Israel Innovation 2.0

Inside Israeli Technology

sni-2

During the week of April 26, 2009, Israel celebrated its 61st annniversary while its first solar farm powering a small community was inaugurated. ETV Motors raised $12 million in funds and N-Trig announced its latest advancement in multi touch. Sadly, also during the week of April 26th, Israel’s hi-tech industry lost one of its beloved leaders and pioneers, Nahum Sharfman in tragic plane crash in Greece.  Sharfman was the founder of the security company CommTouch and the price comparison site, Shopping.com. For these stories and more, check out this week’s 12 Israel-related headlines below. 

Cleantech

1. Israel Inaugurates Unique Solar Farm

2. Solar Thermal: Which Technology Is Best?

3. ETV Motors Revs Up $12M

Investments

4. Venture capital investment in Israeli high-tech companies lowest in three years, report

5. Where did all that R&D go?

Information Technology

6. Intel bolsters cooperation with Israeli companies

7. N-Trig launching software to enable more versatile multi-touch displays

8. Start-up Axxana ties disaster recovery gear to EMC software

9. Will XP Mode Be Tough Sell For Small Businesses?

Miscellaneous

10. Israel celebrates 61st Independence Day

11. Can Israeli technology stop swine flu?

12. Plane crash kills high-tech leader

sni-2

During the week of April 19, 2009, sinkhole and solar farm technologies were hot topics in cleantech. In Information Technology, it was a big week for Israeli information security companies such as Check Point, AlgoSec, Commtouch and others, who were present at the annual RSA Conference on security. For links to these stories and more, you can find the 13 Israel-related headlines from the week of April 19, 2009 below.

Cleantech and Environment

1. We have the technology to monitor sinkholes

2. Israel solar farm to supply hot water

Investments and Economy

3. Israeli entrepreneurs see U.S. economy as early warning system

4. International credit crunch shifts Israeli business focus in China

5. VC crunch continues: BlueRun Ventures falls short of $300M target

Information Technology

6. Commtouch Unveils New Security Center Web Site

7. A conversation with Check Point’s Gil Schwed

8. Cryptography Experts Warn Of Cloud Security Risks

9. PeerTV announces MX 3.0 Content Management Tool

10. AlgoSec Releases FireFlow(TM) Into Public Availability

Miscellaneous

11. Israel Consults on Possible 3G Spectrum Auction

12. Most Israeli students stumped by high school math

13. 60 Minutes on cold fusion

sentrigologoSentrigo, an Israel-based database security software company, announced last week that it has become the sole distributor of Repscan by Red-Database-Security, “the only 360-degree database vulnerability assessment and security scanning software available for Oracle databases.”

The move helps Sentrigo solidify its hold on the database security market by complementing its Hedgehog database activity monitoring software with software that monitors and identifies Oracle database weaknesses and vulnerablities. In specific, Repscan can “detect insecure PL/SQL code and forensic traces; database modifications; insecure system configuration settings; and weak, shared and default passwords.”

Some main Repscan features include: 

  • Report-driven penetration testing
  • Altered data detection (privileged and user tables)
  • Forensic trace discovery from common security and hacker tools
  • Automatic conversion of the weaknesses found by Repscan into protection rules and policies in the Sentrigo Hedgehog Database Security Suite

 

According to Sentrigo’s website, Hedgehog Enterprise

“is for organizations that require breach prevention, end-user identification, virtual patching, integration with your existing security infrastructure, IT governance and operate with enterprise-wide database deployment.”

The software also

“provides full visibility into all database activity including local privileged access, protects the database in real-time with actionable alerts and prevention capabilities, and allows enterprises to enforce security policy and comply with regulatory requirements, such as PCI DSS, Sarbanes-Oxley, SAS 70 and HIPAA.”

As an aside, Oracle is currently in talks to purchase Sun Microsystems for over $7 billion and enter the hardware market.

The 2009 RSA Conference kicked off yesterday in San Francisco. As the conference is the biggest annual information security one in the world and Israel is a leader in the field, several Israeli companies are present this year as sponsors, exhibitors, speakers and attendees. Some of the companies exhibiting and attending include:

Hot topics expected to be discussed in depth throughout the conference are cloud computing security, conficker worm and the conflict between national security concerns online and the protection of citizen’s rights.

Though reports indicate that overall attendance at the conference this year is significantly lower than in previous years due to the state of the economy and companies cutting back, it is unclear how this has impacted participation and attendance among Israeli companies compared to past years.

varonislogoLast month, Varonis Systems Inc., a data governance solutions provider, was selected as a “Cool Vendor” in the March 2009 “Cool Vendors in Risk Management and Compliance, 2009” report by research company, Gartner Inc. 

According to Varonis’ announcement

“Varonis’ Data Governance Suite provides IT administrators and data owners with the intelligence they need to control access to valuable business data by enabling complete visibility to all file and folder access. The software automatically builds permissions management workflow policies by generating recommendations about whose access to company data should be revoked or allowed, empowering data owners to sign off on access rights to their files and mitigate the risks of data misuse. Varonis allows organizations to ensure that data is only being accessed by those with business need – something that proves to be critical as companies increasingly seek data protection to prevent insider breaches or data loss.”

The news from earlier today about the MySpace data breach is a good reminder of how important and necessary data governance solutions such as what’s offered Varonis and other companies still are. 

Company Facts

Founded in 2005.

R&D office in Herzliyya, Israel.

Yaki Faitelson, CEO and Co-Founder.

Ohad Korkus, VP of Engineering, CTO and Co-Founder.

Products: Varonis Data Governance Suite (Varonis DatAdvantage and Varonis DataPrivilege).

Website: www.varonis.com

Customers: Large financial institutions, health care services organizations as well as leading energy, technology and manufacturing firms. Specific customers include, DSM, CondeNast Publications, MoMA and SanDisk.

sni-2

During the week of April 12, 2009, talk continued about the pros and cons of Shai Agassi’s electric car plans and Check Point announced its purchase of Nokia’s security appliance business. In addition, business transaction management (BTM) company, OpTier was named a 2009 Hot Company by Network Products Guide and frogs might hold the answer to the effects of alcohol during development. For these headlines and more, check below for this week’s 11 Israel-related headlines.

Cleantech

Batteries Not Included

Saving energy – one step at a time

Going On A Water Cequesta

Investments, M&A and the Economy

Check Point Software Technologies acquires security appliance business of Nokia

Int’l credit crunch shifts Israeli business focus in China

Information Technology

PeerTV Announces MX 3.0 Content Management Tool

Red Bend Software ‘Continues to Dominate’ in Firmware Over-the-Air Updates, According to New Ovum Study

OpTier Named a 2009 Hot Company by Network Products Guide

Miscellaneous

Israel turns to robotics to boost students’ interest in high-tech industry

Israeli companies make Forbes’ list

Frogs Reveal Clues About The Effects Of Alcohol During Development

Back in January, I posted that the Jerusalem Business Networking Forum (which I’m active in) held in conjunction with several organizations a “Greening of Jerusalem” event. The event featured presentations from Jerusalem municipality members including environmentalist/Deputy Mayor Naomi Tsur and from 10 promising Jerusalem-based cleantech companies. One of the companies, Cequesta, which also presented to the Jerusalem Business Networking Forum (JBNF) last summer, spoke about its wasterwater management technology that it was still developing.

In a piece on Cequesta on ISRAEL21c.org last week, it mentions that Cequesta is now “open for business”. The company, a wastewater treatment solutions provider, has solutions  that clean up wastewater from most  types of industrial and agricultural operations, ranging from hotels to cowsheds to automotive plants.

According to the article, “Cequesta is now forging ahead in a number of environmentally friendly directions by creating complete units that can, for example, recycle 70 percent of a building’s wastewater.” It has also “developed a water treatement solution for a Toyota plant in America.” 

Accompanying the article is this video of Waimann’s presentation that I took on my cell phone in January. 

In addition to this event, Waimann also presented Cequesta and discussed cleantech in general last summer during another cleantech-focused event that the Jerusalem Business Networking Forum organized. These videos along with others are located on the Israel Innovation 2.0 YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/IsraelInnovation20

sni-2

During the week of April 5, 2009, some of the biggest headlines were about N-Trig’s planning an IPO for late 2010 and Evergreen, a venture capital fund, raising more for its fourth round. Other news included Google’s latest release, Google Suggest, which was developed by Google Israel and Microsoft’s plans to lay off most of 3DV’s 40 workers (all in Israel) when the sale is complete. In the IT sector, Xeround’s Charlotte Yarkuni discussed cloud computing and databases and WorkLight’s recent media blitz continued. For these stories and more, see below for the full 13 Israel-related headlines from the week of April 5, 2009.

Cleantech
1. Revolutionary Energy Source Harnessed: Ordinary Walking and Driving Pressures

2. New water splitting technology created

Investments, M&A and Economy
3. ClickSoftware to Acquire Assets of Manchitra Services

4. Israel’s N-trig eyes Nasdaq IPO in late 2010

5. Evergreen raises more for fourth fund

6. Microsoft’s 3DV acquisition a go

Information Technology

7. Xeround’s Yarkoni talks about the cloud, databases and more

8. uTest Defines the Future of Quality Assurance:CEO Interview

9. WorkLight Brings Social Security to the Enterprise

Miscellaneous
10. Google service developed in Israel launched

11. Topify – An Essential Twitter Timesaver

12. Dark Days in Israel’s Tech Sector Drive Rising Executive to the Exit

13. Lightning Warns of Hurricanes’ Most Intense Moments?

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.

sni-2

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)