11 Israeli Inventions that Have Changed The World for The Better

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What did Israel create?

As we have already seen, Israel is a global tech hotspot. In just over 70 years it has managed to convert to make the transition from startup country to a global technological leader.

Over the last few decades, Israel has made some significant advancements in agricultural, medical, and digital technologies that we all benefit today. 

Was the cell phone invented in Israel?

Whilst the idea of a cell phone was first postulated in 1917 by a Finnish inventor Eric Tigerstedt; the first viable handheld cell phone was developed by Motorola in 1973. This was a 2 kg device that looked very different from its modern descendants.

Whilst Motorola is an American company, it was founded in Chicago in 1928 as Galvin Manufacturing Corp, most of the development of their first cell phone was in their Israeli R and D department.

 1. Sniffphone will be revolutionary

The SniffPhone is an innovative medical diagnostics device that can actually "sniff out" diseases. It is currently undergoing medical trials and is an evolution of the 'NaNose' technology developed by Professor Hossam Haick of the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology.

It is believed that it will become commercially available within the next four to six years. It's predecessor "NaNose" is able to detect things like cancer, Parkinson's, and Multiple Sclerosis with an 86% to 93% accuracy rate. 

2. ReWalk Exoskeleton helps paraplegics walk again

ReWalk is a battery-powered exoskeleton that has been developed to help paraplegic patients walk again. It's inventor, Dr. Amit Goffer, devised the system after being left paralyzed due to a tragic accident.

The exoskeleton is operated using a wristwatch and allows patients to recover the ability to walk, stand up and climb stairs. It has been available to the public since 2014 and has even made appearances in the London Marathon and Paralympics. 

3. PillCam is a digestible, disposable medical camera

The PillCam, as the name suggests, is a camera device that is designed to be swallowed. It was developed to help diagnose and treat infections, such as intestinal disorders, and digestive system cancers. 

Data is transmitted from the camera to an external receiver and it is a revolutionizing medicine.

The camera is digestible and disposable and is now FDA-approved for use. Because of its unique design, it is able to access areas of the digestive system that are typically out of range during a conventional procedure.

4. The flexible stent, EluNIR, has saved millions of lives

The flexible stent has helped save millions of people's lives since it was first developed in 1996. This tube-shaped device is used to open up arteries to help treat coronary heart disease in patients.

This helps avoid the need for open-heart surgery and all the complications that come with it. They have widely replaced more traditional rigid stents and made surgery easier and safer.

5. Firewall software was also developed in Israel

The first commercially viable Firewall software was first developed in 1993 by a team of Israeli computer scientists at Check Point Software Technologies. Since then, Check Point has expanded, opening subsidiaries overseas and partnering with major tech companies, including Nokia.

This type of software is the cornerstone of most computer security systems and keeps millions of people a little safer from malicious cyber activity. 

6. ICQ was one of the first IMs

ICQ was one of the first standalone Instant Messaging (IM) systems to be developed in the world. It was first released in 1996 by Israeli software company Mirabilis and was free-to-download.

It became a huge success and was later sold to AOL in 1998 for just over $400 million and later to Mail.Ru Group in 2010. 

7. The first USB flash disk patent was Israeli

The first ever patent for what we know today as the USB flash disk was an Israeli one. Whilst the main components were developed by Toshiba in the 1980s and a U.S. industry coalition in the 90s with the Universal Serial Bus (USB), it wasn't until 1999 that M-Systems packaged them together.

This kicked off the development and production of this ubiquitous device around the world. 

8. Netafim has revolutionized agriculture

Netafilm is an innovative drip irrigation system that was developed by Israeli inventor and engineer Simcha Blass in the 1960s. He thought about the idea when observing adjacent trees whereby one was noticeably larger than the other.

On investigation, he discovered that the larger tree was sited next to a damaged water pipe. He was astonished to realize that just a small amount of regularly dripping water could make a huge difference to plant growth.

Netafilm was soon developed and by 1967 had increased crop yields by 70% in Israel. The technology soon spread around the world.

9. Watergen is a real-life moisture farming device

Watergen is technology straight out of Sci-Fi. It allows water to be condensed out of thin air and might conjure up images of the moisture farms of Tatooine in Star Wars: A New Hope. 

Developed in the later 2000s,  Watergen's generators cool and liquidize the air vapor, producing up to four liters of water for every kilowatt-hour of electricity they use.

Today, it can be found in many disaster zones around the world and it is hoped to be rolled out around the world to provide drinking water for millions of people. 

10. Mobileye has improved road safety around the world

Mobileye was developed in 1999 by Israeli inventor Amon Shashua. It was the product of his academic thesis on machine learning and is a revolutionary car technology.

Mobileye systems consist of tiny cameras that are placed in cars to alert drivers of potential hazards like pedestrians or other obstacles. It has since been integrated into many cars around the world and has been adopted by over 25 automobile makers.

It has likely helped save many lives.

11. Waze has taken the world by storm

Waze is a GPS system on steroids. Rather than just guiding a user from A to B it actually helps you avoid roadblocks and traffic. 

It was first developed by Israeli Ehud Shabati after he first used, and was quickly disappointed by existing GPS systems. Waze, once built, was an instant hit and has since been sold to Google for over 1 Billion dollars in 2013. 

Today it provides real-time traffic information for millions of users around the world.