City Notes: Tel Aviv to tout its tech at 2016 DLD Innovation Festival

CENTER Entrepreneurs and technology lovers alike will flock to Tel Aviv next week for the city's annual DLD (Digital Life Design) Innovation Festival, which kicks off on Sunday. Thousands are expected at the various events of the festival, which will run until Thursday. The festival will host a two-day conference in which the representatives of some 700 start-up companies will be able to mingle with veteran entrepreneurs. The DLD Tel Aviv Innovation Conference will take place on Tuesday and Wednesday at Tel Aviv's Hatachana compound. The week's other events will include a global networking opportunity where innovators can meet with one another during the “Urban Happening” on Tuesday at various start-up and hi-tech offices in the city. Meanwhile, on Tuesday Tel Aviv's central Rothschild Boulevard will transform into the “Innovation Boulevard,” where the public is invited to experience the live exhibitions of digital media, tech exhibitions and interactive digital games that represent the city's rich start-up ecosystem. Israel hosting first European water-skiing championship in Tel Aviv For the first time, Israel is hosting the Europe and Africa Cable Wakeboard and Wakeskate Championships. More than 150 of the world's best athletes in the water sports are competing in the championship, which is being held at Tel Aviv's Lake TLV in Begin Park from Thursday through Saturday. Twelve international judges are presiding over the competition, which kicked off with an opening ceremony featuring a parade with all of the competing delegations, along with Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai and leaders in the Israeli sports world. The top Israeli athletes taking part in the events are European youth wakeboard champion Guy Firer, 19, European wakeboard champion Lior Sofer, 29, and former female world champion Ori Boujo, 23. In the youth category, thirdplace world champion Hodaia Duek, 15, and Israeli champion Ben Zilberman, 15 ,are also competing. Both days of the final will include several heats for youth, women and masters. The events will be broadcast live on several European television stations. For a full schedule of the weekend's events, visit: www.facebook.com/ events/1010093282379912/ Rehovot resident gives back to EMS group that saved her A Rehovot woman who suffered a critical heart attack six months ago showed her appreciation last week for the efforts of the United Hatzalah volunteer who saved her life. Vered Becher, 48, suffered a heart attack while attending her first gym session in February in the city. In less than three minutes, volunteer paramedic Yoel Gal-Dor arrived from his son's nearby soccer game to the scene at the gym and revived the mother of three using a defibrillator. Becher last Tuesday donated a defibrillator, similar to the one used to resuscitate her, to the volunteer emergency medical service organization. SOUTH Beat the heat in Eilat scuba freediving competition Divers will beat the heat under water in a scuba free-diving competition in Eilat on Friday and Saturday. The two-day “Free2be” contest will feature three competitive disciplines: constant weight diving with a monofin; free immersion diving, done without the use of propulsion equipment; and constant weight diving without fins. So far, some 20 divers from countries including Ukraine, Germany, South Africa, France and Israel are registered to take part in the competition at Eilat's Hashmal al Hagal Beach, located north of Dekel Beach. Alon Rivkind, the Israeli national record holder for free diving with variable weights and constant weights, is the competition's organizer. All contestants are required to have an updated AIDA (International Association for the Development of Apnea) form. NORTH Australians team up with KKL-JNF to clean Kinneret Australian Ambassador Dave Sharma along with embassy staff and their families volunteered to help clean Lake Kinneret (the Sea of Galilee) on Sunday. Ahead of Israel's commemoration of this year's International Cleanup Day, the embassy volunteers worked alongside 150 young Australians in the environmentally friendly efforts at Tzinbar Beach, on the southern shore of the lake. The global Cleanup Day project was founded in Australian in 1993, and has since been adopted by the UN. Organized by Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael-Jewish National Fund in Israel, thousands of people from across the country take part in the environmental initiative every year. “A hundred years ago young Australian soldiers fought right here against the Ottoman Empire to liberate the country, and now young Australians are here to protect and preserve it,” said Sharma, invoking the Australian cavalry involvement in the 1918 Battle of Samakh, which took place on the shores of the Kinneret. KKL-JNF and the Galilee Cities Association on Sunday lauded the Australian contribution to preserving Israel's coastal environment.

City Notes: Tel Aviv to tout its tech at 2016 DLD Innovation Festival

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