. Palti’s achievements are a source of great pride for the State of Israel and inspiration for the younger generations,” Shasha-Biton tweeted in Hebrew.

“We are very proud and happy about the important recognition and the prestigious prize awarded to Professor Palti, who not only developed a new technology but also a new approach to cancer treatment – an approach that does not involve chemotherapy and other pharmacological treatments,” said Technion President Professor Roy Sivan offering his congratulations, according to TOI.

Sivan went on to describe Palti’s work as “a wonderful example” of the Technion’s well-known achievements in combining engineering and medicine. “Professor Palti is an example of the rare ability to translate science into applications that are beneficial to humanity, through a combination of in-depth research and entrepreneurship,

First awarded in 1953, the Israel Prize reflects the most notable advances in humanities, science, culture, and lifetime achievement and is considered to be one of the country’s highest honors. the country’s highest honors.

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Lego, the Danish toymaker consisting mainly of plastic interlocking bricks and popular with children, announced on Tuesday that it will open its first official store in Israel this year.

The company plans to open its first store dedicated to Legos in Tel Aviv “before the summer,” according to Globes. The store in Israel will come with a significant price-cut on all of its products. Lego products are currently available in Israel at local toy retailers, but the prices for these products are said to be some of the highest in the world.

The toy giant has appointed Israeli entrepreneur Eran Tor, owner, and CEO of TorGaming and founder of the iDigital store chain for Apple products, as regional chief of the company. Tor is responsible for bringing Nintendo to Israel.

“Lego sees the Israeli market as an important and strategic target. There are customers here that very much appreciate Lego and ultimately it is an emotional connection. I don’t think I’ve ever known any other brand that is loved so much,” Tor said.

“In addition to the experience and service that we will provide, one of the things we want to do is make the products more accessible to customers in Israel, and there is no reason that customers will buy the products abroad. One of my explicit aims is to create a much more competitive and attractive level of prices. We will bring about a revolution,” he added.

There are currently 628 Lego stores worldwide. The stores that will open in Israel will be identical to the stores abroad.

READ MORE: Lifesize Lego Replica of SpaceIL’s Beresheet Lander To Open Lego Space Park

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Israel and Morocco signed a new economic cooperation and trade agreement to increase bilateral ties between the two countries, Israel’s Ministry of Economy and Industry announced on Monday.

Israel’s Economy and Industry Minister Orna Barbivay said she hoped to increase bilateral trade to $500 million within five years (It currently stands at $131 million.) She also said the agreement was designed “to bring about economic growth and prosperity for Israel and Morocco. By working together we will realize the latent economic potential in bilateral relations, increase the scope of trade and strengthen technological cooperation alongside rapprochement between the peoples.”

Barbivay signed the deal with Moroccan Industry and Trade Minister Ryad Mezzour.

“This was an initial meeting that created for us the opportunity to identify areas and channels for cooperation and for bilateral industrial and commercial cooperation. After resuming diplomatic relations one year ago, today Morocco and Israel have laid the foundation for an innovative and multi-faceted partnership. Today marks a new stage in which we will embark together on a partnership that is intensive, productive, and beneficial for both sides,” he said, according to a statement from the Israeli ministry.

The agreement aims to facilitate trade in areas such as aerospace, automotive, agriculture, food, tourism, and pharmaceutical industries, the ministers said.

Morocco is one of four Arab countries, along with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Sudan, to normalize ties with Israel, under the Abraham Accords, first brokered with the UAE in 2020.

Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz visited Morocco in November 2021 to sign a security pact in a first-ever defense agreement between Israel and an Arab country.

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