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Incubating peace with Israel’s Arab sector |
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A flagship incubator in Israel is helping to create coexistence while ensuring that Muslim and Christian Israeli Arabs develop expertise in biotech and the life sciences.
Israel’s Muslim and Christian Arabs can develop expertise in biotech and life sciences thanks to a national business project created in 2002. While the Jewish state was founded as a home for Jewish people from all over the world, it is also home to Arab Muslim and Arab Christian minorities, mostly living in the Galilee region in the north of the country.
In the United States, equal opportunity initiatives are well developed to ensure that blacks, Asians, Latinos and every other minority can access education and find gainful employment and opportunities. Israel is providing something similar for its minorities.
Based in Jesus’ boyhood home in Nazareth, a team of seven at New Generation Technology (NGT) is doing more than providing Israeli Arabs with access to jobs. The tech incubator company, funded by the government and private investors, is amplifying the expertise in the Arab community so that its members can interact with the population at large and grow companies that will ultimately impact the world.
“We also have one IT company,” Yosi Turkaspa, CEO of NGT tells ISRAEL21c. “But most are in the area of biotech and life sciences. It was partly a strategic decision. If you look at the Arab community in Israel these are the areas in which they are educated. Most of their PhDs are in biology, medicine, pharmaceuticals and dentistry, more than electrical engineering.”
Working together as equals
An hour’s drive from Tel Aviv, the incubator houses about 20 startups. And although the focus is on the Arab sector, the companies’ management personnel come from both the Arab and Jewish sectors, making it a unique project where the two populations are encouraged to work and build together. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Business and Commerce, Education, Health Sciences, Middle East Report, Monotheistic Religions, News Articles, Recent Posts, Science and Technology on January 29, 2010 - י"ד שבט תש"ע at 3:13 am
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by Dovi Holtz, Arutz Sheva, January 16, 2010
(Israelnationalnews.com) My name is Dovi Holtz, and my family and I recently moved to Natzrat Ilit (Upper Nazareth), a Jewish city in the Galilee, after spending two years at Torah MiTzion’s Religious Zionist London Kollel.
When our friends and relatives heard about our plans, they immediately asked, “Didn’t you just get back? Why leave again?”
Well, I replied, Natzrat Ilit happens to be a beautiful Jewish city overlooking the breathtaking Jezreel Valley in Israel’s heartland. It has one of the country’s lowest unemployment rates, low priced housing and gorgeous weather, . In short, Natzrat Ilit is a wonderful place to live. The city is a mere ten minutes from Afula, twenty minutes from Tiberias, forty minutes from Haifa, and thanks to Route 6 (the Trans-Israel Highway), only an hour from Tel Aviv.
Sounds ideal, doesn’t it? Our neighbors, the Arabs from the nearby city of Nazareth, agree, and over the past ten years, many of them have been relocating to Natzrat Ilit. Since all the Jewish residents leave whenever an Arab family moves into an apartment building, the Galilee’s main Jewish city is slowly being overtaken by Arab inhabitants.
“So,” you may wonder, “what can we do?”
I’m glad you asked.
Here are several ad-hoc suggestions:
First and foremost, join us. Whether you’re a family moving to Israel, a returning resident, or anyone else who happens to be reading this, we would be happy to welcome you and will do our utmost to help families or singles who would like to join our cause.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Business and Commerce, Judaism, Middle East Report, Monotheistic Religions, Recent Posts on January 17, 2010 - ב' שבט תש"ע at 12:03 am
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By Susan Taylor Martin, St. Petersburg Times Senior Correspondent
Published Wednesday, December 30, 2009
In mid January, three weeks after a terrorist suspect boarded a flight for Detroit with explosives taped to his underwear, Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport will start using "millimeter-wave” body scanners on all U.S.-bound passengers.
"The introduction of these body scanners would certainly have helped in detecting that he was carrying something on his body,” Dutch Interior Minister Guusje ter Horst said Wednesday.
Yes, it would have helped, just as it would have helped if all passengers had been required to take off their footwear before "shoe bomber” Richard Reid tried to blow up a Miami-bound jet in 2001. Just as it would have helped if there had been limits on carry-on liquids before two dozen people were arrested in a 2006 London-based plot to blow up trans-Atlantic jetliners using liquid explosives.
Instead, aviation officials seem to be in a perpetual state of catch-up, implementing stringent, after-the-fact airport security measures that result in screeners patting down even people in their 70s and 80s.
"I agree it’s ridiculous when it is done blindly the way it is done today. It’s a waste of time and resources,” says Rafi Ron, a security consultant to Miami International and other airports.
"But at the same time, if you really run a professional program that identifies high-risk passengers, that high-risk passenger could be an old guy.”
It’s an approach successfully used in Ron’s native Israel.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Business and Commerce, Middle East, News Articles, Recent Posts on December 30, 2009 - י"ג טבת תש"ע at 10:36 pm
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Cloud computing co CloudShare raises $10 million
The company’s product enables sales teams to demo software using cloud computing.
By Shiri Habib-Valdhorn, Globes, 13 Dec 09
Cloud computing software start-up CloudShare has raised $10 million in a series B funding round. Participating in the round were Sequoia Capital, Gemini Israel Funds, and new investor Charles River Ventures.
The company changed its name from IT Structures last week.
Following the investment, Charles River Ventures partner George Zachary will join the board of CloudShare. Zachary was one of the first investors in micro-blogging network Twitter.
The investment brings CloudShare’s total funding up to $16 million.
CloudShare was founded in 2007 by VP products Ophir Kra-Oz and CEO Zvi Guterman. CloudShare employs tens of employees, and according to Kra-Oz the company intends to hire more development workers in Israel. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Business and Commerce, Middle East, Recent Posts, Science and Technology on December 14, 2009 - כ"ז כסלו תש"ע at 7:08 pm
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US BANK REPORT: INVESTORS SHOULD FOCUS ON ISRAEL UNTIL DUBAI CRISIS FADES
By Adam Gonn, Media Line, December 01, 2009
A new report by a leading U.S. bank suggests that international investors should focus on the Israeli market until things settle down in Dubai.
Bank of America Merrill Lynch has advised international investors to temporarily avoid speculation in Dubai and focus on the Israeli stock market.
The report, “Play Defense”, earmarks Israel’s banks and telecom companies as particularly promising businesses.
“Israel should go back under investors’ attention,” Haim Israel, Head of Research with Bank of America Merrill Lynch in Israel, told The Media Line. “Especially when we see the chaos in the Gulf.”
Dubai is experiencing extreme financial turbulence following Dubai World Group’s confirmation of a $26bn debt. The announcement by the government owned company sent the local stock market into a downwards spiral and has shaken investor confidence.
While many investors have shown an appetite for risk over the last couple of months, Haim Israel claims this is now changing.
“Now, especially before the end of the year, people are starting to diversify their risk and going to low beta [low risk] markets,” Israel said. “Israel falls exactly under this category.”
The report lists five reasons to invest in Israel. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Business and Commerce, Middle East, Recent Posts on December 2, 2009 - ט"ו כסלו תש"ע at 8:15 am
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Globes’ correspondent
15 Nov 09 11:58
Canada minister of industry, The Honorable Tony Clement will hold five days of meetings that will focus on CanadaIsrael trade relations, and focus on water technologies.
Minister Clement said, “This year marks the 60th anniversary of relations between our two countries and the 12th anniversary of the CanadaIsrael Free Trade Agreement. I am hoping that our visit may lead to even closer cooperation and serve to demonstrate to companies here that Canada is a good place to do business.”
Clement will attend the WATEC water technology conference, and is scheduled to speak at the event.
Minister Clement is also scheduled to meet Israeli industry and government officials to discuss progress in a number of key sectors, including communications technology, biotechnology, aerospace and defense initiatives. He will discuss bilateral trade opportunities with Minister of Industry, Trade and Labor Benjamin Ben-Eliezer.
Clement will visit Jerusalem’s Yissum Technology Transfer Company of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Intel’s Development Design Center in Haifa, and the Weizmann Institute of Science. He will tour the Israeli Space Agency to discuss joint programs with the Canadian Space Agency. Minister Clement is also scheduled to visit Yad Vashem.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news – www.globes-online.com – on November 15, 2009
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2009
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Business and Commerce, Middle East Report, Recent Posts on November 16, 2009 - כ"ט חשון תש"ע at 11:01 am
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by Gary Rosenblatt
Editor And Publisher, The Jewish Week, September 1, 2009
Defying stereotypes, three Mideast officials who work closely together — an Israeli mayor, Israeli Arab deputy mayor and Palestinian official of Fatah — told a group of American Jewish leaders here this week that Arab-Jewish coexistence can and does exist, at least in one area of Israel and the West Bank.
With the Israeli Arab pledging his love of Israel and invoking Herzl’s “if you will it, it is no dream,” and the Jewish mayor speaking of his friendship with the Fatah official who once served 36 months in an Israeli jail, the scene at the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations seemed surreal to most observers. But the implicit message of the three Mideast visitors was that common interests and a strong sense of personal trust can at least begin to overcome hopelessness and violence in the region.
Danny Atar, the Jewish mayor of the Gilboa Region in the Lower Galilee, made up of 30,000 residents (60 percent Jewish and 40 percent Arab), told the American leaders that the efforts of the trio proved “how life can be different in the Middle East.” He said the three men were working together on projects to increase employment, including a new industrial zone that could provide thousands of jobs, and educational programs that promote coexistence and understanding.
Ead Saleem, the deputy mayor of Gilboa, said that after he met Atar 16 years ago, they spent a long weekend discussing ways to improve Arab-Jewish relations. He said Atar convinced him to “focus on what we can agree on,” and one early outcome was a project to teach the Torah and Koran to Arab and Jewish youngsters, emphasizing that “whoever kills in the name of religion is wrong.”
The Fatah official, Qadoura Moussa Qadoura, governor of Jenin, emphasized establishing stability through security measures, economic initiatives and political negotiations. He, too, praised Atar, who told him soon after they met in 1994 that “no two peoples can live together when one is the occupier and the other is occupied, and when one has a good economy and the other is poor,” according to Qadoura.
He asserted that Jenin, long considered a hotbed of Palestinian terrorism, has become a model of security where “anyone can walk in safety.”
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Business and Commerce, Islam, Judaism, Middle East Report, Recent Posts on September 4, 2009 - ט"ו אלול תשס"ט at 7:49 am
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If it succeeds, it will reduce the amount of brine volume in sea water to 33-50 percent of that currently generated by desalination.
The project is supported through grants provided to the team at the beginning of the year by the Middle East Desalination Research Center and the NATO Science for Peace project. A pilot unit is already under construction at Sde Boker, and is slated for completion by 2010. The team will also be working in Jordan towards the end of next year, or possibly at the beginning of 2011.
Ben-Gurion University’s technology transfer company, BGN Technologies, has established a new company ROTEC (Reverse Osmoses Technologies) to bring the technology to the commercial market. Israel’s national water company, Mekorot, has invested its own research and development funds in ROTEC to promote the technology as well. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Air & Water, Business and Commerce, Middle East Report, News Articles, Recent Posts, Science and Technology on August 26, 2009 - ו' אלול תשס"ט at 11:36 am
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TEL AVIV, Israel, Aug. 17 /PRNewswire/ — Nucleix, Ltd., an emerging life science company specializing in forensic DNA analysis, announced that company researchers have proven DNA evidence found at crime scenes can easily be falsified using basic equipment, know-how and access to DNA or a DNA database. Recognizing the need to safeguard the accuracy and credibility of DNA samples in the field of forensics, Nucleix scientists have developed a novel assay termed "DNA authentication" for combating this form of "biological identity theft" by distinguishing between in-vivo (real) and in-vitro (fake) DNA. These findings and new technology have also been published online in the forensic industry’s leading peer-reviewed scientific journal, Forensic Science International: Genetics. In a paper entitled, "Authentication of Forensic DNA Samples" (1) (http://www.fsigenetics.com/article/S1872-4973(09)00099-4/abstract), Nucleix scientists demonstrate that while DNA fingerprinting is considered one of the leading forensic tools in many criminal investigations, DNA evidence can easily be falsified and planted at crime scenes prior to collection by law enforcement officers. The company has developed a state-of-the-art and scientifically-validated technology that can integrate DNA authentication into standard forensic procedure.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Business and Commerce, Middle East, Recent Posts, Science, Science and Technology on August 18, 2009 - כ"ח אב תשס"ט at 7:00 am
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JuraForum, August 3, 2009
The world’s smallest computers, made of DNA and other biological molecules, just got more "user friendly" thanks to research at the Weizmann Institute of Science.
Biomolecular computers, made of DNA and other biological molecules, only exist today in a few specialized labs, remote from the regular computer user. Nonetheless, Tom Ran and Shai Kaplan, research students in the lab of Prof. Ehud Shapiro of the Weizmann Institute’s Biological Chemistry, and Computer Science and Applied Mathematics Departments have found a way to make these microscopic computing devices ‘user friendly,’ even while performing complex computations and answering complicated queries.
Shapiro and his team at Weizmann introduced the first autonomous programmable DNA computing device in 2001. So small that a trillion fit in a drop of water, that device was able to perform such simple calculations as checking a list of 0s and 1s to determine if there was an even number of 1s. A newer version of the device, created in 2004, detected cancer in a test tube and released a molecule to destroy it. Besides the tantalizing possibility that such biology-based devices could one day be injected into the body – a sort of ‘doctor in a cell’ locating disease and preventing its spread – biomolecular computers could conceivably perform millions of calculations in parallel.
Now, Shapiro and his team, in a paper published online today in Nature Nanotechnology, have devised an advanced program for biomolecular computers that enables them to ‘think’ logically. The train of deduction used by this futuristic device is remarkably familiar. It was first proposed by Aristotle over 2000 years ago as a simple if…then proposition: ‘All men are mortal. Socrates is a man. Therefore, Socrates is mortal.’ When fed a rule (All men are mortal) and a fact (Socrates is a man), the computer answered the question ‘Is Socrates Mortal?’ correctly. The team went on to set up more complicated queries involving multiple rules and facts, and the DNA computing devices were able to deduce the correct answers every time.
At the same time, the team created a compiler – a program for bridging between a high-level computer programming language and DNA computing code. Upon compiling, the query could be typed in something like this: Mortal(Socrates)?. To compute the answer, various strands of DNA representing the rules, facts and queries were assembled by a robotic system and searched for a fit in a hierarchical process. The answer was encoded in a flash of green light: Some of the strands had a biological version of a flashlight signal – they were equipped with a naturally glowing fluorescent molecule bound to a second protein which keeps the light covered. A specialized enzyme, attracted to the site of the correct answer, removed the ‘cover’ and let the light shine. The tiny water drops containing the biomolecular data-bases were able to answer very intricate queries, and they lit up in a combination of colors representing the complex answers.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Business and Commerce, Middle East Report, Recent Posts, Science, Science and Technology on August 3, 2009 - י"ג אב תשס"ט at 5:54 am
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