Israel’s Hi-Tech Industries

Israel’s hi-tech industries are truly astounding. The country has been described as an “economic miracle” since it has consistently had more companies listed on NASDAQ than all of Europe combined. Israel consistently, scores as one of the top countries for patents per capita, see Venture Capital.

Israel’s industry now boasts many thousands of hi-tech companies in a wide range of fields such as computer science, electronics, genetics, optics, biotechnology, medical electronics, solar energy and electric cars. The majority of these companies are from startups, and Israel ranks second only to the US Silicon Valley for startups.

Hi-tech Engineering Industries

These include: water engineering, aerospace engineering, agricultural engineering, computer engineering, bio-medical engineering, hydraulic engineering and marine engineering.

Software Engineering

Cyber-security is big business in Israel, link. For instance, if you use ZoneAlarm to protect your computer you are using a product from Israel’s biggest cyber-tech firm, Check Point Software. Overall, about 200 Israeli companies now specialize in cyber-security, accounting for US$3 billion worth of anti-hacking exports in 2013. And about 25% of the world’s venture capital-funded cyber-security startups are Israeli.

Industrial and Domestic Solar Power

Israel’s goal is to produce 10% of the country’s energy from renewable sources by 2020. When it comes to solar research, The Weizmann Institute is equipped with one of the most advanced solar research facilities in the world. This enables Institute experts to pursue the development of new cost-efficient ways to harness, store, and transport the sun’s energy.

Agricultural Industry

Since Israel’s establishment in 1948 the country has almost tripled the territory used for farming; the result is that production has multiplied 16 times, link. Although still relatively small compared to other industries, Israel’s net domestic product in agriculture has increased more than four-fold since 1986, link. And Israel still manages to produce 95% of its own food requirements, link. Today, Israel is a major exporter of dates, avocados, olive oil, pomegranates and almonds, and is a world-leader in agricultural technologies, link. When it comes to technology, Israeli drip and micro-irrigation solutions have rapidly spread worldwide. The newest models are self-cleaning and maintain uniform flow rate regardless of water quality and pressure.

Water Generation from the Air

Air is a ‘natural resource’ and so it only needs clever technology to turn it into a water resource. Watergen, an Israel-based company uses humidity in the air to create clean and fresh drinking water. The heart of the Watergen product line is the revolutionary GENius™ heat-exchange technology. Air is drawn into the Atmospheric Water Generator (AWG), where it is thoroughly cleaned, removing any dust and dirt and leaving only pure air in the system. The clean air is then directed through the heat exchange and cooling process, bringing it to its dew-point – the temperature at which condensation occurs – to create water.

Watergen’s Large Scale unit is an industrial scale AWG, designed for towns, villages, factories, off-grid settlements and communities. It can generate up to 5,000 liters of clean water each day. The first AWG system was installed in New Delhi, India in 2017.

Water Generation from the Sea

The desalination method Israel uses in its largest plants is called reverse osmosis (RO), link. In reverse osmosis, saltwater is hurled at a plastic filter with holes big enough only for the water molecules to pass through. Since Na and Cl are too large to fit through the plastic membrane, the salt stays on one side and only pure water reaches the other. The method works because water molecules are much smaller than both Na and Cl atoms.

At Israel’s largest desalination plant two enormous pipes carry in water from the Mediterranean Sea. Once the water reaches the plant, which is called Sorek, it progresses through stacks of RO membranes. Not all of the water makes it through. If it did, you would end up with a hard block of salt stuck to one side of the membrane, which would be very difficult to clean or remove. Instead, some water stays behind with the salt. This leftover water is called brine. Another large pipe carries the brine from the plant back out to sea, where the salt quickly becomes dispersed. After the water has passed through the RO membranes it is fit to drink and used in Israeli homes.

Medical Industry – Health Care

About 1,000 Israeli companies are in healthcare or life-science products, including 700 in medical devices. Israel leads the world in medical device patents per capita, link, link.

Medical Research: Israel pursues excellent medical research work in areas such as breast cancer, leukemia, heart monitors and Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. Specific examples; a system to correct severe curvature of the spine, stem-cell therapy products, MRI-guided focused ultrasound to destroy tumors without surgery, and a tiny implantable device inserted into the retina that turns into an artificial retina.

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