Israel Exhibition Pavilion Opens in India

With the development of trade the USA and EU somewhat limited as a result of low growth forecasts, Israel is looking East quite successfully. The Israel pavilion entitled “Israel Innovation in India” which opened this week will exhibit the ongoing Indo-Israeli cooperation and showcase advanced Israeli technologies in the fields of agriculture and homeland security.

Vibrant Gujarat 2015 was inaugurated today (Jan. 11th) by India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Israel’s Minister of Agriculture Yair Shamir heads the Israeli delegation to the Summit, accompanied by the Head of MASHAV, Ambassador Gil Haskel; officials from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development; and representatives from Israeli private companies.

Two professional events organized by the Embassy of Israel in India will take place during the Summit: the first, a Seminar on “Water Recycling, Irrigation Panel, Post-Harvest Management and Dairy,” and the second a Seminar on “Innovation and Technology in Food Processing for Sustaining Food Security” where Minister Shamir will act as the keynote speaker. 

During Vibrant Gujarat 2015, Israel and India will sign on extending the Indo-Israel Agricultural Cooperation program. In the current 3 year work plan, Israel and India are in the process of establishing 29 Centers of Excellence for agriculture in 10 Indian states including Gujarat. The agreement’s extension is a testament of the growing and vibrant relations existing between the two countries, the implementing parties are MASHAV, on behalf of the State of Israel, and the Mission for Integrated Development of Horticulture (MIDH), on behalf of India.

Israel equips Indian women entrepreneurs to win globally

It is now reported that Asia will overtake the USA and become the second biggest trading partner for Israel in this year. Initiatives such as the one outlined below are leading more and more businessmen to develop trade ties with Asia.

Vijeta Uniyal April 6, 2014,

Vijeta Uniyal is an Indian-born Entrepreneur living in Germany. He is Contributing Editor to The Commentator and Fellow at Lawfare 

Since the dawn of time, Jews and Indians have traded with each other. The ancient Jewish scriptures describe how once every three years the merchant fleet of Tarshish came back laden with gold, silver, ivory and exotic animals during the reign of King Solomon. Modern linguistic evidence points to India as the destination of these voyages. For centuries Jewish merchants and communities were welcomed on Indian shores. In 10th Century C.E. a powerful South Indian King even granted special privileges to Jewish trading community of the port city of Cochin – comparable with modern day tax exemption and free-trade zone.

It was therefore but natural that, when India formalized her relations with the Jewish State in 1991, Indians and Israelis started to trade – as if they were making up for the lost centuries – taking the bilateral trade from $200 million in 2001, to over $6 billion in 2013. As steady but irreversible market reforms unfetter India’s entrepreneurial potential, young Indians look more and more towards the Start-Up Nation for inspiration and collaboration.

In the wake of economic boom in sectors like IT, Telecom, Pharma and Bio-Technology – India did see increase in number of women employed in new sectors of economy. However, women continue to face serious challenges in rising up to leadership positions in Corporate India.

Now an Israeli initiative wants to give Indian women entrepreneurs the tools to break through these glass ceilings and acquire world-class leadership skills. The Bonita Trust, The Israel Asia Center, and Sofaer International MBA at Tel Aviv University have joined hands to offer a scholarship program specially tailored for Indian women entrepreneurs.

The scholarship offers a unique opportunity to women entrepreneurs, by covering full tuition fee at Tel Aviv University’s International MBA program and participation in the prestigious Israel-Asia Leaders Fellowship, along with a chance of getting seed funding for an Israel-India venture after successful completion of the program.

According to Rebecca Zeffert, Founder and Executive Director of the Israel-Asia Center, “This (scholarship) is a fantastic opportunity for a young Indian female entrepreneur to develop and receive support for her own Israel-India venture in the ‘Start-Up Nation’, to meet business and government leaders, acquire valuable leadership and business skills, and tap into and build partnerships with one of the world’s leading and most exciting hubs for innovation and technology.”

In keeping with the expectations of the Indian and Asian students, who still value well-structured and demanding curricula, Sofaer International MBA offers a rigorous core curriculum, but in addition to that, also allows participants be creative and choose from a wide-range of elective courses, offering greater control in shaping the program to fit individual career needs. Israel-Asia Leaders Fellowship Program adds to this management training experience by providing the right contacts, skills-sets and support network to build partnerships with Israel in their chosen field. Aimed at build leadership, the program gives fellows opportunities to speak at notable events and write for domestic and international media.

For the new generation of budding Indian women entrepreneurs rearing up to take on the challenges of Corporate India and break through the glass ceiling, this experience won’t just change their lives, but holds a greater promise of transforming mind-sets and breaking news grounds in India.

Israel's record-breaking milkers

Dairy farming expert shares Israel’s secrets for its exceptionally high yields of milk, along with solutions for happier and healthier cows
(By Rivka Borochov)

Joshuah Miron in Volcani’s dairy

Why is it that Israel can get about 12,000 liters of milk per year per cow, while in other countries the total yield is only about 8,000? What has made Israeli cows the record-breaking milkers that they are? Why is the Israeli milking technology from firms such as AfiMilk now found on dairy farms the world over? How can farmers and the milk industry everywhere make their cowsheds clean and healthy and the entire milk market more environmentally sound?

Israel’s Volcani Center, a government-run research body, provides some clues.

Over in the Volcani Center’s cowshed, kept cool during the hot noonday sun with water misters and fans, is Joshuah Miron. He heads the Ruminant Sciences Department and oversees the health and welfare of the Volcani Center’s herd of 230 milking cows in Beit Dagan, Israel.

He talks while his cows munch in the background.

Israel’s extraordinary success in the dairy industry is made up of three important ingredients: enhanced breeding to make better milkers; advanced nutrition science; and a team of highly educated dairy farmers, most of whom have an undergraduate degree in the field. Put these three together and you get the answer, which starts at the Volcani Center.

Virtually all of Israel’s 1,000 dairy farms take advantage of Volcani research designed to overcome challenges in the milk industry. The center’s work has surpassed even its own expectations, says Miron.

Consider that Israel is a small country with limited arable land. For feedstock, says Miron, Israel can “grow only 30 percent of the cow’s diet. The rest has to come from somewhere. If the rest is imported, then the price of milk would be very high. Grain costs $340 per ton. Just to feed them, we couldn’t support our cows.”

The Volcani Center came up with a nutritious and earth-friendly solution: using some 630,000 tons of wet vegetarian byproducts from the olive oil and food production industries to feed its dairy cows. Otherwise, these byproducts would be treated as waste and taken to the desert and buried, according to Miron.

Distress sensors for happy cows

Milk yield and quality is directly related to the health and wellbeing of the cows. In Israeli cowsheds, if a cow experiences any sort of distress, it will be sensed immediately, as each cow is hooked up to an AfiMilk monitor produced at an Israeli kibbutz based on Volcani research. Its infrared sensors for determining infection or inferior milk quality help the dairy manager track the health of every milk cow in real time, along with fat and protein content and overall output.

The AfiMilk system, sold worldwide by a private company, measures electrical conductivity in the milk as it passes from the cow’s teat into the pipe system. Miron says it can sense bacteria in the cow’s udder, a sign of dietary stress; or mastitis, a painful udder condition that would need treatment.

Continuing the clever “eco-system” design of the Israeli dairy industry, the fodder that is grown in Israel for cattle is raised with recycled water. And the cow manure from the dairy is hauled back to the farmer’s fields as fertilizer to start the process all over again.

Israeli dairy-farming expertise such as this helps dairies in many developing nations make milking a more efficient process. 

New smartphone does medical tests

Introducing LifeWatch V, an Israeli-engineered phone that performs and analyzes a range of self-tests and sends reports to your doctor.
(By Avigayil Kadesh)

The Israeli company LifeWatch Technologies is launching a unique smartphone that not only makes calls but can perform and analyze a whole range of medical tests and send a report of the results to users and their physicians.

CEO Dr. Yacov Geva says the Android-based LifeWatch V will be especially useful to help manage many aspects of a chronic medical condition such as diabetes. Blood glucose test strips can be inserted right into a portal on the phone’s stainless-steel frame and it can send reminders to check glucose levels and take insulin.
The smartphone’s embedded sensors also let you check your blood oxygen saturation level, perform an at-home electrocardiogram (ECG) or measure your blood pressure with an attached sleeve. You can use its pedometer to keep track of your daily footsteps and its thermometer to take your temperature. It helps you figure out your body fat percentage, plan your diet and log your workouts.

LifeWatch V sends all the test data automatically and securely to a remote server in the cloud for analysis by the company’s proprietary algorithms. Results and trend data are quickly shared with the user and, if desired, with a third party via email or text message.

An idea whose time has come

The Rehovot-based company expects to launch European and Israeli sales sometime in May 2013, and in the United States by the end of the year, following expected clearance from the US Food and Drug Administration.
TechFaith Wireless Communication Technology of China will manufacture the smartphones based on the Israeli specs and industrial design. Interface is to be available in Hebrew, English, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Chinese and Japanese.
“We will sell the device for between $500 and $700, depending on the country and individual carrier agreement,” says Geva.
He conceived of the idea back in the age of Palm Pilots. His original patents for the embedded sensors date back to 1998, and additional development work was done in 2001 and 2006. However, only recently has the technology gotten “friendly” enough to make the product viable.
“The real breakthrough came when Apple changed how a smartphone could be used, so we were able to take our initiative forward and develop the product based on an Android operating system,” says Geva, who adds that LifeWatch came into this project with more than 20 years of experience developing 45 different types of medical sensors.

The company designed LifeWatch V for ease of use, whether the user is six or 86 years old. One of the prime markets will be children with diabetes.

“Parents can follow their children to see if they’re doing daily testing and taking their insulin while they’re at school,” Geva explains. “Let’s say a child has to do a blood glucose test at 9 am. When he does the test, the data is sent automatically to the cloud and the parents can get the results immediately, on any kind of device. If the parent does not see that the test was done, the parent can call to remind the child.”

Mobile healthcare is the watchword

LifeWatch was founded about two decades ago as a subsidiary of LifeWatch AG, a leading Swiss healthcare technology and solutions provider, to develop ambulatory diagnostic testing.

There are 65 employees at its R&D center in Rehovot’s Rabin Science Park, and almost 500 people staff LifeWatch’s three emergency call centers in the United States. The public company offers a range of patient technologies and services, such as home-based heart monitoring and home sleep testing, in addition to wireless monitoring devices for emergency medical personnel.

“More than 300,000 new patients every year in the US are being monitored through LifeWatch,” Geva says.
American owners of the medical smartphone will be able to have the test results sent directly to one of those emergency call centers, and Israeli users will have one of their own soon, says Geva.

Already looking to the future, he reveals that the next-generation LifeWatch smartphone will have additional sensors incorporated for even more functionality. But the soon-to-launch model already represents a historic first in mobile healthcare. And if its built-in capabilities do not meet an individual user’s specific needs, Geva says it’s possible to download any other appropriate apps to the device.

A Cardboard Bicycle??

Only an Israeli could dream of this!!




Courtesy - Ministry of Foreign affairs


Izhar Gafni got the idea for his environmentally friendly cardboard bicycle four years ago, while visiting California.


"I saw a car outside a bicycle shop that had a sort of a canoe. It was a wood frame with a cardboard cover. That's where it started," he explains in this video.

When he approached three Israeli engineers with his idea, they said it would be impossible. "I just sat down and looked at everything and said, 'Okay, we can do it. We're Israelis; we know to do things that are impossible all our life.' ... I just started, go ahead and did it."

Nearly 95 percent of the bicycle is constructed of cardboard costing about $9. Gafni and his pals have built six prototypes. They hope to find a corporate sponsor to help them distribute the bikes, perhaps to poor children in Africa.

No Needle Injection Innovation

From the web site of Israel 21C comes the news of a painless method of injecting medication into the body. If you, dear reader, are anythying like my wife, the sight of a needle creates fear and trepidation.

Many of us dread shots, or injections of medication directly into the bloodstream. Those who aren't blessed with "easy-to-access" veins may be subjected to several attempts by medical personnel, some of whom are less skilled - and empathetic - than others. Diabetes sufferers and others who require daily injections may find them difficult to handle, and some people have to administer them themselves.

All the above have prompted Israel's TransPharma Medical to spend close to a decade perfecting its unique ViaDerm Drug Delivery System. With a no-fail, painless applicator that never misses its mark, and its pre-measured patches, the ViaDerm system "is ideal for a wide range of medications and treatments," says Dr. Daphna Heffetz, TransPharma's CEO.

The genius of the ViaDerm system is in its use of basic principles of diffusion to push medication into the bloodstream. Most injected medications are pushed directly into the bloodstream or under the skin (subcutaneous) via a needle - but it turns out that there is another way to move medication into the bloodstream.

Below the outer layers of skin (the epidermis) lies the dermis, which contains elaborate networks of blood capillaries, and comes into direct contact with the epidermis. The ViaDerm system creates micro-channels through the outer layer of skin, allowing the medication to diffuse through them into the dermis and from there to seep into the blood system via the capillaries.

The full story can be read at http://israel21c.org/201012208614/health/no-fail-painless-injections#