Israel Innovation 2.0

During the past week, Emblaze announced that it is ending its production and marketing of the First Else. First Else was intended to be the first Linux-based smartphone device offered by wireless carriers but Emblaze couldn’t find a partner that met its demands. Meanwhile, IDB invested NIS 8 million in the Jewish-Arab incubator NGT and BrightSource Energy’s planned solar plant in the Mojave Desert is expected to be the world’s most efficient. For these stories and more, see this week’s headlines below.

Cleantech
1. Israeli IDE gets 2nd contract with China power plant

2. Is Ivanpah the World’s Most Efficient Solar Plant?

3. Photovoltaic Power Plants in Israel – a reality?

Investment
4. IDB to invest NIS 8M in Jewish-Arab incubator

5. Israeli Group Signs Tech Investment Deal With Chinese City

Information Technology
6. RIP: Emblaze kills First Else

7. Cotendo Selected as 2010 Red Herring North America Top 100 Winner

8. Web startups tap into brainpower (Fixya)

9. Intel may use Comsys to boost handset comeback

Miscellaneous
10. SanDisk CEO Eli Harari proves he’s no flash in the pan

11. Best Places to Work Academia 2010

Israel’s TaKaDu and SolarEdge have developed solutions in the water and solar fields that make current technologies more efficient.

Israel’s TaKaDu and SolarEdge have been named Red Herring Europe 100 winners for 2010. The two cleantech companies are among eight Israeli startups to have made the list which considered financial performance, technology innovation and execution of strategy and other criteria.

Here’s a closer look at both companies:
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Pythagoras Solar’s new photovoltaic glass unit can lower the cost of energy in commercial buildings and find strong markets in China and India.

Israel’s Pythagoras Solar recently unveiled its new photovoltaic glass unit. The clear glass panes that can be used as windows, curtain walls or skylights double as solar panels and are intended to change the way commercial buildings are built.
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During the week of May 8, 2010, Israel was invited to join the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development along with Slovenia and Estonia. Israel’s membership in the international organization is expected to increase outside investments in the country. Multi-touch innovator N-Trig demoed new advanced multi-touch gestures that will be included in laptops later this year and it was leaked that Microsoft will release Project Natal also later this year. For these stories and more, see this week’s 12 Israel-related headlines below.

Cleantech
1. Israel’s Erdan Sees China Market in Clean Technology (Update1)

2. China’s Suntech, Israel Electric May Team Up on Solar Power

3. Multimatrix Invests Millions In Israel’s Small Wind Market

Investments and Economy
4. Better Place Closes Massive $350M Round

5. Emefcy Raises $5 million For Commercial “Green” Sewage Treatment Pilot Plant

6. AudioCodes to acquire Natural Speech Communication

7. Israel unanimously invited to OECD

Information Technology
8. N-trig demos advanced N-act multitouch gestures, coming to laptops and tablets later this year

9. What Silicon Valley could learn from these 14 Israeli companies

10. Clarizen Selected as a Winner of 2010 CODiE Awards in Project Management

Miscellaneous
11. Beating the copycats

12. Microsoft Plans Worldwide Launch Of Project Natal In October

During the week of January 17, 2010, Israeli mobile ad tech company Mobixell announced that it bought Internet firm 724 Solutions. A new report indicated that most Israeli hi-tech companies are planning to hire this year and the Google breach from mainland China was further analyzed. For these stories and the rest of this week’s 10 headlines, see below.

Cleantech
1. Sunday Solar to Build Large Solar Array on “Damaged” Negev Land

Investment and Economy
2. Mobixell buys Web firm 724 Solutions

3. Israel’s PowerSines seeks IPO abroad in H1

4. Most high-tech companies plan to hire people this year

Information Technology
5. Google vs. China: The Tip of the Cyberwar

6. Never Mind the Valley: Here’s Israel

7. Women in Technology: Rony Ross, Panorama Software (Interview)

Miscellaneous
8. Want an MBA from an entrepreneurial hot spot? Look to Israel.

9. ‘Ajami’ on short list for Oscar nomination

10. Tuition-Free University Gains a Following

During the week of May 10, 2009, solar power received significant attention between Aora’s solar panel technology and BrightSource striking the largest ever solar power deal in the United States. Better Place demonstrated its battery swap technology and Hacktics, an applications security company, raised 2.2 million Euro. OpTier, Correlix, and Promisec, along with 13 other Israeli companies were listed on Red Herring’s 100 and the social streaming video provider, Boxee’s plans to make its software available to the Windows market was discussed. For more on these stories and the rest of this week’s 14 Israel-related headlines, check below.

Cleantech

1. Aora Makes The Desert Bloom With Sunshine Flower Power

2. PG&E expands solar power plans

3. Better Place demonstrates battery swap technology in Japan

Investments

4. Mo’Minis Finds Mo Money For Mo Games

5. Applications security co Hacktics raises €2.2m

Information Technology

6. Intel Israel: Don’t just think fast, think ahead

7. Start-up Testuff Selected as One of the Best and Most Promising Start-ups by IGT

8. OpTier, Correlix, PromiSec Red Herring 100 finalists

9. ClickSoftware releases the integration between ClickSchedule 7.1 and mySAP CRM 3.1

10. WeFi Launches on Android, Enabling Automatic Connection To Best Available Wi-Fi Hotspot

Miscellaneous

11. Microsoft’s gesture-based game control to debut in 2010

12. Boxee Battles Big Media

13. Decline in demand for hi-tech jobs slows in April

14. Taylor Swift’s Music Is Safe To Drive To

Tomorrow kicks off the first of the three-day Eilat International Renewable Energy Conference and Exhibition that takes place in the the resort town of Eilat, in Israel’s southern tip.

Two companies that I’ll be paying close attention to during the conference are the solar energy companies, BrightSource Energy and Aora. Brightsource recently inked the largest solar energy deal ever that will help provide Southern California with more energy, while Aora just raised $5 million in funding.

Here is a little more about each company according to their websites.

BrightSource: BrightSource Energy, Inc., based in Oakland, California and Jerusalem, Israel, designs and builds large scale solar plants that deliver low-cost solar energy in the form of steam and/or electricity, at prices competitive with fossil fuels, to industrial and utility customers worldwide. Its Jerusalem subsidary, Luz II, Ltd., provides product development and engineering, project engineering and management, and solar field manufacturing and supply services.

AORA: Formerly known as EDIG Solar, AORA is an Israeli solar thermal company that is based on research and development by Prof. Jacob Karni of the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot, Israel. The company’s technology offers solutions for providing smaller quantities of solar thermal that are closer to residential communities. 

During the week of of January 4, 2008, aside from the escalation of Israel’s operation in Gaza and more attacks on Israeli websites, one of the biggest stories in the tech world was the launch of Israel-based Ctera’s new storage device. Another was that Israel issued its first solar licenses for solar power plants. Despite the poor economic and VC investment outlooks, at least three Israeli companies (including Ctera) announced they raised funds. There was also news of an imminent Aladdin sale that sent its stocks rocketing. For these stories and more, you can view this week’s 15 Israel-related headlines below.

Israel-Hamas Conflict (Technology side)

1. Israel-Gaza Conflict Spills Over Into Twitter

2. Hackers Take the Fight Over Gaza Online

3. Digital World: How to beat anti-Israel hackers at their own game

4. Spam poses as CNN story about Israel-Hamas conflict

Cleantech

5. Israel issues first solar licenses

6. Cleantech Investment Slowdown Predicted in 2009

Investments

7. SundaySky Secures First Institutional Round of $8 million from Carmel Ventures and Globespan Capital Partners

8. TraderTools Raises $7.5 Million

Information Technology

9. Aladdin shares surge on report company sale is near

10. Start-up Ctera will offer cloud storage through carriers

11. Save Mart Supermarkets Deploys Integrated Retalix Supply Chain Software

12. Gigya: December 23rd Was Biggest Day For Our Widgets, Ever

Miscellaneous

13. Freeverse Announces Slot Car Racing Game for IPhone

14. Eyes in the sky

15. Fish memories underestimated

Top posts on Israel Innovation 2.0 from the past week

G.ho.st: A real model for coexistence

Why TechAviv and technology in general lacks women (Part 1)

During the week of July 6, 2008, news broke that Ness Technologies plans on selling its Israeli unit to SAP and there was a rumor that Google plans on buying VoIP service, Jajah. Virtualization companies Xeround and Ceedo were active, while in cleantech, environmentalists claimed that solar panel pricing is wrong. While these are some of the stories that stood out, they weren’t the only ones. Check below for the full list of the 21 Israel-related technology headlines from the week of July 6, 2008.

Cleantech
Environmentalists: Solar panel pricing wrong

Israel helps China with wave power

For most Israeli contractors, green isn’t an issue

Funding rises for clean-tech start-ups

Deals and Partnerships
Jacada Signs Material Contract with Nationwide Insurance

PicScout Teams up with Splash News to Give Bloggers Access to the Hottest, up-to-the Minute Celebrity Photos at picapp.com

InstallFree signs SaaS OEM agreement with Click Manageware

Ness Technologies set to sell Israeli unit to SAP

Google Buying Jajah?

Information Technology
Mellanox
InfiniBand Adapters Provide Leading Storage Connectivity to Galactic
Computing’s Line of VSTOR Storage Systems and Gateways

Virtualization is “Xeround” The Corner With An Extra $16 Million

VMware sets up new R&D centre in Israel

Hagemeyer Chooses Ceedo Virtualization Technology to Reduce Enterprise Costs and Streamline Day-to-Day Operations

Microsoft Going After MSN Israel Ltd.

MSN Israel employees had little warning of Microsoft moves

Miscellaneous
Israel’s global firms employ 63,000 overseas

Walla, ICQ launch new communications program

Digital photo co PhotoFree raises NIS 2.84m

Oil hits record ($145.98) above $147 on Nigeria unrest, Israel / Iran tension

Sightix Offers B2B Social Networking Search Solution [Israel Media Tour]

Meet BreadCrumbz, An Israeli Finalist of The Adroid Developer Challenge

About the author: Lisa Damast is the Membership
Manager of ebizQ.net and currently resides in Israel. Any questions or
inquiries regarding this blog or ebizQ membership services can be
directed to her via email at ldamast (at) ebizq (dot) net. She can also be followed on Twitter, where she covers additional Israeli technology companies and Israel-related headlines and topics.

The latest Israeli start-up to enter the cleatntech boom is XJet Ltd. The Globes is reporting that the company, currently operating in stealth mode, has raised $9 million from Gemini Israel Funds, Swiss investment fund Good Energies, Taiwanese semiconductor equipment manufacturer Spirox and private investors. The company will focus on solar cell cost efficiency to help reduce costs and improve production.

It will be interesting to see which companies XJet, Ltd, will work with, specifically how many of them will be Israeli companies and how many projects will be done in Israel. While Israel still has a high dependency on fossil fuels for energy, a day when Israel is no longer reliant on it seems more conceivable lately with solar advancements such as this, Shai Agassi’s Project Better Place and other recent cleantech advancements.

What are some economic benefits of using solar energy in Israel? According to an article on RenewableEnergyAccess.com a Greenpeace report presented to Israel’s Ministry of Infrastructure in 2005 estimated that solar power stations in Israel could provide:
- a profit of NIS 810 million annually
- 5,000 new jobs
- and, solidify Israel’s position as a world leader in the export of renewable technology to help combat climate change.