Israel is ranked the 5th most innovative countries in the world. It spends almost 4.3% of its GDP on civil research and development. It ranks thirteenth in the world for scientific output as measured by the number of scientific publications per million citizens. Israel counts 140 scientists and technicians per 10,000 employees, one of the highest ratios in the world. It is home to major companies in the high-tech industry and has one of the world’s most technologically literate populations. With over 6,000 active startups and an economy dominated by industrial high-tech and entrepreneurship, Israel certainly earned its nickname ‘The Startup Nation’. This nation is known for its innovation and one of the best technologies we use today are its creation. The article mentions top ten tech inventions of this territory which have been a massive success throughout the globe.
1.Sniffphone
Sniffphone is a device that can smell disease. In 2018, it was awarded the Innovation Award by the European Commission for Most Innovative Project, and is an evolution of the ‘NaNose’ technology developed by Professor Hossam Haick of the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. NaNose is a breathalyser that can detect the symptomatic odour caused by some cancerous tumours, Parkinson’s dementia, multiple sclerosis and many more diseases. It has an 86 percent to 93 percent degree of accuracy. The SniffPhone aims to further simplify this diagnostic process by making the technology accessible via a plug-in that can be attached to smartphones. It is estimated to become commercial within four to six years and will be highly accurate, affordable, easy to use, comfortable and easy to repeat.
2. ReWalk
ReWalk is a battery packed exoskeleton. It helps the user to stand straight, walk and climb stairs. The robot receives movement signals from a watch. ReWalk is a wearable robotic exoskeleton that provides powered hip-knee motion to enable individuals with spinal cord injury (SCI) to stand upright, walk, turn, climb and descend stairs. ReWalk is the first exoskeleton to receive FDA clearance for personal and rehabilitation use in the United States. It is in market since 2014. ReWalk was invented Dr. Amit Goffer who was himself paralysed by a tragic accident. ReWalk told Robotics Business Review the SHIs will coverage 100% of the cost. This includes the trial period for the purpose of training the candidate, which includes the costs of the training at physical therapy site. The costs of the rental unit, and upon successful training, the cost coverage for the ReWalk 6.0 system for home and community use.
3.PillCam
PillCam is a digestible camera. Inspired by a personal experience with chronic stomach pain, scientist Gavriel Iddan of Given Imaging, now Medtronic came up with the idea of creating a digestible, disposable camera that transmits data to a receiver outside the body. FDA-approved, the PillCam is now used across the globe to diagnose infection, intestinal disorders and cancers in the digestive system. It’s also able to access areas of the digestive system that are typically out of range during a conventional procedure. For his invention, Iddan received the European Inventor Award in 2011, 14 years after the prototype was first released.
4.The Flexible Stent
Traditional, rigid stents were made for more complicated operations and so, with the introduction of the first ever flexible stent in 1996, surgery became easier and safer. Known in the medical world as the NIR stent or EluNIR it was developed by Medinol, a company operated by husband-and-wife team Kobi and Judith Richter. Thanks to their genius invention, the Richters were at one point ranked among Israel’s richest people, according to Forbes. DynamX, a Novel Stent That Turns from Rigid to Flexible While Inside Vessel. With every heart-beat, our blood vessels expand and contract, something known as pulsatile motion. When commonly used metal stents are placed within vessels, they prevent those vessels from exhibiting pulsatile motion.
5.Firewall
The software that protects our data from dangerous cyber activity is one of the cornerstones of computer security and arguably one of the greatest tech inventions from Israel. A firewall is a network security device that monitors incoming, outgoing network traffic and decides whether to allow or block specific traffic based on a defined set of security rules. Firewalls have been a first line of defence in network security for over 25 years. A firewall can be hardware, software, or both. The biological parents of the firewall are widely accepted to be Gil Shwed, Marius Nacht and Shlomo Kramer of Israel-based Check Point Software Technologies. The team developed the first ever fully viable commercial firewall in 1993, and since then Check Point has expanded, opening subsidiaries overseas and partnering with major tech companies, including Nokia. In 2018, Shwed was awarded the state of Israel’s highest honour, the Israel Prize, for contributions towards technology and innovation.
6.ICQ
It is the first global instant messenger. ICQ, a play on the English phrase “I seek you”, allowed Windows users to send each other messages in real time, and the convenient, centralised system quickly reached a widespread audience. At its peak around 2001, ICQ had more than 100 million accounts registered. At the time of the Mail. Ru acquisition in 2010, there were around 42 million daily users. Since 2013, ICQ has 11 million monthly users. In 2020, the Mail. Ru Group, which owns ICQ, decided to launch its new ICQ New software, based on its messenger. The updated messenger was presented to the general public on April 6, 2020. During the second week of January 2021, ICQ saw a renewed increase in popularity in Hong Kong, spurred on by the controversy over WhatsApp’s privacy policy update. The number of downloads for the application increased 35-fold in the country.
7.Disk on Key
Disk on Key is a USB memory drive. The technology itself is an alliance of two innovative prototypes: flash memory was developed by Toshiba in the 1980s. A decade later, a coalition of industry leaders developed Universal Serial Bus – or USB – a standardised port used to connect devices. It wasn’t until 1999 that Israel-based company M-Systems filed a patent for the “USB-based PC flash disk”, opening the door for the development and production of the portable USB that we all know, misplace and love.
8.Netafim
Irrigation has been a major problem all over the globe. Farmers especially in Israel struggled to grow crops in the country’s arid desert climate. By 1967, Netafim – literally meaning “drops of water” – had improved crop yields by 70 percent in the Arava desert in the country, all while reducing water usage in the region by 5 percent. The technology soon spread across the country, and across the globe. Today, Netafim is present in 110 countries, and has revitalised more than 10m ha (24.7m acres) of land. It is Blass designed, a pipe that would drip water on to crops, making it possible to grow them while using a limited amount of water.
9.Watergen
Watergen produces drinking water with a help of thin air. Watergen’s generators cool and liquidise the air vapour, producing up to four litres of water for every kilowatt-hour of electricity they use. The generators also include built-in filtration technology to account for air pollution, and further treat the extracted water to ensure it is safe to consume. The life-saving device is already being used in disaster zones across the globe, including 2017’s Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico. Watergen has even bigger ambitions, though, aiming to provide clean drinking water for millions of people, ranging from those in economically unstable climates to office workers in major cities looking to sustainably quench their thirst.
10.BioBee
BioBee is a harmless pest control. It aims to reduce the use of pesticides in agriculture, using the natural power of insects to make crops safer to eat and their habitat a more secure place to be. BioBee runs three projects simultaneously which are, breeding bees for pollination in greenhouses, using “friendly insects” such as mites, wasps and beetles to attack harmful pests, and reducing the number of harmful insects by genetically modifying their ability to reproduce. Its products are sold worldwide, in over 50 countries, through our subsidiaries, numerous agents and distributors. BioBee is the world’s leading producer of Phytoseiulus persimilis, the most effective natural predator of Tetranychus urticae (red spider mite). One of BioBee’s main strengths is the extensive knowledge and experience of its Field Service personnel, who support the implementation process at our customer’s sites.
