Israel-US R&D fund earmarks $9m. for infrastructure
01/03/2013 04:24
10 new projects will be joining an already existing database of 835 BIRD projects involving $295 million worth of investments.
Energy, Water Minister Uzi Landau at press confere Photo: Gidon Sharon
The Israel-United States Binational Industrial Research and Development
Foundation (BIRD) announced on Monday that the organization will be providing $9
million in funding for 10 new joint projects in infrastructural
sectors.
BIRD, established in 1977, receives joint funding from the
American and Israeli governments to back collaborative research and development
projects involving one American company and one Israeli company. Financing up to
35 “full-scale” and 20 “mini” projects each year, the foundation provides up to
50 percent of each company’s research and development expenses, according to the
organization.
“The diversified projects that were approved address the
market need for innovation in every area of our daily life such as water
technologies, environmental recycling, cyber security and firefighting,” said
BIRD executive director Dr. Eitan Yudilevich.
One of the 10 new projects
is a system for advanced water leakage control, which will be developed by Steam
Control Ltd. in Israel and American Water Works Company in New Jersey. A second
project, to be generated by Polysack Flexible Packaging of Israel and Applied
Extrusion Technologies of Delaware, will focus on building sustainable materials
that enable the recycling of shrinkpackaged food containers, a statement from
BIRD said.
In the telecommunications sector, Ubiqam of Israel and Global
Wireless Technologies of New Jersey will be developing a mobile relay station
for 4G long-term-evolution (LTE) with mesh networking capabilities – in which
the connection is dispersed among a variety of nodes rather than relying on one
single source.
Also in telecommunications, Vayyar Imaging Ltd. of Israel
and Agilent Technologies of California will be creating a low-cost,
high-performance network analyzer, the BIRD statement said.
Foresight of
Israel and Net Optics Inc. of California will be developing business continuity
solutions for websites, while GONET Systems of Israel and Juniper Networks of
California will be generating an analog WiFi beamformer – a type of processing
system for signal transmission.
Looking at the transportation industry,
Silentium of Israel and Johnson Controls of Wisconsin will be creating an
ambient active noise reduction solution for the automative industry, according
to BIRD. Meanwhile, Elbit Systems Ltd. of Israel and Trace Worldwide Cooperation
of California will be developing advanced aerial firefighting tools for American
helicopters.
In the biomedical arena, B.R.F Engineering Ltd. of Israel
and InfraScan, Inc. of Pennsylvania will be working on a device for early
detection of abdominal hematoma. Also in the biomedical sector, LifeOnKey of
Israel and Target Health of New York will be integrating clinical trial
electronic databases with electronic health record systems, the statement from
BIRD said.
These 10 new projects will be joining an already existing
database of 835 BIRD projects involving $295 million worth of investments, which
have help generate direct and indirect sales amounting to more than $8 billion,
the organization added.
“The benefits for both the US and Israeli
economies show that it is a worthwhile effort,” said Avi Hasson, chief scientist
of the Industry, Trade and Labor Ministry and co-chairman of the BIRD
board.
“The technological diversification of projects that were approved
in this round reinforces the continued economic value that this program
continues to bring.”