Brian Blum
July 8, 2018

CardioScale took home the top prize at the “Combating Terrorism Technology Conference” being held at Tel Aviv University last week.

CardioScale has embedded its tech into a portable arm-cuff. The result is “dramatic improvements in triaging, monitoring, and therefore survival rates of victims of terrorist attacks and other mass casualty events.” The first place prize comes with a check for $100,000.

Second place in the conference’s startup challenge, went to Colugo for its UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) technology that combines both a quadrotor and a fixed wing. By using both methods of flying, a Colugo-equipped drone can take off and land vertically as well as fly for long distances and durations. Colugo won $10,000 for its efforts.

While the event was held in Tel Aviv (to mark the beginning of “CyberWeek”), an Israeli winner was not a foregone conclusion. More than 200 companies applied to the contest from all over the world (double the number from the previous challenge, held in 2016). Twenty-three reached the finals.

The conference and competition were organized by the U.S. Defense Department, the Israel Ministry of Defense and the MIT Enterprise Forum of Israel.

A senior representative of the U.S. Embassy was present at the award ceremony. He told the Israeli entrepreneurs that they had taught him a new kind of bravery.

“The Marines and soldiers risk their lives,” he said. “But you give your heart and soul, your lives, your children’s future, your families future, to develop technologies that might, or might not work. This is the kind of bravery that I don’t have. Some of you work in your parents’ garage, and maybe what you are working on will save lives in the future.”

The two winners both competed in the “General Technologies Track” which had 10 finalists. The other 13 finalists were in the “Urban Navigation Track.” Winners for the latter have not been awarded yet – that will come later this year following a live demonstration. The same top prizes – $100,000 and $10,000 – will be awarded then.

The organizers noted that there has been an explosion this year in technologies analyzing social media and online behavior, often married with artificial intelligence. Counter-drone solutions were also prominent, along with solutions for navigating when GPS is unavailable or jammed.

The team of judges and speakers at the conferences included U.S. Senator Joseph Lieberman, Israeli MK Michael Oren, Major General (Ret.) Amos Yadlin, and Yoram Schweitzer, head of the Program on Terrorism and Low Intensity Conflict, at Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies.

More on News

Read more: