Israel Innovation Authority participated in the 2019 Grand Challenges Annual Meeting co-hosted by the African Union, Ethiopia’s Ministry of Health, Grand Challenges Canada / Grands Défis Canada, USAid and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The Grand Challenges Annual Meeting is a convening of over 1,000 key leaders from across the global community to share best practices, encourage collaboration and seek solutions for common challenges. It aims to build momentum for global health and development innovation and foster scientific collaboration among international groups and researchers.

Since 2014, Israel Innovation Authority runs a local Grand Challenges program in cooperation with MASHAV, Israel’s Agency for International

Development Cooperation.

The aim of the incentive program is to encourage R&D of innovative technological solutions to societal challenges in global health, water and food security in low income countries. The program, initially founded with the mentorship of Grand Challenges Canada, has been active since 2014 and has supported 27 technological projects to date, many of which have delivered significant impact.

At the meeting in Addis Ababa, Innovation authority presented a poster featuring the winners of the latest call for projects in health (Senecio, #Zzapp, Wheelchairs of Hope), water (Soapy, #Alumor Tipa) and food security (#OKO, Hargol FoodTech, Amaizz, Farmster).

The poster was also published in the Gates Open Research platform: link

Thank you Innovation Authority for such an honor!

It all started when we arrived on the 41st floor on top of the Salesforce Tower on the 6th avenue in NY.

The view was unbelievable

The 365x acceleration program of Sarona Ventures that enhance scalability for Software or IoT Startup Companies. Surrounded by talented Executives and Entrepreneurs, that help to sharpen business, product, and technology, while accessing an international customer and distributors network to affirm reliable traction towards scalability. The program manager, Liron Winberg, succeeded in packing the room with investors and innovation leaders from the New York community. Thanks to Liron, the event felt like a community of high-class professionals. That came to share and brainstorm as One group and not as individuals that just met.

Our CEO and co-Founder, Mr. Max Simonovsky, was honored to be the last presenter.

Mr. Simonovsky closed his pitch session with a clear message of our vision: We should do Business for Impact and Impact for a better future.

A fully interactive comprehensive symposium that covers all aspects of the most up to date thoracic surgery, oncology and pneumology and their interdisciplinary relationship.

Providing all the elements to develop an advanced and successful program for the diagnosis, care and treatment of the different stages of lung cancer.

For more information visit: https://thoraciconcology.it/

The idea for this article germinated in a restaurant bathroom. Before my meal arrived, I went to the men’s room and saw one of their employees leave a toilet stall and just walk by the sign we all know from public establishments: “Employees Must Wash Hands Before Returning to Work.”

Well, he didn’t wash his hands, and during my meal I wondered how actively involved he was in the preparation of my food.

As health and hygiene become, at least in some places, more advanced and efforts to increase environmental sustainability rise, I wondered who was doing interesting things in this space.

Paired with a relatively new awareness among Israeli techies and investors that social entrepreneurship is more than just a means for economic progress across emerging markets, some Israeli companies seek to make it core to their technology.

As Neta-Li Meiri, managing director of 8200 Impact explains: “Technology is developing at a rapid rate with unbridled potential for societal change. By focusing on net productivity and advancement, we hold the ability to close the gap between developed and developing nations through technology to bring basic necessities (food, water, and healthcare) in the most efficient way.”

Here’s an example of how one company can make a massive impact, utilizing computer vision software embedded into its hardware.

SoapyCare makes and installs Internet-connected hand washing units that recognize the person standing in front of them. This could be kitchen workers, customers, waiters, cleaners, hospital staff, or just children in a kindergarten.

Based on the person’s identity and location, the hand washing device creates a hand washing sequence. As this is occurring, the screen verifies that the user is washing their hands properly and collects data on the performance, which is sent to the company’s cloud-based servers. SoapyCare can then detect when someone is doing the proper hand hygiene routine, and when someone is not. Post washing, a summary can be sent straight to the user’s smartphone or device.

The customers’ management teams decide the consequences if people do not comply with internal hygiene policies. The company says its hand washing unit is also environmentally friendly, using 95% less water and 65% less soap than users would typically utilize when washing their hands without the machine.

SoapyCare makes and installs Internet-connected hand washing units that recognize the person standing in front of them. This could be kitchen workers, customers, waiters, cleaners, hospital staff, or just children in a kindergarten.

Based on the person’s identity and location, the hand washing device creates a hand washing sequence. As this is occurring, the screen verifies that the user is washing their hands properly and collects data on the performance, which is sent to the company’s cloud-based servers.

SoapyCare can then detect when someone is doing the proper hand hygiene routine, and when someone is not. Post washing, a summary can be sent straight to the user’s smartphone or device. The customers’ management teams decide the consequences if people do not comply with internal hygiene policies. The company says its hand washing unit is also environmentally friendly, using 95% less water and 65% less soap than users would typically utilize when washing their hands without the machine.

The company says it should have a few hundred Soapy units installed around the world by the end of the year. The cost per machine ranges from $2,400-$3,000 per system, depending on the specific project.

Surewash and Vizzia are two other examples of other companies working to ensure that people follow proper hand washing protocols.

According to SoapyCare’s calculations from the Centers for Disease Control data, some 2.4 billion people, roughly one-third of the world’s population, get sick as a result of improperly washing their hands. In the U.S. alone, there are over 42 million illness cases as a result of inadequate washing and hygiene, according to CDC information on foodborne illnesses and handwashing.

This problem is especially severe in the food and beverage, and healthcare industries. According to the CDC, in the food and beverage industry, 89% of illnesses come from poor hygiene. The CDC states that one in 31 patients return to or stay in the hospital due to diseases that spread from doctors and nurses performing improper hygiene practices.

Dr. Roni Sharon at Sheba Medical Center in Israel says more could be done to avoid unnecessary infections at hospitals. Adequate handwashing by hospital staff can potentially reduce 40-60% of preventable infections acquired in the hospital, Dr. Sharon said. This is also true outside of hospitals. Within the past year, studies have shown that OTC hand sanitizers, which until now have been a holy grail product boasting 99.9% effectiveness in killing germs and bacteria, are not working nearly as well as people think. The FDA states that these hand sanitizers are inferior to hand washing in food establishments, and the CDC and WHO have published similar sentiments.

The new trend, SoapyCare predicts, is working to make hygiene as simple and easy as possible so that machines can create positive habits in employees, keeping everyone in their surrounding environments safe and healthy. “Through newly adopted gamified solutions, technology can bring people to create desired shifts in their behavior,” says Inbal Arieli, author of Chutzpah: Why Israel is a Hub of Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

Max Simonovsky and Alex Orlovsky, the scientists and founders behind SoapyCare, say the company was founded as a social impact venture, which means it does not simply have an economic agenda. So while their primary focus is on ensuring a reduction of sickness rates as a business model, they also pledge to donate one unit to a developing country for every ten units that are purchased anywhere across the globe.

For the full article: https://www.forbes.com/sites/startupnationcentral/2019/07/10/by-gamifying-hand-washing-soapy-might-just-save-civilization/#1e46972c645e

Royal Society for Public Health says need to expose children to germs is ‘dangerous myth’

RSPH says it is important children wash their hands after playing outside, before eating and after using the toilet. Photograph: Jennie Hart/Alamy

The notion that too much cleanliness can be bad for your health and that children need to be exposed to germs is a dangerous myth, according to a public health body.

The Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH) said the hygiene hypothesis – that allergies are caused by too much cleanliness, by killing off the bugs we need to challenge our immune systems – has entered the public imagination and is being misinterpreted.

Playing outside in the dirt will certainly do children good by exposing them to good bacteria, the RSPH stressed, but it was vital that they washed their hands before eating and after going to the toilet.

“The time has come when we need to sort this one out,” said Sally Bloomfield, the honorary professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, who is lead author of a report called Too Clean or Not Too Clean. “The public is becoming very confused.”

Two out of five people in a survey wrongly thought children’s mucky hands after playing outdoors would spread germs. Grubbing around outside and playing with animals was important for building a robust immune system, the study said, but cleanliness still really mattered when people were preparing food and before eating it.

At a time when antibiotic resistance is on the rise and the NHS is under pressure, it is more important than ever to try to stop infections, says the report. Around one in four people get an infectious intestinal disease every year and one in 20 pick up norovirus, the vomiting bug, it says. Adults get four to six colds every year and children pick up six to eight. The report said hand washing and hygiene could stop the spread.

In the survey, however, 23% of 2,000 people agreed that “hygiene in the home is not important because children need to be exposed to harmful germs to build their immune system”.

Men were more likely than women to think that hygiene was not vital. They were more than twice as likely as women to think there was low or no risk associated with not washing hands with soap after using the toilet (16% vs 7%) or after handling raw meat (8% vs 4%).

The RSPH is calling for “targeted hygiene”. Washing the floor does not matter that much, it says. Nor it is important to spend time cleaning inside the toilet bowl – flushing gets rid of the germs. But it is important to clean food preparation surfaces and wash dishcloths.

Most crucial to breaking the chain of transmission of dangerous pathogens is hand washing – after visiting the toilet, after playing with or caring for pets, before and after preparing food and after coughing, sneezing or nose-blowing, said the report.

“Food poisoning shot up in the 1980s and 1990s and the Food Standards Agency did a lot of work, but levels of gastrointestinal diseases remain at unacceptable levels,” said Bloomfield. “It is the same thing with respiratory diseases. We’re always at risk of a flu pandemic. If such a thing occurred the public would always be the first line of defence until a vaccine can be put in place.”

The RSPH said children should be taught in school about how infection occurred and about targeted hygiene. “This should embed best practice of hygiene from an early age and promote consistent understanding of the terminology used to talk about hygiene and hygiene issues,” read the report. It also called for education for the media “to help ensure they do not give confusing and counter-productive messages”.

For the original article follow the link