Tag: innovation

Standing under the chuppah

Adir under the wedding canopy with his bride, Liat. (photo from UPnRIDE)

Forty days before his marriage, a wheelchair-bound Israeli man named Adir wrote to UPnRIDE Robotics, sharing his dream to stand under the chuppah with his bride, Liat. Chief executive officer Oren Tamari invited Adir to company headquarters in Yokne’am Illit to try the UPnRIDE 1.1 mobility device, now in transition from research-and-development to market.

“We saw he managed well with it, and we arranged for him to use the device during his wedding” on Nov. 12, Tamari told Israel21c.

The day after his wedding, Adir posted on UPnRIDE’s Facebook page: “Thank you all for [the] wonderful experience and magnificent night. Our chuppah was so amazing, people cried when [they] saw me standing and praying. My wife and I just want to say that you made our night as close as possible to perfection!!!”

UPnRIDE was invented by Amit Goffer, whose ReWalk robotic exoskeleton allows paraplegics to stand, walk, navigate steps and even run marathons. Goffer, who has a PhD in electrical and computer engineering, could not use ReWalk himself because he is a quadriplegic, paralyzed from the neck down. So he and Tamari formed a new company to develop an upright mobility solution enabling any wheelchair-bound person – quadriplegics, paraplegics, people with multiple sclerosis, cerebral palsy, ALS and traumatic brain injury – to recline, stand and navigate indoors and outdoors.

Jointed braces and harnessing straps provide support, while advanced motion technology and real-time computing ensure automatic balancing and stability on uneven terrain. Goffer said other types of standing wheelchairs can’t be used outdoors because of the danger of tipping over.

UPnRIDE is now raising funds, working toward U.S. Food and Drug Administration clearance and doing usability studies with all kinds of wheelchair users. A major study has begun at the U.S. Veterans Health Administration’s Centre of Excellence in New York to determine the benefits for UPnRIDE users. Many health problems are associated with long-term wheelchair sitting, from muscle atrophy to cardiovascular disease.

Goffer, chief technology officer and president of the company, doesn’t yet have his own UPnRIDE because the sample models are for testing. He borrows one on weekends and for special events, such as his daughter’s wedding last July.

Like Adir, he was able to stand under the chuppah and with his family for photos.

“My son and middle daughter were already married years ago,” he said, “and it was a very different feeling at the wedding of my ‘baby’ because I was standing like the rest of the family. I was also able to mingle with guests as never before.”

Eventually, Goffer expects UPnRIDE to become his everyday wheelchair. “I enjoy it because I can stand and sit easily whenever I want; I don’t have to be moved and lifted by someone else. It can recline, too, so it’s better for napping or receiving medical treatment.”

The smart wheelchairs are to be manufactured in a northern Israel factory run by Sanmina, an American electronics manufacturing services provider. Tamari said the company plans to use proceeds from the current funding round for marketing, establishing mass production and developing advanced and new models.

For more information, visit upnride.com or email [email protected].

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 healing partnership

Left to right: Bernard Bressler, Bill Barrable, Prof. Yaakov Nahmias, the Hon. Jody Wilson-Raybould, Jonathan Miodowski, Dina Wachtel, the Hon. Bruce Ralston and Rick Glumac. (photo from Rick Hansen Institute)

On Aug. 25 in Vancouver, the Rick Hansen Institute (RHI) announced a new partnership with the Hebrew University’s Alexander Grass Centre for Bioengineering. The first of its kind in the world, this partnership will fast-track the development of products designed to improve the lives of people who have been devastated by spinal cord injuries (SCI).

Bioengineering uses scientific concepts and methods to find practical, cost-effective solutions to problems in the life sciences. Researchers investigate ways to regenerate damaged tissue, grow new organs or mimic the systems and processes of the human body with synthetic tools. In the case of individuals with SCI, this means combating the paralysis caused by a serious injury.

According to the RHI, in British Columbia alone, there are 12,000 people living with an SCI. “The economic burden is an estimated $372 million a year for new traumatic spinal cord injuries: this figure includes direct healthcare (59%) as well as indirect morbidity and mortality related (41%) costs,” says the RHI. “Secondary complications such as pressure ulcers, neuropathic pain, urinary tract infections and pneumonia cost an estimated $70 million in direct costs to B.C.’s healthcare system annually.”

The Grass Centre’s Biodesign program teaches researchers, business and bioengineering graduates how to make medical innovations commercially available. Recent innovations at the centre include a device that inserts chest tubes. The device prevents lung collapse in under a minute and saves lives in the battlefield and the emergency room. The centre also has developed pressure-sensing socks that can tell when patients with diabetes are in pain, prevent foot ulcers and communicate health data to smartphones. More than 130 million people suffer from diabetes-related pain worldwide.

Bill Barrable, chief executive officer of the RHI, described Rick Hansen’s long association and warm relationship with Israel. Hansen traveled there on his Man in Motion tour many years ago and he also received an honorary degree from the Hebrew University. Barrable accompanied Hansen on that latter visit.

Barrable spoke of the new partnership as being designed to “grow the next generation of medical research entrepreneurs.” These entrepreneurs will create intellectual property that can be sold commercially within one year, a goal he described as “extraordinary.” In addition to the profound impact it will have on patients, Barrable sees the project as a way to strengthen innovation in British Columbia.

Prof. Yaakov Nahmias is the director of the Grass Centre. After co-founding the Biodesign program at HU with Hadassah Medical Centre and Stanford University, four new medical devices were launched under his leadership – in the program’s first year. Referencing Israel’s reputation as a “start-up nation,” Nahmias touched on the 2009 book Start-up Nation by Dan Senor and Saul Singer, which explores how it is that a small, embattled country like Israel has more tech start-ups than any other. Speaking of the student body at the Grass Centre, Nahmias described a population that is mature, self-sufficient and has a rich life experience. Having completed school and their mandatory military service, Israeli grads also have traveled the world and worked while pursuing their undergraduate studies. He described a group that did not want to continue their research work as academics, but as entrepreneurs. The Biodesign program enabled them to do this. Its multi-disciplinary, team-based approach to medical innovation is also unique, according to Nahmias, “because it leverages the diversity we see in Israel.” The program is host to groups led by Palestinians from East Jerusalem and ultra-Orthodox rabbis alike, he said. The program’s success, he added, was owed to the creativity and talent of this diverse group.

In concert with the fiery, boundary-pushing Israelis, Nahmias said Canadian researchers would bring “people with vision, people who would set the course and know how to treat patients and solve problems in everyday life. But we also want to have agitators, people who would rock the bridge and say, ‘that’s not good enough!’ These are the people we have in Israel. And this is why this partnership is unique.”

B.C. Minister of Jobs, Trade and Technology Bruce Ralston spoke highly of Israel’s capacity for innovation. Looking forward to seeing stronger ties develop between the technology sectors of Israel and British Columbia, Ralston said he sees this partnership as a way to “restore and bolster our commitment to research in a way that attracts top-flight talent back to B.C.”

Also joining in the announcement, which was made at the Blusson Spinal Cord Centre, at Vancouver General Hospital was the Hon. Jody Wilson-Raybould. In her capacity as federal justice minister, she applauded the new initiative, describing SCI patient care as “a human rights issue.”

Also in attendance was Bernard Bressler, director of the board of Canada-Israel Industrial Research and Development Foundation. Bressler praised the partners for going beyond academic research to make life-altering technologies. “The partnership creates an environment where creative ideas, difficult problems and entrepreneurial mentorship can interact in a structured way,” he said.

Speaking after the event, John Chernesky, RHI’s consumer engagement lead, commented, “What excites me most is the prospect of new devices that allow people with paralysis to complete ordinary tasks, even something as simple as using an arm to manipulate their environment. Spinal cord injuries can affect every part of a person’s body. The implications [of a program like this] are tremendous.”

Dina Wachtel, executive director of Canadian Friends of Hebrew University, Western Region, said the program created “a living bridge upon which a scientist from Canada will spend time in Israel with the start-up nation and, once they trigger the process, as a team, and have the beginning of a device, they can bring it back to B.C. for further development.”

Shula Klinger is an author, illustrator and journalist living in North Vancouver. Find out more at niftyscissors.com.

Helping one village at a time

With solar panels, Innovation: Africa – founded by Sivan Ya’ari, centre – is helping bring light and water to African villages. (photo from Sivan Ya’ari)

“Growing up in Israel, we were a poor family,” recalled Sivan Ya’ari, founder of Innovation: Africa. “But the poverty I saw in Africa was true poverty. We can’t compare.”

Ya’ari spent part of her childhood in France, which later helped her land a job with Jordache, a jeans manufacturing company based in the United States that had some factories in French-speaking African countries.

“After spending time in villages and traveling to other countries, I realized that the main challenge in Africa, the main reason why Africa is still in poverty, is the lack of energy,” she told the Independent. “Because there is no energy, they can’t get access to medicine, vaccines – because there is no refrigeration. Because there is no energy, people don’t get access to good education. But, most importantly, people don’t have access to water.”

Ya’ari had imagined Africa to be a continent with little water, but she discovered there is actually plenty of water in Africa. However, the water is located in aquifers and, to get to it, you need to pump it – and to do that, you need energy.

“Growing up in Israel, I remember seeing solar panels on every building,” she said. “So, when I came and learned a bit more about energy, I thought, maybe we just need to transfer some of the knowledge and some of the technology to remote villages to give them a chance to access water and education.”

Ya’ari enrolled in Columbia University’s master’s in energy program and began fundraising to bring energy solutions to Africa.

As a student, Ya’ari started in one village, and then another, continuing to the point that, today, she has brought the technology – a large pump run by solar panels – to about 140 villages, and counting. The water is pumped into a large holding tank and then, with the help of gravity, flows to different taps that are installed throughout a village.

“Usually, we’re putting one tap two kilometres from the water pump system, another tap four kilometres from it and another … in all directions,” said Ya’ari. “So, with one water pump system, we’re able to reach many villages and people.”

Once the concept proved successful, Ya’ari founded Innovation: Africa, which operates in seven African countries. “In every country, we have an office with a local manager,” she said. “In Uganda, for example, we have seven full-time local people working who have all been trained. They are managing and doing the work on the ground.

“We first hire a company that does geological surveys. This provides information about how deep the aquifers are, how much water we can find and where would be best to drill. Then we hire a drilling machine company and have local contractors do the rest – installing the pump, the water tank, involving the community (meaning, the villagers) who decide where to instal the different taps.

“Once this is all installed, sometimes, in some villages, we instal an extra tank – only for irrigation technology (Netafim) that we bring from Israel – and then we provide irrigation pipes to the village.”

Each pump provides 30,000 litres on average per day per system.

Innovation: Africa recently received an award from the United Nations for their remote monitoring system – another technology that came from Israel.

“It’s off-grid, remote monitoring, so, at any point, we are able to remotely know how much water we’re pumping into every village,” explained Ya’ari. “If something breaks, meaning a pump hasn’t pumped water in 24 hours, we are notified about it by the system; not only us, but the local contractors and the local managers.”

Most of the funding has come from individuals and foundations, often with one individual or family sponsoring a village. On Innovation: Africa’s website (innoafrica.org), there is information about how to become a sponsor.

“We have a bar or bat mitzvah … choosing an orphanage to adopt and then they are traveling with their parents to be there when the kids get light for the first time,” said

Ya’ari. “We have families adopting villages. It’s very transparent, personal and concrete. The donors appreciate that they also have access to the remote monitoring. At any point on their phone, they are able to see how much energy was produced or consumed and how much water was pumped. They also know if something breaks. They are connected to the villagers. They go back and visit.”

According to Ya’ari, many children, especially girls, are kept out of schools in Africa so that they can walk the great distances necessary to get water.

“I believe that the best return on the investment is when we bring water to a village,” said Ya’ari. “What we found is that people are spending hours a day looking for water. Most of the time, the water they find is dirty and is not good for drinking. Once we bring clean water, the people are healthier. The changes we see … the children are going to school. We see a lot more girls going and getting an education. We see that they are growing food.

“What inspires me is the number of businesses villagers are able to grow with access to water. They are able to grow food and sell it in the market. They are making bricks and making their homes, no longer made with mud. We see livestock…. They are making more money.

“And, for the medical centres, it’s tremendous,” she said. “Once we provide a little energy and we buy a small fridge, then people come in from the capital to the village to help. The doctor, with energy, she can actually work.”

When it comes to the cost to make this happen, it is about $5,000 to light a classroom and $18,000 to light a whole school, including the homes of the teachers. To bring water to a entire village, it costs around $50,000.

No governments are involved in these projects. It is all about people on one end of the world helping out people on another end.

“Unfortunately, there is no shortage of villages waiting,” said Ya’ari. “In the seven countries that we operate, we have a long list of schools needing light and water centres. It has a lot to do with funding and people to adopt the villages. We have the people on the ground and the technology.”

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

Israeli-inspired innovations

The Eureka Project, a Winnipeg business incubator is as innovative about its own financing and growth as it teaches future entrepreneurs to be. And, with the leadership of businessman Gary Brownstone, some of its partner companies are seeing returns in the tens of millions.

“The Eureka Project mandate is to help what I like to call ‘passionate creators’ of technology or widgets commercialize their inventions,” Brownstone told the Independent. Clients include scientists, engineers and computer programmers who have developed or are developing some kind of new technology. Typically, clients have little or no business experience, which is where Brownstone and his team come in.

photo - Gary Brownstone
Gary Brownstone (photo from winnipeg.startupweekend.org)

Brownstone gets involved in small, fledgling startups and manages them through the initial growth phase. “Our team has expertise with taking this technology to market: finding customers and helping the founder build companies around technology,” he said.

“There are unique challenges in commercializing technology that make it different from other sectors, involving how to finance an idea, how to finance a company with no fixed assets (no buildings, land or equipment), which Canadian investors or bankers are really used to.”

When Brownstone finished his schooling, he realized he had unique experience in working with companies undergoing rapid growth, growth that could be so extreme that it had the capacity to kill the company. Anticipating the potential in companies on the verge of major growth, Brownstone’s approach was to step in to provide the professional management required to shepherd them through that phase. Once a company had managed to get through that period of growth, Brownstone would exit onto the next one. Brownstone has successfully been doing this for more than 20 years now.

“When I was recruited into this position, I saw the opportunity to do that over and over and over again – to help small companies through that first phase of growth, help get them on some solid footing for the future,” said Brownstone.

About five years ago, he started becoming more aware of how Israelis have successfully built a knowledge-based economy.

Someone gave him the book Start-Up Nation by Dan Senor and Saul Singer, and Brownstone, who had spent a year in Israel after high school some 30 years ago, was confused. “I read the book and I thought, ‘Are you sure it’s Israel they are talking about? Now they are a tech powerhouse?’” he said.

Brownstone has, since that time, made an annual trip to Israel and is still amazed by what he sees. On those trips, Brownstone meets with people in Israel who run incubators like his, those in government, policy makers and academics, as well.

“I definitely have a strong respect for what they have accomplished in Israel,” said Brownstone. “We’ve tried to bring a lot of those practices back here. I’ve gone there with senior government people both from Canada and from Manitoba to sort of open up their eyes to what some of the possibilities are if you take a similar approach.”

Since then, Brownstone has used his understanding and connection to Israel to try and bring what he calls “some best practices and good policy advice” back to Canada.

“Ideas are easy and execution is difficult,” he said. “So, a lot of companies, for a variety of reasons, will not succeed in actually commercializing their technology or not commercializing it to a degree that it’s a viable business.”

When someone comes to the Eureka Project with an idea, Brownstone asks three questions to determine whether or not they would make good clients. First, is the technology real? Second, is the individual (or team) capable? (Do they have enough talent? Are they coachable in terms of their own capabilities/capacity? What are their skill sets and backgrounds?) Third, he assess whether or not there is an identifiable market.

“In our line of work, because of the background of the people coming in the door, that’s the question that they most overlook,” said Brownstone about ensuring that there is an actual market for the product or technology. Many companies “look at the world as ‘technology push’ instead of ‘market pull,’” he explained. “We try to turn that conversation around really early on. If you were to come in the door, we’d go through the three questions and satisfy ourselves that the answers are yes, yes and yes.”

In terms of payment, Brownstone has developed a sliding scale wherein, at the beginning, clients can pay as little as a couple hundred dollars a month. “We really want to remain accessible to those that have the best likelihood of becoming [successful],” he said. “In order to do that, we try to keep our fees as low as possible, so that money isn’t really a barrier for them working with us. So, we offset a lot of the costs of delivering services to our clients, because we build a very strong, broad base of support. We get financial help from the province of Manitoba [and] we get some financial help from the U of M. We’ve built a very broad sponsorship program, so that the corporate community supports us and our clients.”

As the companies gain access to some financing and begin to grow, they hire on staff and gradually start paying more of the real cost as their finances allow. “It kind of puts the pressure on us to deliver what we promise we deliver when they come in the door,” explained Brownstone. “If we are able to help them finance and grow their companies, they should be able to pay us a little bit more for what we do.”

He said, “If someone from Vancouver called me and was looking for space, mentorship and local coaching, I might see if they would like an introduction to someone there who does what

we do, so they could have proximity.” He added, “But the short answer is yes,” to taking on Vancouver clients.

“Success begets success, so as people find out about the things that we do … a company we helped launch five years ago will probably do something in the neighborhood of a hundred million dollars in revenue this year,” said Brownstone. “In Canada, that’s a big deal. People from other regions hear about what we are doing and we find more and more we are getting approached from outside Manitoba. We don’t want to turn anyone away, so we had to find ways to help those people.

“We don’t use Manitoba taxpayer dollars to support other companies, but we do have partners and systems in place where we can deliver those services to other province’s companies.”

He added, “In a couple of instances, we’ve had companies who have relocated to Manitoba in order to work with us. There’s a great ecosystem in Manitoba for these young companies in terms of government grants and tax credits, and organizations like ours that can support them.”

The Eureka Project has developed an extensive network of companies and individuals across the United States, China, Singapore, South America, Mexico and as many as 30 other countries.

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

No more ice scraping

Who would have thought a solution to ice stickiness would come from a semi-tropical country like Israel?

Prof. Hanna Dodiuk heads up the department of polymers and plastics engineering at Shenkar College in Ramat Gan. She specializes in adhesion and adhesives science and technology, characterization and formulation of polymer adhesives, special coatings, surface and interfaces analysis, nanotechnology and aging of polymeric materials.

photo - Prof. Hanna Dodiuk
Prof. Hanna Dodiuk heads up the department of polymers and plastics engineering at Shenkar College in Ramat Gan. (photo from Prof. Hanna Dodiuk)

Born in 1948 in Krakow, Poland, to two Schindler’s List Holocaust survivors, the family made aliyah to Israel in 1949. Dodiuk served in the air force, and then studied chemistry at Tel Aviv University. In 1979, she joined the Israeli Armament Development Authority (ADA), also known as Rafael. From September 1991 to June 1997, Dodiuk was the ADA’s director of its materials and processes department.

Her research led to the creation of a surface to which ice cannot stick, a material she created while on sabbatical with a large bio company in Germany. “They invited me to develop surfaces that don’t adhere to anything, that are easy to clean, and that have super-hydrotropic surfaces,” she said. The company needed this to develop what Dodiuk referred to as “a microfluidic machine.”

“This small machine can only work with very small water droplets at minus-12 degrees,” she said. “To take such a little amount, you have to ensure the fluid is not absorbed on the surfaces.”

In her research, Dodiuk turned to biology and nature, studying how leaves react with water.

“While most leaves are weighted by water, lotus leaves, even if in mud and water, aren’t, so they remain fresh and clean forever,” she said.

Using a high-resolution microscope, Dodiuk found that the morphology of the lotus leaf is very unique. “It has small mountains of microns that have a very small circle in the diametre of a nano range, which is 10 to minus-nine metres. A water drop cannot enter the width between two nano particles, so it begins to fall off and slide. Therefore, the water doesn’t add weight.”

Dodiuk said this is not a new chemistry concept. It has been used in Teflon-like materials for years. But, while Teflon works well with oil, water can still get it wet and weigh it down.

Early on, Dodiuk found great success with the lotus leaf. Three years into the research, ADA asked her to help create a super-hydrotropic coating usable on glass to prevent ice from interfering with navigational systems by sticking and blocking the view. Dodiuk found a lab that would allow her to imitate ice adhesion in Quebec, where she conducted the experiments.

“We’re the only [technology] in the world that can reduce the adhesion of ice,” said Dodiuk. “You cannot avoid it totally, but you can reduce by a factor of 18. If you reduce the adhesion of ice by a factor of 18, you really avoid ice adhesion.”

This surface has numerous significant applications. “Airplane wings can take off, but the special coating that was so great at reducing the adhesion of ice was simply not durable,” she said. “If, for example, they were to apply very high winds, it would start coming off and nano particles would be lost, as the adhesion of the micro and nano particles wasn’t good.

“With the lotus plant, if its surface is damaged, it will repair itself. But, technology doesn’t know [how] to repair itself, so they had to find another solution. That is when the University of Massachusetts stepped in with funding and lab facilities.”

Aided by two university students in the plastics engineering department working to create a special film with the right properties at a very low cost, Dodiuk said they are now halfway to completion. The final product will be a stick-on film, like Scotch tape, but with nano particles on one side, not visible to the naked eye. It will be able to be applied to anything, from windows and wings of airplanes to car windows during the winter.

“We always laugh at the end of the day,” said Dodiuk. “Israel [doesn’t] have an ice-adhesion problem, yet we invented the solution.

“Once you talk about super-isophobic, easy-cleaning or self-cleaning [technologies], everyone is sold.

“Even with textile, it would be one that never gets dirty. For things to get dirty, the dirt has to adhere. If you avoid adhesion, you’ll stay clean forever. Can you imagine not needing to wash your things, as nothing will adhere to [them]?”

“Can you imagine all of New York and Vancouver never needing to be cleaned?”

The potential application possibilities are endless and multi-directional, with spin-offs that can be used in elemental technology, like car or high-rise windows with no need to clean off dust or dirt. “Can you imagine all of New York and Vancouver never needing to be cleaned?” asked Dodiuk.

“With this special coating, those windows will remain totally clean. Just a little bit of rain will take off all the dust. The rain won’t stick to the window, only to the dust.”

Through it all, Dodiuk emphasized, she succeeded in accomplishing all of this work, to date, in a “male-dominated environment. I really think [women] should go into science and technology. [Many women] are going into many areas today, but not science and technology.”

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.