Abigail Klein Leichman ISRAEL21C

Five-minute charger

StoreDot’s technology would enable drivers to charge their car batteries in less time than the company needs to explain how it works. (screenshot from israel21c.org)

StoreDot made headlines when it unveiled its prototype instant phone battery charger at last year’s Microsoft ThinkNext exhibition in Tel Aviv. The flash-battery/flash-charger unit could be available on smartphones by the end of this year. And, at the 2015 ThinkNext in early May, the Israeli company announced that it intends to demonstrate its five-minute ultra-fast-charge car battery next year.

This groundbreaking technology would enable drivers to charge their car batteries in less time than StoreDot needs to explain how it works.

StoreDot specializes in cost-effective, environmentally friendly nanotechnologies using organic materials that increase electrode capacitance and electrolyte performance. This is the recipe for making batteries that can be fully charged in minutes rather than hours.

While competitors in the electric-vehicle space seek to increase mileage per battery charge, StoreDot is focusing on dramatically reducing charging time.

“This is part of our larger initiative to commercialize a proprietary game-changing technology of fast-charging batteries that would transform the lives of smartphone users as well as drivers,” said StoreDot chief executive officer Doron Myersdorf.

The privately owned StoreDot, incorporated in Israel in 2012, also announced the opening of its new facility in Herzliya, housing an organic chemistry lab, battery material development lab and R&D battery production line.

Israel21C is a nonprofit educational foundation with a mission to focus media and public attention on the 21st-century Israel that exists beyond the conflict. For more, or to donate, visit israel21c.org.

A designer for real living

Berlin-based photographer David Meskhi took shots of ordinary people wearing Maya Bash clothing. (photo from israel21c.org)

When fashion designer Maya Bash began renovating a grimy auto-parts store in Tel Aviv’s Gan Hahashmal (Electric Garden) district eight years ago, she could not have known that the crime-plagued neighborhood would become “the second sexiest neighborhood on earth,” according to Thrillist, and a go-to destination for international fashionistas.

Drawn by the low rents, she and other avant-garde young designers banded together as Collective 6940, brainstorming funky and fresh events to help turn the quarter into the place it is today. As they meet success in Israel and abroad, many of these designers are moving elsewhere. Bash, however, is content to keep her shop and studio on Barzilay Street, about a mile south of where she lives.

photo - Fashion designer Maya Bash — Fashion designer Maya Bash. *(photo from israel21c.org)*

The 35-year-old designer has made a modest name for herself among buyers at Paris Fashion Week. As a result, her minimalist, deconstructed garments are sold in about 10 boutiques in Japan, Italy, Russia, Denmark, the Netherlands and the United States in addition to Israel. Last year, she launched an e-commerce site to make her collections available to anyone with a credit card. That decision came from her head rather than her heart.

“I’m not an online person,” Bash said with a ready smile. “I like to go and touch things. I’m very old-fashioned. I buy music CDs and magazines even though I could read them online. But you have to challenge yourself when you own your own business, and I’ve had the shop and studio for eight years. I really don’t want another shop because I see how much energy it takes.”

That’s a lesson she learned through experience. A few years ago, two German women entered her store and announced they wanted to open an Israeli designer shop in Berlin. Bash and several other designers in Gan Hahashmal were chosen to realize this dream.

“After six months, they came to me and said, ‘Most of the clothes we’re selling are yours, so let’s turn it into a brand shop.’ It was really good. We went to Berlin and reconstructed the shop and it was open for a year,” said Bash.

“But then I gave birth to my daughter and it was very hard to manage my shop here, let alone the one in Berlin. It was a great experience but it was too much, so we closed it.” Many of her loyal clients from Berlin have become online customers.

Person becomes design

Bash agreed to meet with me during the afternoon hours she spends in her store before fetching her three-and-a-half-year-old daughter from school. She wears a dark-grey oversize T-shirt silk-screened with the drawing of a child.

“Tel Aviv is a small city, and I often see people wearing my designs. I wanted to capture some of these characters,” she explained.

Bash asked visual artist Zoya Cherkassky to create stylized, whimsical sketches based on a dozen of the people she had seen wearing her clothing. The sketches were then hand-printed onto fabric and made into garments for women and kids. “I love the nature of this cycle; a person buys my clothes and then becomes the next design,” said Bash.

Bash also collaborated recently with photographer David Meskhi to create a photographic project in Berlin featuring “interesting people,” rather than professional models, wearing her designs. And, with director Max Lomberg, she produced the short film Wardrobe, “a metaphorical representation of my thoughts about fashion design.”

Freedom to play

The Maya Bash children’s line, still new and limited, gives its creator much satisfaction.

photo - Maya Bash’s recently launched kids collection — Maya Bash’s recently launched kids collection. *(photo by Irina Kaydalina via israel21c.org)*

“On small clothes, the detail stands out much more,” she said. “Designing for children is such a special pleasure. I have the freedom to play and exaggerate everything.”

But, she stays far from glam and glitter. The mostly unisex clothing Bash designs is basic above all.

“My style is simple, minimalistic and deconstructed. I work from the body’s anatomical lines. I really work in an old-school way, on paper. I’m not a trendy designer,” she said.

The most expensive item in Bash’s current collection is a NIS 4,300 (just over $1,350 Cdn) leather jacket with a hand-knit lining peeking out underneath. Leggings cost NIS 290 ($91), T-shirts NIS 370 ($116) and trousers NIS 590 ($186). Many of her creations have sold out.

Trained at the Shenkar College of Engineering and Design, Bash favors natural or organic fabrics such as cotton, alpaca and linen imported from Japan, but is not averse to incorporating viscose, polyester and nylon where she deems it appropriate, especially for outerwear.

Additional components are on her drawing board. “I want to continue on to shoes and accessories,” Bash said. “You cannot just stay in a comfortable zone doing what you know how to do.”

She tries to balance her desire for growth with her insistence on remaining a small, made-in-Israel business. Most of the production is done in a factory near Rehovot, and samples are sewn in her Tel Aviv studio, where her mother does some of the hand knitting.

For more information, visit eu.mayabash.com.

One-stop planning and sharing app

Wedivite founder and groom-to-be Ben Novak. (photo from israel21c.org)

Within a couple months of its alpha launch in June last year, more than 7,000 couples around the world had already used Wedivite, the first free socially integrated digital platform exclusively for weddings. As of last week, nearly 36,000 couples had used it.

Conceived and built by Israeli groom-to-be Ben Novak, Wedivite enables sending invitations via email, Facebook, Twitter, Google+, SMS or WhatsApp, or adding a QR code to a printed invitation. There’s an option to create a custom page for a wedding registry, too.

Guests can click to RSVP, add the event to their Google calendar, get directions to the wedding, send greetings and gifts, recommend songs for the playlist and add photos to the online album and live wedding slideshow.

Additional features have since been added, such as a dedicated gift registry, integration with Google contacts and Dropbox (for photo storage and printing), text reminders for guests and designer invitation templates.

“We’re connecting everything to make it more comfortable for couples to engage guests and to make it cheaper and fun,” said the 29-year-old founder, who is bootstrapping the venture by working as a digital marketing consultant.

From Israel with love

Wedivite’s website and mobile app were launched in beta in January 2013 and became an instant hit with couples in India, the United States, South Africa, the United Kingdom and Canada. A Spanish-language version was added before the alpha launch, due to demand from users in Spain, Latin America and the United States.

Novak also introduced a Korean beta version of Wedivite, he said.

“Three months ago [prior to August 2014], a wedding organizer from South Korea emailed me and said online mobile invitations are big in Korea but they don’t have everything I am offering, and she wanted to translate all the material for me [in return for putting] her link on my website in Korea,” he explained.

While his fiancée was scouting out a gown and a hall for the couple’s May 2015 nuptials, Novak was knee-deep in the technical side of pending matrimony, learning that vast cultural differences require him to tweak Wedivite for specific audiences.

In South Korea, for instance, nobody uses PayPal or Google Maps, which are integral to Wedivite. And because Koreans don’t dance at weddings, there’s no need for a song-suggestion feature.

“One of my dreams is to create a big infographic or PDF with cultural differences between weddings that I have learned about,” said Novak, a Tel Aviv resident.

But some things are universal, such as the increasingly digital components surrounding the romance of engagements and weddings.

Mashable’s social and tech wedding survey in 2012 revealed that “relationship status” is the digital age’s version of flaunting a new diamond ring, as 31 percent of engaged women update their status within hours of accepting a marriage proposal.

Other trends show that couples are forgoing classic wedding formats in favor of ceremonies and receptions that reflect their personal tastes and create a positive experience for guests while keeping costs down.

“Wedivite is here to re-set the standard of wedding invitations from the traditional to the digital,” said Novak. “By putting social-media integration at the forefront of our platform, we recognize the influence that social media and digital presence has in the lives of today’s couples.”

Novak was inspired to start Wedivite by a conversation with a newly married friend whose wedding photographer had failed to take a picture of the groom’s mother. Though many guests take their own photos at weddings, these couldn’t easily be added to an official album.

“My idea was to make a shareable photo album for weddings, but I decided, why not make it a lot cooler?” Novak said. “Eventually, it became what it is today.”

Novak possessed the requisite skills to realize his idea, because he has been a graphic designer and web developer since age 14, and has experience working for an ad agency and as marketing director for New Media College in Tel Aviv.

“I always had my own businesses on the side, but now I am 100 percent working on Wedivite around the clock,” he said. That, and planning his own wedding.

For details, visit wedivite.com.

***

In addition to the wedding invitation and all its aspects, wedivite.com also offers a lot of other information for planning your big day. Among its blog categories are love quotes, if you’re looking for inspiration, or a few pithy phrases to round out your vows; do-it-yourself ideas on a host of topics, such as reception themes, food offerings, flower decorations, etc.; and wedding tips on photography, budgeting and more. It is from this latter section that the following advice on budgeting comes.

One of the first things that you will notice when you begin perusing wedding magazines and guides is the amount of cash that most people sacrifice to their big day. If the average $27,000 price tag has you rethinking your nuptials, rest assured that there is a better – and less expensive – way.

Beginning married life with a burden of debt may not be in the best interest of your relationship, so find some ways to have a fabulous time within a beautiful venue without breaking the bank.

Choose an off-season date

Not only will this offer you greater availability of the locations and services that you would like to reserve, you are likely to get a better price than you would if you were married in the peak month of June. You will also enjoy savings when you plan your honeymoon.

Select a gorgeous venue

This may seem counterintuitive since a lovely location may come with a hefty price tag. However, if you choose a venue that is beautiful as-is, you can skip the decorations and make the most of what your venue offers. Historic sites and outdoor locations are wonderful choices for venues that do not require additional décor.

Bargain shop

Chances are that your marriage will be just as amazing if you are married in a dress from last year’s collection for a fraction of the price of the latest styles. This single purchase offers you the opportunity to save hundreds of dollars. Shop clearance racks, online sales and reusable party supply sites for great deals on the stuff you need.

Get creative with catering

What are your priorities when it comes to food at your reception? If a sit down, multicourse meal is a necessity, be sure to budget for it. This is a potential area to save serious money by planning a buffet. Consider your favorite restaurants as caterers rather than only those who specialize in weddings.

Forget the favors

Party favors are one of those things that everyone buys and nobody wants. Your guests will not feel less loved or important if they do not go home with a piece of tchotchke that will collect dust for a few weeks before they finally through it in the trash.

Use a Wedivite invitation

Save hundreds of dollars in printing costs and postage by using Wedivite’s digital wedding invitations to communicate with guests rather than old-fashioned snail mail. It’s free and comes with a lot of cool features like a social wedding album, songs suggestion, directions for guests, wedding registries and more.

– From wedivite.com

Patent lawyer feeds Israelis

Leket provides 25,000 volunteers every year to pick crops in the field of Sandy Colb. (photo from israel21c.org)

Along with his Ivy League diplomas, a second-grade “master gardener” certificate hangs on the wall of Rehovot patent attorney Sandy Colb’s office. Now 66, the former Cleveland schoolboy went on to cultivate a unique farm-based philanthropy.

Through his Tov V’Hameitiv Foundation, Colb partners with 70 Israeli social service agencies to distribute 100 tons of fruits and vegetables every week, harvested from a total of 250 acres of fields he has leased, bought and borrowed.

Along with seeds and fertilizer, Colb contributes a significant sum of shekels to the project. The return on his investment is the satisfaction of nourishing Israel’s most vulnerable citizens while feeding his own love of the land. “It’s expensive, but this is my veggie habit,” he said.

Although Colb spends considerable time traveling for business and pleasure, and typically works 16-hour days, when he’s home in Rehovot he devotes two mornings a week to planting and picking with his 60 paid workers.

Forty of those workers are older Ethiopian Israelis with few employment opportunities. Eight others have special needs. In coordination with Leket, Israel’s national food bank, Colb hopes to bring more people with various challenges to work in the fields.

As one of Colb’s distribution partners, Leket also provides some 25,000 volunteers to pick crops every year. Many of the volunteers are tourists who devote a morning to the charitable project.

“Wherever I go around the world, I meet people who have picked in our fields, and they always remember what they picked,” Colb said.

A few people have considered trying to duplicate Colb’s enterprise in other countries, “but I don’t know of anyone actually doing it. You need a place where you can plant and grow all year round,” he explained.

Even in Israel, of course, each kind of vegetation has its season. Depending on the time of year, Colb’s workers are planting, tending and gathering citrus fruits, pecans, avocados, peaches, plums, apples, root vegetables, leeks, cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, celery, eggplant, peppers, tomatoes and more – altogether about 40 varieties of produce.

Tomatoes for everyone

Colb moved to Israel in 1974, just after earning his law degree at Harvard. Two years later, he founded Sanford T. Colb and Co. Intellectual Property Law.

Right from the start, he planted a vegetable patch in his backyard because. In fact, ever since second grade, he has never stopped gardening – even as a student at the University of Pennsylvania, Cambridge and Harvard universities.

“I would find a piece of land and start digging,” he said. “It’s wonderful to see stuff grow, especially big zucchinis. I have a picture of my older son, who is now 40, holding a zucchini that’s bigger than he is.”

When Colb’s crops in Rehovot became too plentiful for the family of six, a neighbor offered to take excess produce for clients in the food-distribution program run by Ezer Mizion.

“When the winter came, I had no tomatoes to give her, [but] she said people needed them. So, a friend and I started going once a week to the wholesale market in Rehovot and buying veggies to donate,” said Colb.

Realizing the vast need, he slowly began acquiring farming equipment, personnel and land. Some fields he bought, some he leases from nearby kibbutz and moshav communities, and some he borrows from owners of unused or underused fields. Recently, the Weizmann Institute of Science – not far from where he lives – offered 50 unused acres for him to till.

photo - Sandy Colb grows crops for state’s most vulnerable, and others — Sandy Colb grows crops for state’s most vulnerable. *(photo by Amitai Gazit/Ofek-Israel via israel21c.org)*

Colb’s biggest single plot is 350 dunams (86-plus acres). He was outbid on this plot when he tried to buy it about 10 years ago, but arranged with the buyer to pay $60,000 per year to lease it. However, when the owner came from New York and saw Colb picking cabbages for the needy, he decided on the spot to issue a refund. The $60,000 still changes hands annually, going back to Colb to plow into his foundation.

The Rehovot municipality has encouraged his efforts and provided land for a greenhouse. One advantage of the greenhouse is that Colb can use it to grow vegetables during sabbatical years such as this one, when open fields are not sown but only harvested in keeping with biblical and rabbinic agricultural laws.

Following every Shmita year, Colb and his workers plant wheat designated for Passover matzah for the next eight years. Colb and his wife, Paula, invite “tons of people” to join them in annual baking sessions at a facility run by Jerusalem’s Karlin Chassidim.

With four grown children and 13 grandchildren in whom they hope to instil an appreciation of agriculture, the Colbs have not neglected their home vegetable patch. “We have a little asparagus and carrots, fennel and various exotic fruits,” said Colb, and even this gets shared; he takes much of the produce to his synagogue for fellow worshippers to enjoy after Shabbat services.