Meet the Innovators

Eli Beer starts a group of volunteer EMTs called United Hatzalah, all of whom have a standardized app on their smartphones that acts as a dispatch, immediately notifying the five closest people to a victim. These EMTs often travel by way of ambucycles - refitted motorcycles that act as mini- ambulances and are nimble enough to weave through traffic.

Simcha Blass and Kibbutz Hatzerim mass- produce the world's first modern drip irrigator, which helps farmers, cooperatives, and governments conserve more water. Netafim has grown into a global powerhouse with more than 30 percent of the global drip irrigation market, and it sells its products in more than 110 countries.

Brigadier General Danny Gold and Chanoch Levine create a revolutionary anti-missile targeting system that successfully downs over 90% of projectiles shot from short range. Using advanced radar and software, this device predicts a rocket's trajectory and shoots it out of the sky.

Shlomo Navarro develops the Grain Cocoon, a large, hermetically sealed bag for rice, grain, spices, and legumes that doesn't require pesticides. Since its introduction, a hundred countries around the world have adopted it and saved their harvests from insects, rodents and other pests.

Harry Zvi Tabor develops the black stripping that efficiently gathers solar energy and connects it to a contraption to collect heated water. This new type of solar heater, also known as the dud shemesh, yields more hot water and produces more electricity than a turbine.

Dr. Amit Goffer creates ReWalk, an exoskeleton that allows paraplegics to walk again. Today, ReWalk has been approved for sale in Europe and in the United States. There are roughly four hundred users around the globe, including military veterans and law enforcement officials. Above all, ReWalk has create a way for the disabled to regain a sense of autonomy and dignity.

Imad and Reem Younis operate Alpha Omega, the largest Arab high-tech company in Israel. It has created the industry standard for devices that act as a GPS inside the brain for deep brain stimulation procedures used to treat essential tremor, Parkinson's, and other neurological disorders.

Gil Shwed, Shlomo Kramer, and Marius Nacht create the first firewall to protect corporate and personal data online. Today, Check Point's firewall protects more than 100,000 businesses, including 94 percent of Fortune 100 firms, 87 percent of Fortune 500 firms, and nearly every government around the world.

Gavriel Iddan creates an ingestible camera and radio transmitter that can travel through the gastrointestinal tract to take photos of your insides. PillCam provides doctors with an effective tool for less invasive screening, diagnosis, and treatment of gastrointestinal-related diseases.

Moshe Shoham and Eli Zehavi, the founders of Mazor Robotics, create a guidance system that transforms spinal procedures into more of a science. Mazor's revolutionary technology allows doctors to take a CT image before surgery and create a three- dimensional blueprint of the spine. This gives medical personnel the ability to plan the operation with a high degree of precision.

Bernard Bar-Natan develops the Emergency Bandage, a unique life- saving product that instantly controls massive bleeding and prevents infections in trauma situations. Today, the Australian military, the New Zealand military, and most of NATO have adopted it. It's also standard issue for the US Army, the Israel Defense Forces, and the British Army.

Michel Revel discovers a novel way to treat multiple sclerosis by experimenting on foreskin. He develops Rebif, one of the world's leading drugs to treat MS.

Raphael Mechoulam discovers the chemical structure of the active compounds in marijuana, including cannabidiol (CBD) and tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), which is later used to treat seizures, glaucoma, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder schizophrenia among other disorders.

Using radar, motorized gliders, drones, and a network of bird watchers, Yossi Leshem creates a precise map of the one billion birds that fly over Israel each year. His research reduces the collision rate between birds and planes by 76 percent, savings almost a billion dollars.

Using ancient seeds found in Masada in the early 1960s, Dr. Sarah Sallon and Dr. Elaine Solowey find a way to resurrect something that vanished roughly two thousand years ago: the Judean date palm, one of the ancient Mediterranean's most important plants. Their research will serve as one of the future directions for new medical drugs.

Thanks to 3D printing, companies can now test designs without a large upfront investment. In Space, 3D printing will revolutionize travel, telecommunications and other industries on Earth. This will allow us to learn more about our planet and the essence of our humanity and may even create a better future.

The Khan Academy, founded by Salman Khan, is a free online learning platform that provides courses in 18 languages, with volunteers having translated part of the content into another 26. The Academy gives over a billion people around the world access to a high-quality free education, which could fundamentally change the destiny of an untold number of people.

By 2050, the world’s population is expected to be nearly 10 billion, half of them born in Africa. Sivan Yaari’s Innovation Africa uses simple technology to create self-sufficient infrastructure to give Africans access to clean water, education, refrigeration medicines and food security.

According to Henk Ovink, director general of spatial planning and water management in the Netherlands and the planet’s leading flood expert, “We will feel the impact of climate change all over the world” most profoundly through water.” By 2025, almost 2/3 of the world’s population will live in coastal areas vulnerable to ecological problems, and time is running out for low lying areas including Bangkok, Boston, Mumbai, and New York. The Dutch have been battling the sea for centuries and have implemented systems to ensure the population’s safety. Water mitigation is about much more than engineering, involving good governance, innovation, openness to new ideas and ways of thinking, and realizing that when the common good is in danger, individuals must rise to the occasion and put their interests aside.

Arunachalam Muruganantham has created a machine to manufacture a low-cost sanitary napkin that is available throughout India and 27 other countries. His goal in 10 years is to ensure every woman around the world has access to affordable feminine products.

Crispr, often called the eighth wonder of the world by scientists, is the genetic equivalent of Microsoft Word, allowing scientists to edit DNA by cutting and pasting. Crispr is already used to manipulate the genes of plants and animals, and we have now demonstrated that can alter entire species. Now we must ask ourselves the most question: should we?

About 2000 earthquakes hit Japan annually, but few cause damage or loss of life. The Land of the Rising Sun is one of the most vulnerable places in the world to natural disasters like earthquakes, typhoons, and tsunamis because of its location in the “ring of fire,” a 25,000-mile horseshoe-shaped area with a series of oceanic trenches, volcanic arcs and belts, coupled with tectonic plate movements. Japan has developed a series of approaches to mitigate and recover from natural disasters, but it is perched on four tectonic plates and experts predict a colossal natural disaster in the not-too-distant future, a major earthquake that strikes at the heart of the country and causes the biggest catastrophe since World War II. Can innovation and disaster resilience systems save Japan and its citizens?

Electric vehicles (EVs) have come a very long way in the last 30 years and are equal or superior to gasoline cars in every way other than cost. At the center of this story is Tesla, founded by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning, which later brought in Elon Musk. How long it will take for the world to embrace EVs is not clear, but the shift away from the internal combustion engine is inevitable.

Mohammad Yunus, recognized as the godfather of microcredit, pioneered a concept that uses small loans at affordable interest rates to transform the lives of the impoverished and enable them to free themselves from poverty.

Research now shows a direct correlation between animal protein consumption and cancer, heart disease and diabetes. Meat production is also responsible for 18% of the planet’s greenhouse gas emissions and uses 70% of arable lands. As the population increases to approximately 10 billion in 2050, the human demand for meat will double, presenting four key challenges: human health, climate change, natural resources and animal welfare. Ethan Brown founded Beyond Meat to present consumers with an alternative that uses planet-based protein to solve one of the biggest problems facing the world today.

As people everywhere turn on their taps, most are not aware that by 2025, at least half the globe’s population of 7.6 billion is expected to be living in water-stressed areas. According to the World Health Organization, as of 2017, over 2 billion people globally lack access to safe drinking water. Although Amir Peleg created TaKaDu to help water authorities identify where they were losing water through leakage, it has expanded into a full-blown operational platform to detect and manage incidents including data problems, meter issues and water quality control. It can also be used as an early warning system to predict adverse events. TaKaDu has become the eyes and ears of water utility companies all over the world, and in the last decade, Peleg has been playing a critical role in savings one of the planet’s most precious resources.

Estonia, a country few could identify on a map, has quietly become the world’s only digital republic. With a mere 1.3 million people, the country has attracted high-level attention from world leaders, academics and venture capitalists because 99% of the country’s public services are available 24/7 online. For example, taxes are completed in under five minutes, and over 1/3 of the country’s citizens vote online. Estonia offers the world a powerful blueprint for living in a digital society.

The automotive industry is undergoing a transformation, and in the not-too-distant future, how people use their cars and how goods are delivered will be fundamentally different from how it is today.  What will the car of the future look like? Almost every global automaker is working feverishly to create the ultimate self-driving machine. The consensus is that people will soon be using “Jetsons-like” cars powered not by people but by smart computers. Industry experts predict that fully autonomous cars will be on the road by 2030, though in what quantity, where, and in what capacity remains a hotly debated topic.