A major Israeli source of pride is the enormous number of inventions and innovations that have taken root on its soil over 63 years, despite challenges of geography, size and diplomacy. The ever-churning Israeli mind has brought us drip irrigation, the cherry tomato, the electric car grid and much more.
Throughout December at the Bloomfield Science Museum in Jerusalem, indispensable Israeli inventions are being displayed and demonstrated. Curator Varda Gur Ben-Sheetrit said that hundreds of ingenious inventions were considered for the exhibition Inventions, Inc., which offers visitors a chance to learn more and try their own hand at coming up with something new.
She emphasized that many other Israeli inventions are deserving of inclusion. “We were, of course, constrained by space limitations. Also, not every company we invited to exhibit responded,” she noted.
Another feature of the exhibition is the Transparent Studio, where graduates of the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design conduct a course on innovation in the area of light and lighting design. Visitors can observe their work-in-progress and share their ideas and suggestions with the designers.
Here’s a list of Israel’s top 20 inventions highlighted at the exhibition, in no particular order.
1. Netafim is a worldwide pioneer in smart drip and micro-irrigation, starting from the idea of Israeli engineer Simcha Blass for releasing water in controlled, slow drips to provide precise crop irrigation. The kibbutz-owned company operates in 112 countries with 13 factories throughout the world.
2. Ormat Technologies designs, develops, builds, owns, manufactures and operates geothermal power plants, supplying clean geothermal power in more than 20 countries.
3. Pythagoras Solar made the world’s first solar window, which combines energy efficiency, power generation and transparency. This transparent photovoltaic glass unit can be easily integrated into conventional building design and construction processes.
Throughout December at the Bloomfield Science Museum in Jerusalem, indispensable Israeli inventions are being displayed and demonstrated. Curator Varda Gur Ben-Sheetrit said that hundreds of ingenious inventions were considered for the exhibition Inventions, Inc., which offers visitors a chance to learn more and try their own hand at coming up with something new.
She emphasized that many other Israeli inventions are deserving of inclusion. “We were, of course, constrained by space limitations. Also, not every company we invited to exhibit responded,” she noted.
Another feature of the exhibition is the Transparent Studio, where graduates of the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design conduct a course on innovation in the area of light and lighting design. Visitors can observe their work-in-progress and share their ideas and suggestions with the designers.
Here’s a list of Israel’s top 20 inventions highlighted at the exhibition, in no particular order.
1. Netafim is a worldwide pioneer in smart drip and micro-irrigation, starting from the idea of Israeli engineer Simcha Blass for releasing water in controlled, slow drips to provide precise crop irrigation. The kibbutz-owned company operates in 112 countries with 13 factories throughout the world.
2. Ormat Technologies designs, develops, builds, owns, manufactures and operates geothermal power plants, supplying clean geothermal power in more than 20 countries.
3. Pythagoras Solar made the world’s first solar window, which combines energy efficiency, power generation and transparency. This transparent photovoltaic glass unit can be easily integrated into conventional building design and construction processes.
4. Hazera Genetics, a project of two professors at the Hebrew University Faculty of Agriculture, yielded the cherry tomato - a tasty salad ingredient that ripens slowly and doesn’t rot in shipment.
5. EpiLady, the first electric hair remover (epilator), secured its leading position in the international beauty care market and since 1986 has sold almost 30 million units.
6. MobileEye combines a tiny digital camera with sophisticated algorithms to help drivers navigate more safely. The steering systemlinked device sounds an alert when a driver is about to change lanes inadvertently, warns of an impending forward collision and detects pedestrians. MobileEye has deals with GM, BMW and Volvo, among others.
7. Leviathan Energy innovated the Wind Tulip, a cost-effective, silent, vibration-free wind turbine designed as an aesthetic environmental sculpture, producing clean energy at high efficiency from any direction.
8. BriefCam video-synopsi s technology lets viewers rapidly review and index original full-length video footage by concurrently showing multiple objects and activities that actually occurred at different times. This technology drastically cuts the time and manpower involved in event tracking, forensics and evidence discovery.
9.The Better Place electric car network, Israeli Shai Agassi’s brainchild, is implementing the Israeli pilot that will provide a model for a worldwide electric car grid.
10. Intel Israel changed the face of the computing world with the 8088 processor (the “brain” of the first PC), MMX and Centrino mobile technology. Israeli engineers at Intel in the 1990s had to convince skeptical bosses to take a chance on MMX technology, an innovation designed to improve computer processing. It’s now considered a milestone in the company’s history.
1 1 . TA C o u n t r e a l - t i m e microbiology enables the detection and counting of harmful microorganisms in a matter of minutes, rather than the conventional method of cell culture that takes several hours to a few days. The technology applies to the fields of drinking and wastewater, pharmaceuticals and food and beverage production.
12. Solaris Synergy innovated an environmentally friendly and economically beneficial way to float solar panels on water instead of taking up valuable land, generating energy while protecting and limiting evaporation from reservoir surfaces.
13. HydroSpin is developing a unique internal pipe generator that supplies electricity for water monitoring and control systems in remote areas and sites without accessibility to electricity.
14. The Space Imagery Intelligence (IMINT) unit of Elbit Systems makes a “space camera” - a compact, lightweight electro-optic observation system for government, commercial and scientific applications.
15. Turbulence, the world’s first hypernarrative, interactive movie, is also the name of the company developed by Prof. Nitzan Ben-Shaul of Tel Aviv University. The technology allows the viewer to choose the direction of the film’s plot by pressing buttons on the PC, Mac or iPad at various moments in the action.
16. Decell Technologies is a global leader in providing realtime road traffic information based on monitoring the location and movement of phones and GPS devices. Swift-i Traffic, Decell’s premium product, is incorporated in leading navigation systems, fleet management services, mapping operations and media channels in several countries.
17. PrimeSense revolutionizes interaction with digital devices by allowing them to “see” in three dimensions and transfer control from remote controls and joysticks to hands and body. It is the leading business provider of low-cost, high-performance 3D machine vision technologies for the consumer market.
18. Takadu provides monitoring software to leading water utilities worldwide. The product offers realtime detection and control over network events such as leaks, bursts, zone breaches and inefficiencies.
19. The EarlySense continuous monitoring solution allows hospital nurses to watch and record patients’ heart rate, respiration and movement remotely through a contact-free sensor under the mattress. The system’s builtin tools include a wide range of reports on the status of patients, including alerts for falls and bedsore prevention.ww
20. Panoramic Power provides a current monitor solution that enables enterprises and organizations to reduce their operational and energy expenses using a breakthrough power flow visibility platform.
