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Innovation

NAMPO 2016 – Israeli Agro-Technologies Solving South African Farmer Woes

by Sarah Pritzker
written by Sarah Pritzker

Israel is no stranger to drought, famine, and other issues that come from living in a desert climate with little room for improvement. As such, Israeli agribusiness are constantly developing better and more advanced technologies to help mitigate the topographical and meteorological hurdles that are central to the region, making Israel the ideal partner to help African countries that are struggling with these same serious problems. The Embassy of Israel in South Africa is one of the many prosperous partnerships that is helping bring Israeli technologies to African farmers and seeing outstanding success.

This year, the Embassy will be featuring some of the most up-to-date agro-technology companies at the NAMPO Harvest Day convention, and African businesses and citizens are invited to sit and discuss some exciting innovations for future development.

NAMPO 2016

The NAMPO Harvest Day show is an agricultural trade show that brings representatives from across the agricultural sector together. This year, several prominent Israeli agro-technologies are being introduced into the mix.

Israeli Agro-Technologies on Site

Here are a few innovative ideas in-the-making with the potential to aid African farmers in new and incredible ways.

  • Haifa Group (Haifa Chemicals Ltd.) is an industry leader, providing water-soluble fertilizers and plant nutrition supplements to enhance crop productivity in the open field. Currently, Haifa SA is working in the greenhouse sectors with control-released fertilizers across Africa including Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Zambia, and RSA. With the help of these plant nutritional solutions, Haifa Group is helping South African farmers increase their crop output in both quality and quantity, significantly decreasing the widespread famine that is a deep-seated issue in the region.
  • Metzerplas Agriplas is a manufacturer of irrigation equipment, so in essence, they are the conduit that lets farmers utilize the technologies that Israeli companies are bringing over. In addition to delivering these technologies, Agriplas has set up offices in Africa itself, providing over 100 job opportunities for the locals. Other irrigation systems that will be represented at the convention include NaandanJain and Netafim Ltd.
  • Mottes Tensiometers is a company that has developed and is currently utilizing tension lysimeters to measure the amount of nutrients in the roots of plants, really getting to the root of the agricultural problems.
  • Schneor Seeds CC is a developer that has germinated high-resilience fruit and vegetable seeds that are resistant to disease and infestation. These seeds can be a real breakthrough for global agriculture as they will eliminate one of the most troublesome barriers against solving world hunger.

The convention is being held in Bothaville, South Africa this year on May 17-20, and African businesses and citizens are invited to come witness some of the greatest agricultural technologies that are changing the world today.

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Innovation

Israeli Non-Profit is Saving Lives by the Millions

by Sarah Pritzker
written by Sarah Pritzker

We all want to make a difference in the world, and Sivan Borowich Ya’ari is no different. That’s why when, on a business trip to the denim district of Africa, she saw an opportunity to help the suffering people in the African community, she knew what she had to do.

From that initial desire to help, Innovation: Africa was born, and they have been making this world a better place ever since. Who is Innovation: Africa? What do they do? And why are they making such a difference to the world? Find out this and more as we explore this humanitarian aid group that seems to know exactly how to get the job done.

How Innovation: Africa is Changing the World

Innovation: Africa has only been around since 2008, but they’ve managed to do a whole lot of good in that short time. They have launched over 100 individual projects across Africa and helped close to 1 million African citizens with their relief efforts.

Various projects have been launched to promote better living conditions for those suffering from poverty, hunger, poor medical treatments, and rampant diseases caused by unsanitary water supplies. The initiatives have brought clean water, solar energy, food supplies, and much needed medical care to those in need. One meaningful project that was launched involved bringing light to schools and orphanages that were living in the dark until then.

Innovation: Africa’s reach has covered the continent, spanning countries including Ethiopia, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Malawi, and Uganda.

 

Sharing the Wealth

As an Israeli-launched and run firm, Innovation: Africa knows the dramatic breakthroughs that Israelis have made in the fields of technology and agriculture. This non-profit organization is responsible for bringing popular Israeli agricultural technologies that have successfully transformed a dried out desert wasteland into a flourishing center for produce, vegetation, and of course technology.

Using solar-powered water pumps, drip irrigation, and other innovations, Ya’ari has increased agricultural productivity in the region, created more jobs for farmers, and provided an ecosystem for stronger, healthier economic growth. This solar pump technology that the Israelis are sharing with Africa takes advantage of the vast supply of water hidden under the ground. There is as much as 5,000 gallons of water sitting below the earth’s surface, and these pumps are collecting the water for use in the fields via the latest drip irrigation systems that have been installed.

Promoting Better Health Standards

Another powerful initiative launched by Innovation: Africa brought more vaccinations to the children of Africa. Currently, more than 300,000 African children have received vaccines from life-threatening diseases such as tuberculosis, diphtheria, and tetanus. Innovation: Africa used to be called the Jewish Heart for Africa, and while the name has changed, clearly the message remains the same.

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Innovation

App Uses Adapted Israeli Airforce Imaging Tech to Detect Skin Cancer

by Shai Atanelov
written by Shai Atanelov

Every child gets a vision and hearing check in school on a regular basis. Dr. Moshe Fried, an Israeli plastic surgeon, believes an annual skin check is necessary as well, starting in the teens.

This is why he agreed to be the medical consultant for Emerald Medical Applications’ DermaCompare, a free smartphone app that uses image processing and predictive analytics to detect changes in marks and moles over time. The app alerts the user to changes that ought to be screened for cancer.

“The skin is the biggest organ in the body,” says Fried. “The need for this comparative system came from the concept that as dermatologists and plastic surgeons we have to check everyone throughout life to look for changes in moles – the medical term is ‘nevi’ — for signs of skin cancer. This is quite difficult to do. We think that together with this application we can accomplish this goal.”

The public company, founded in Petah Tikva in 2013, has distribution agreements in Israel, Sweden, United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Brazil, New Zealand and Australia (in Australia, one out of seven people get skin cancer). In April, the Brazil Chamber of Commerce selected DermaCompare as the Israeli technology “most likely to succeed in Brazil.”

A Spanish version of the app was recently launched for Puerto Rico, Mexico and Argentina, with more South American locations to come.

“There is no other product like ours,” Emerald founder and CEO Lior Wayn tells ISRAEL21c. “Our competitors use manual diagnostics and don’t use algorithms to compare images.

“This is a proprietary technology that we adapted from the Israeli Air Force, using aerial photos to track enemy moves. Our enemy is moles and we know how to track them.”

Last year, Wayn gave a TEDx Talk in Berlin about how he decided to adapt Israeli military technology into a lifesaving medical solution after his own father was diagnosed with melanoma, the most deadly form of skin cancer.

User-friendly

To use the free iOS or Android app, you strip down to your underwear and have someone take smartphone or digital camera photos of your moles and lesions according to instructions explained by a friendly avatar.

DermaCompare’s algorithm then analyzes the photos. If any suspicious moles or changes are found, the app recommends contacting a doctor for evaluation, and can automatically link you to a dermatologist near your location.

“The system knows how to distinguish between benign and malignant and tells us if there is a change that could be malignant,” says Fried. “The aim is to find melanoma in the earliest stages. This offers great advantages in terms of saving money and treatment time.”

Approximately 420 million people worldwide have a high risk of getting melanoma, particularly those with fair skin. Annual treatment expenditures for melanoma in the US alone total $8 billion.

The DermaCompare system identifies and classifies moles and lesions. Image courtesy of Emerald Medical Applications

The DermaCompare system identifies and classifies moles and lesions. Image courtesy of Emerald Medical Applications

Fried says that thousands of pictures of volunteers taken for the development of the DermaCompare app demonstrated that changes in moles could clearly be detected over the course of the three-year trial period.

He envisions everyone, starting in their teens, using the app at regular intervals to build a cloud-based medical file providing physicians with real-time data on skin history and changes. If a user is concerned about a particular spot, a photo can be transmitted directly to his or her dermatologist.

DermaCompare can also be used as a follow-up at home to professional total body photography, which more and more people are using for early detection of skin cancer.

The app harnesses the power of the crowd, Wayn explains. As users upload photos of their skin to the cloud, they are building a database toward more accurate identification and comparison of moles and lesions.

Machine learning and artificial intelligence can use this crowdsourced data to predict which kinds of moles are most likely to become cancerous, “and by using that we can prevent melanoma in advance,” says Wayn.

Emerald Medical, a 16-employee company that has raised about $2 million and now seeks another $2.5 million in a Series B round, intends DermaCompare as a tool to document changes in many skin conditions beyond moles and cancer.

“This is a screening device for anything on the body that you can track with images, such as acne, bedsores and psoriasis,” says Wayn.

The business model is a fee charged to the participating physician based on the particular country’s insurance scheme.

For more information, click here.

(Originally Published on Israel21c.org by Abigail Klein Leichman)

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Innovation

Tel Aviv Startup Empowering South African Women

by Sarah Pritzker
written by Sarah Pritzker

Even in our all-accepting and gender-equivalent society, woman are still struggling to show doubters that they have every bit as much to offer the world – in particular, the scientific world – as their male counterparts. Fortunately, Start-Up Tel Aviv has got these ladies’ backs because their tremendous international competition is focusing its attention on promising South African women in high-tech this year.

israel in south africa

Start-Up Tel Aviv Invites Women to Compete

The competition has broad parameters, allowing any woman in senior or founding positions within a South African high-tech startup to apply. While this is always the case for the exciting competition, this year has a particular focus on the women of the industry, and it promises to reward individuals who show innovation and unique leadership qualities.

Judging Fairly

The respected judges will choose between the many applicants to find the women with some of the most unique and innovative technologies that can be both scalable and sustainable for the future. Among the judges themselves are several prominent women including Noluthando Gosa, Hillary Joffe, and Tanya Kovarsky. Gosa is known as being a significant and active voice in various projects including the Institute of Directors of South Africa, the Black Business Council, and the Business Women’s Association of South Africa. Joffe is a major player in the financial journalism field in South Africa, and Kovarsky is currently the PR and Communications Lead of Core Group. Other judges include Toby Shapshack, Stuff Magazine publisher, and Arthur Goldstuck, World Wide Worx founder and acclaimed writer.

Competition: Rules & Requirements

Start-Up Tel Aviv is currently running its third competition. The contest works in two stages. First startups from all over the world compete to be one of the finalists. The cream of the crop are chosen from the various startups spanning 21 different countries. From there, these companies will compete for the coveted prize.

What is the competition prize? Winners are awarded with an all-expenses paid trip to Tel Aviv, where they will spend almost a week in the vastly knowledgeable startup communities within this tech hub. Tech startups are eager to win because they know how much they can learn from this experience-rich atmosphere. Winners will also be introduced to several prominent members in various fields including investors, scientists, and cultural leaders, all individuals who could potentially change the course of development for these startups.

The only requirements are that the contestants must be a part of a tech company that is currently in the seed stage of development. Oh, and they had better be coming in with some major innovations because the competition is fierce.

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Innovation

Kaiima – AgriTech’s Pick for Solving World Hunger

by Sarah Pritzker
written by Sarah Pritzker

World hunger is a serious problem, and one that scientists, farmers, politicians, and world leaders are constantly struggling to overcome. This is why when Israeli company Kaiima turned out a bumper crop of experimental produce, the entire world stopped to listen. And they had some pretty fascinating things to say.

The Kaiima Method

Kaiima is a successful agro-biotech that is tackling the world’s hunger problem by making crop production a more efficient and productive process. The science behind their methods is known as Clean Genome Multiplication (CGM) technology and it effectively enhances the crop’s production levels, by dramatically encouraging the vegetation to increase the chromosome production in the plants.

This is actually a natural process that is already occurring in the plants, so the CGM is simply giving it a boost in order to do its job better. The Kaiima method is a further development of this process that they’ve termed EP (Enhanced Ploidy) for the greater ploidy genomes that are produced without damaging quality.

According to Doron Gal, CEO of Kaiima, “In agriculture, this is considered a game-changing technology…Kaiima is the first since the green revolution that has an interesting yield-enhancement technology.” And that technology is really making waves in the agricultural communities across the world.

Seeing Resounding Results

So is the Kaima method as good as they say it is? Their 2014 numbers for corn, soy, wheat, and rice closed near $30 billion, a real bumper crop if ever there was one! These specific crops are in tremendous demand globally, with a 90% increase over the last 30 years. Overall, Kaiima has been able to increase crop production by 10-50%, a development that hasn’t been seen since the beginning of the “green revolution”.

With production levels like this, when the seeds go to market in a few weeks, everyone is hopeful that the rising global hunger problems will be significantly reduced.

Kaiima’s Global Aid

Kaiima has gained global recognition over the past few years for its tremendous strides made in struggling countries across the world. In 2013, the bio-agritech company teamed up with the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in India in an attempt to breed new types of rice that would have greater biomass and grain yield, effectively feeding more people with less. Their efforts in Africa to establish stronger vegetation were equally successful.

Investors such as Horizon, The World Bank Group, the International Financial Corporation, and Infinity Group are all backing this noble project. Currently Kaiima has subsidiaries in North America and Israel, and the company plans to expand their operations for further research and development. Kaiima means sustainable, and that is certainly something that they are helping to achieve!

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