Israel Innovation 2.0

Earlier this year I posted an entry about the lack of women in technology that included some of the famous women who contributed to technology and some of the causes that prevent women from studying fields related to technology or having a career in technology and connected all this to Israel.

I’ve been waiting for a good time to post the follow up, and was going to post it back in June after Roi Carthy of TechCrunch mentioned, but didn’t cover, the question in his post about three of Israel’s most-promising female entrepreneurs and then again last month after Ada Yonath won the Nobel Prize in chemistry, thus becoming the first Israeli woman to win a Nobel Prize and the first woman since 1964 to win one in chemistry, but wasn’t able to either of those times.

Fortunately, Boris’s post “What is keeping women out of technology?“ on The Next Web today has given me another opportunity to post this. He suggests that considering the 50/50 male/female attendance he recently saw at a networking event and the 44% women who read The Next Web but how few of them comment, fewer women are in tech compared to men because women miss important phone calls and never bring their business cards with them.

These are interesting points that can perhaps take women out of technology but they are not the main factors. How many of the women at the networking event or who read The Next Web are actually on the tech side of technology and not just the marketing or journalism side? How many of them have backgrounds in science, math, computers or engineering?

The problem is that women first need to be interested in technology and pursue that path. Even if they are interested in math, science, technology when they are younger, women face a lot of social pressures as they grow older that challenge their pursuit and ultimately result in many abandoning these areas.

In her dissertation “Women in the Land of Milk, Honey and Hi-Technology: The Israeli Case,” Ronit Kark takes an in-depth look at Israeli society and the underlying dynamics that are preventing more women from going into technology, engineering and science in Israel.

The reasons that Kark gives for why women are being kept out of technology in Israel include: the high school education and military service of women, familialism and motherhood in Israel and the role of the Hebrew language.

Taking this further, based on my first post and Boris’s, while Boris is planning to teach his two daughters PHP when they are old enough, he should also make sure that they gain the self-confidence to go along with those skills. Real encouragement is also one of the things we can all do to get more women in technology.

Note: Major thanks to Guy Tessler of the American Israel Chamber of Commerce in the Southeast Region who pointed out Kark’s study to me.

During the week of May 17, 2009, news focused on a California cleantech investors mission to Israel that was deemed successful and Israeli companies trying to build a global profile for themselves. In mobile and video technology, Waze announced its technology, which offers real-time traffic reports based on user input, and Yaniv Axen of SundaySky was interviewed. For more on these stories and the rest of this week’s 12 headlines, check below. 

Cleantech

1. UN Climate Talks: Cleantech IP Battle of the Year?

2. Will the Electric Car Make the World a Better Place?

Investment

3. Israeli Companies Seek Global Profile

4. China’s 4 trillion Yuan stimulus package: Israeli opportunities

5. IVA 2009 – Business as Usual?

Information Technology and Web 2.0

6. Waze: The traffic of the crowds

 7. B.O.S. to provide large-scale wastemanagement solution

8. Yaniv Axen, Co-Founder of SundaySky

9. AcCells Named a Mobile Innovation Grand Prix Nominee

10. Innovating Video Conferencing In Israel

Miscellaneous

11. Photo: Sandstorm Strikes Israel

12. Viva Tel Aviv!

I recently met Daniel Shein of the Media Innovation Lab (miLAB) during Jeff Pulver’s Breakfast in Tel Aviv. Shein told me about the different research going on at miLAB and the projects he is working on in specific. In this video he gives a brief overview of miLab and one of his projects. 

A little more on the Media Innovation Lab, according to miLAB’s website, 

“The Media Innovation Lab at IDC Herzliya (miLAB) is a research and prototyping lab that explores the future of media and technology; Through a collaborative creative process new concepts for media experiences are transformed into working prototypes.”

Several of its projects are in collaboration with other research labs around the world, including MIT’s Media Lab. Some current miLAB projects include a study on the “Media in Context”, answering “How does the context of use influence a media experience? What types of context have a stronger influence than others?”; Urban Insights, a social-computerized system that more accurately connects you to the help you need; and ARG’s, a lab experiment in which the lines between “real and virtual, true and false” are blurred. 

In addition to the website, more information on miLAB and these projects is available on the miLAB channel on YouTube.

The week of March 29, 2009 was one of the busiest weeks of the year for Israel’s Web industry, with conferences and events happening everyday. Three bigg events were TheMarker’s COM.Vention on Sunday and Jeff Pulver’s Tel Aviv breakfast and Techonomy on Tuesday. While these events showcased Israel’s most promising Web startups, there was buzz about Israeli companies starting to bypass the US market and target the market in China. For more on these stories and the rest of this week’s 13 Israel-related headlines, see below.

Cleantech
Israel’s Aora Solar To Begin Clean Energy Production

Leviathan looks to wind energy device sales

Global VC Funding of Clean Tech Plunges

Investments and M&A
Building A Bridge Between Israel & China

Israeli Entrepreneurs: Know What Game You Are Playing

The tycoons’ companies don’t create jobs

Information Technology
AICC member Unisfair Launches Channel Program to Capitalize on Growth of Virtual Events 

Savvy entrepreneurs tapping risk (CTERA)

XMPie and NowDocs Introduce XMPie-enabled NowPrint 7.0

SaaS’ Testuff Nabs 2,000th Customer

The curious case of face.com

Miscellaneous
Techonomy 2009: Great Startups And Amazing Event

MyHeritage: Avoiding the MetaCafe Curse

Impressions of TheMarker’s COM.vention from a new immigrant (Israel Innovation 2.0 coverage from guest blogger Jessica Korman)

Cleantech and Environment

1. ‘Israel has no plan for water economy past 2010′

2. Better Place Raises Financing for Denmark Electric Car Project

3. BrightView Secures $6 Million From Israel Cleantech Ventures and Hasso Plattner Ventures

Investments, M&A and Economy

4. Number of laid-off Israelis set new high in December

5. SAP cuts likely to reach Israel

6. MyThings Acquires ViewScore

Information Technology

7. Safend Achieves Common Criteria Evaluation Assurance Level 2 for Sensitive Data Protection and Reaches Key Stage in FIPS 140-2 Certification Process

8. Waterfall Security Solutions to Attend the 2009 DistribuTECH Conference

9. Cordys Award-Winning Process Factory(TM) Now Available as Community Platform Free of Charge

10. IBM to expand Israeli XIV production facilities

11. How flash is changing storage (Axxana)

12. SIMCom Licenses Red Bend Software’s vCurrent(R) Mobile for Remote Software Management of M2M Wireless Devices

Web 2.0

13. Peer39 matches online content to advertiser’s message

14.  Time to Headup

15.  Interview : HYPick – hype a topic

16. Email: 2Pad Grabs Media Attachments from Your Webmail Accounts

17.  MocoSpace a Global Top 10 Social Network on Mobile

Miscellaneous

18. Mobile TV chip co Siano wins major Chinese deal

19. Free Internet-Calling Services for Cellphones (Fring)

Bonus: HYPick.com

If you want to know what the hype is– the real hype and not just what people vote on by clicking–check out HYPick.com. Founded by Oren Todoros, HYPick is the anti-Digg-type site that determines the top content based on user comments and views and not ranking, like Digg. Todoros recently sat down with Ezra Butler of LuckyStartups to discuss  HYPick. See what the hype is for yourself with this video.

You can add to Israel’s technology hype, by joining in on Israel Innovation 2.0 HYPick.com discussions, such as this one.

During the week of January 11, 2009, the war in Gaza escalated and news about Israeli tech companies continued. The biggest news of the week was that multi-touch technology company, N-Trig raised $24 million in its latest round of funding, the majority coming from Microsoft. Better Place announced its partnership to bring electric cars to Canada while Aladdin agreed to be acquired after months of talks with Vector Capital. Other information security companies, Trusteer and Commtouch also made headlines with important security threat findings. For links to these stories and more, check out the complete 12 Israel-related headlines from the week of January 11, 2009 below. 

Cleantech

1. Better Place Partners with Ontario to Bring ‘Car 2.0’ Electric Car Infrastructure to Canada

2. Eilat to host major international energy conference

Investments and M&A

3. Information security provider Aladdin is to be acquired by Vector Capital for $160 million

4. Microsoft leads $24m round for touch screen co N-trig

Information Technology

5. Phishing attack uses pop-up message on bank sites

6. Shunra Software Joins Microsoft Visual Studio Industry Partners Program 

7. IDV Solutions and Eternix Announce Technology Integration for Innovative Geospatial Solutions for the Defense & Intelligence Industry

8. RiT Technologies launches Paladin environment and security management suite

9. User Generated Content Sites Breeding Ground for New Internet Security Threats Says Commtouch Trend Report 

N-Trig

10. N-trig Secures $24 Million of New Funding to Fuel Hands-on computing™ Growth in Global PC Market

11. Microsoft Betting Big on ‘Touch’

12. CyberLink and N-Trig Introduce Next-Generation Multi-Touch Enabled Applications at CES

I am starting a new section where once a month on a Friday Israel Innovation 2.0 will cover Israel’s thriving cleantech industry. To kick it off, I will be covering this week a cleantech initiative that the Jerusalem Business Networking Forum (JBNF), a group I’m a co-organizer of, is organizing.

In the past 5 years, Israel has experienced a revival in cleantech initiatives that is slowly leading it to become the top country in the field, regarding both innovating and practicing it. In 2008, a total of $247 million was raised by Israeli companies, primarily in the solar industry. During this time the interest in the field among technology professionals also became apparent through the rise of Israeli cleantech networking groups and cleantech blogs focused on Israel.

While over the years most cleachtech companies have been founded in the center of Israel near Tel Aviv, a smaller group of companies have been founded in Jerusalem also. In an effort to increase activity in Jerusalem further and get the public involved, the Jerusalem Business Networking Forum (JBNF), a group that helps facilitate networking online and offline among Jerusalem business professionals, will be holding a special forum later this week in conjunction with the CleanIsrael Network, the Renewable Energy Association, the Movement for Strengthening Jerusalem and the Ministry of Industry and Trade.

The forum will feature presentations from renewable energy projects that companies around Jerusalem, including Phoebus Energy and 3G Solar, are working on as well as from representatives from Jerusalem’s government, including Jerusalem Council Member & Responsible for Environment, Naomi Tsur. The event is free and open to the public and everyone is encouraged to attend.

• What: Greening of Jerusalem
• Date: Thursday, January 15, 2009
• Time: 6 PM
• Location: Weitzman Hall at the Jewish Agency’s offices on 45 King George Street, Jerusalem
• Language: English and Hebrew

To RSVP and for additional info please visit the JBNF’s event page.

TechAviv, a global group for hi-tech Israeli entrepreneurs, had its first meeting of 2009 at the Inter-Disciplinary College (IDC) in Herzilyya last night. During the event, which was only open to Israeli entrepreneurs, representatives from Outbrain, 2Pad and Boxee spoke about their companies. The event was streamed live over the Internet on the TechAviv website. Watching part of the event online, the most interesting thing for me was noticing that out of all who attended the event, there was not one woman in the audience.

Sadly, this isn’t very surprising. Of the hundreds of Israeli companies that I have become familiar with in the past year and a half, the only company that I can think of that was started by a woman is eSnips (founded by Yael Elish and her then-husband). This isn’t just in Israel though and it’s not limited to just women starting companies in technology.

I started planning this entry back in November after Charlene Li, the former Forrester Senior Analyst, posted on her blog about the shortage of women speakers at technology industry events. (In it she mentioned that though there are few women in tech to begin with, there are fewer women who can make the time commitments required for conferences due to familial responsibility.)

My intention at the time was to answer the questions, “Where are the women?” “Why aren’t women in hi-tech?” and “Are women less innovative than men?” Questions that were also brought up today on Twitter in an interesting discussion between @TechAviv (Yaron Samid), @OurielOhayon, @israluv (Ahuvah Berger) and others about the lack of female entrepreneurs in Israel in relation to last night’s event.

The following are a few ideas based on what I found when I did preliminary research a few months ago on these topics.

Regarding the last question first, statistically it would certainly appear that men are more innovative than women. Go to any conference (in the United States) on technology and there will be few women speakers and only a few more in the audience. The biggest female entrepreneur in tech that comes to my mind is Arianna Huffington of the Huffington Post, while when I think of men, several come to mind (Steve Jobs for example). In Israel, though Yael Elish is the only female tech entrepreneur I can think of, two of the biggest bloggers/consultants I can think of in the Web 2.0 space, are female: Ayelet Noff of Blonde 2.0 and Orli Yakuel of Go2Web2.

Steve Jobs

In an online search I conducted on major scientific breakthroughs of the past 200 years that were made by women, About.com seemed to have the best list that was solely of female inventors. It includes:

• Randice-Lisa Altschul (invented the world’s first disposable cell phone)
• Mary Anderson (invented the windshield wiper)
• Marie Curie (discovered radium and furthered x-ray technology)
• Ada Lovelace (wrote a scientific paper in 1843 that anticipated the development of computer software artificial intelligence and computer music)
• Krisztina Holly (Co-invented the telephony software called Visual Voice) 
• and Bette Nesmith Graham (invented liquid paper, also known as White-Out™).

In addition, the CS (computer science) department at Yale University has a list of women who contributed to CS that includes:

• Alexandra Illmer Forsythe (During the 1960′s and 1970′s, she co-authored a series of textbooks on computer science, published by Wiley & Sons and Academic Press, including the first textbook written in CS.)
• Erna Schneider Hoover (She invented a computerized switching system for telephone traffic, to replace existing hard-wired, mechanical switching equipment. For this ground-breaking achievement — the principles of which are still used today — she was awarded one of the first software patents ever issued in 1971 ). 

From these lists, it is clear that women too have invented things throughout the past 200 years, but not in significant numbers and none at the level of fame or being as prolific as men such as Thomas Edison, Eli Whitney or Henry Ford.

Ford Model T

Since the 1990s, psychologists have conducted several research studies on what the reasons are for why there are fewer female innovators than male ones.

One reason psychologists have found is that women perform lower in math when conscious of gender stereotypes and get turned off that way. Another study explains that young women tend to avoid careers in math, science and engineering “because they view science as a solitary rather than a social occupation” and uninteresting. Instead many are in public relations, education and psychology. The main theory that has been presented in recent years is based on the amount of confidence given by parents and teachers in these areas- “the self-confidence instilled by parents and teachers is more important for young girls learning math and science than their initial interest.”

Now that there is proof that males and females have equal cognitive abilities for math, incentives and programs are more actively being put in place to change female perceptions and stimulate more interest among them in math and science. Through these there should be changes seen in the near future of a new generation of new generation female inventors/entrepreneurs. 

Regarding what can be done in Israel, going back to the TechAviv and the Twitter discussion, Yaron Samid suggested that Israeli entrepreneurs start an Israeli female entrepreneur group. I think going beyond that group, a national program or wider organization should be created that nurtures women’s interest in science from at least high school age and provides resources to them and older women.

What do you think should be done in Israel?

Update: January 11, 2009 – Joel Katz has notified me that in a video taken by Oren Todoros of SeoVice at TechAviv last week, there are at least two women. You can view the video on seovice.com.  

Despite reports that thousands of IT workers in Israel will lose their jobs in the coming months, Israeli companies seemed unfazed by economic woes during the week of December 21, 2008 which saw a lot of investment and M&A activity. Several deals were also made, including Mobileye landing a $150 million contract for its on-board Driving Assistance Systems and cleantech incubators from Israel and California signing a water deal. For these stories and the rest of the 12 headlines from the past week, check below.

Cleantech

1. Clean Tech Incubators from Israel and California Sign Water Deal

2. Algae in the Air: 5 Startups Turning Algae Into Jet Fuel

Investments and M&A

3. Scopus Video Networks acquired by Harmonic for $86 million

4. Runcom Technologies Ltd. to Invest in IXI Mobile, Inc.

5. Provigent Continues to Accelerate Growth — Secures $10 Million in Fifth-Round Funding

Information Technology

6. Business Transaction Management in the News (Correlsense)

7. Nokia to sell security business to Check Point

8. Imperva Achieves Compliance with Key US and Canadian Government IT Security Standard

Miscellaneous

9. Research group IDC predicts thousands of high-tech layoffs

10. Ran Harnevo, CEO and Co-Founder of 5min.com

11. Mobileye awarded $150m contract

12. 2tweet: Broadcast Instant Media Galleries To Twitter Via Email

In early November, Deloitte Brightman Almagor Zohar, a professional services firm under the interational Deloitte brand in Israel, released its annual list of Israel’s top 50 fastest growing technology companies for 2008 based on percentage revenue growth over a five-year period. Sixteen software companies ranging from security to finance to storage made the list. Below is the top 10 software companies on the list (all in the top 30) and a little more about them. Will you be using any of these companies’s technologies in 2009? 

GigaSpaces Technologies

GigaSpaces Technologies was founded in 2000 and offers an alternative to traditional application-servers for Java and .Net environments. Its eXtreme Application Platform (XAP) allows businesses and developers to easily scale and improve performance at low cost while leveraging virtual environments such as clouds and grids. Its customers include DowJones, Virgin Mobile, Bank Leumi and Webster.

Commtouch Software

Founded in 1991, Commtouch develops software to protect e-mail by offering spam and Zero-Hour™ virus outbreak protection. Its anti-spam solutions feature its Recurrent Pattern Detection (RPD) technology and have been licensed by over 80 security and messaging vendors and providers including Aladdin, Check Point, Fujitsu and LG N-Sys

Red Bend software

Red Bend Software is considered to be a market leader in Mobile Software Management and Firmware Over-the-Air (FOTA) update solutions. Founded in 1999,  Red Bend Software offers solutions that give phone users more control over what software components they want on their phones while also increasing the data service revenues of phone carriers. The main solutions include firmware updates, software component updates and data management.

El Far Electronics Systems 2000

Founded in 1986, El Far is the longest-established software company on the list and the lone defense company. El Far provides defense security systems offering integrated software for site management and decision making support. Its Integer software can be used for  managing anything from access control systems to fire alarms to infra red sensors.

InfoGin

InfoGin was founded in 2000 by Eran Wyler after he foresaw the “need for surfing the real Internet on any mobile device.” Over the years, InfoGin has become a leader in “Web-to-mobile content adaptation, enabling mobile users to access any Web site they desire, optimized to their mobile device.” The company’s Internet Mobile Platform (IMP) technology is currently being implemented by several major companies, including Virgin Mobile (UK) and MapQuest.

Actimize

Around since 1999 and a NICE Systems Ltd. company since 2007, Actimize  is a transactional risk management software company offering solutions in anti-money laundering, fraud prevention, and brokerage compliance. Its technology includes the Risk Case Manager, Visual Modeler and Analytics Server.

Modelity Technologies Inc.

Established in 2000, Modelity Technologies offers a financial modeling and portfolio analytics platform for financial institutions, such as banks and insurance companies, to stay competitive and improve their performance.  Its products include Modelity/Advisor, Modelity/Funds and Modelity/Structures. 

FibroLAN

Since 1996, FibroLAN has developed integrated fiber-optic broadband access systems that allow organizations in the corporate and carrier markets that are dispersed over metropolitan areas access to the Internet and their Intranets at fast speeds. Its MA and MetroStar technologies both provide the benefit of low-cost remote management. MetroStar has been used by Telstra and the Los Angeles MTA.

Discretix Technologies

Discretix was founded in 2000 and is the largest single company in the world dedicated to embedded security. Focusing on consumer electronics products that are portable, such as mobile phones and mp3 players, Discretix offers additional security solutions for them that manufacturers can’t provide due to limited resources. Its main products, CryptoCell and CryptoFlash are deployed by major manufacturers such as SonyEricsson, Motorola, Samsung and SanDisk.

Exanet 

Founded in 2000, Exanet is a data storage solutions company offering enterprise companies the latest processing technology that is scalable in capacity and performance, with low cost of ownership. Its product, ExaStore 2008 holds the world record for storage performance and its customers include BBC, Stanford University, and the National Library of France.