Cloud adoption grows in Brazil as organizations prepare for tighter budgets

Summary: Everything-as-a-service becomes the norm and "public" cloud will lose space, says research.

by Angelica Mari for Brazil Tech

As Brazilian organizations brace for a possible economic slowdown and tighter budgets, cloud adoption has grown steadily in the country as an effective way to reduce spending, according to recent research.

According to a survey carried out by consulting firm Capgemini with 415 technology decision makers in public and private organizations and published by newspaper Valor Econômico, Brazilian corporates will become a lot more aggressive in advancing their cloud plans after traditionally lagging behind the United States and Europe.

Cloud market revenues in Brazil should see a jump from $328.8m in 2013 to $1.1bn by 2017, according to separate research by consulting firm Frost & Sullivan.

The Capgemini study adds that 73 percent of the organizations polled in the retail, utilities, financial services, manufacturing and government sectors already utilize software-as-a-service (SaaS) and 92 percent will have a similar set-up within the next two years.

Infrastrcture-as-a-service (IaaS) and platform-as-a-service (PaaS) are also in use by 55 percent and 39 percent of all Brazilian corporates surveyed, according to the study.

A possible migration to the "private" cloud environment is another aspect of cloud adoption highlighted by the consulting firm's study: private environments should be in place at 75 percent of of those polled, whereas only 17 percent will remain using public cloud services such as Gmail and Dropbox.

However, analyst firm IDC predicts a rather different scenario, with growth rates in Brazil for public cloud services set to reach 74 percent year-on-year, with the revenues totaling $798m by 2015. According to IDC, the best seller will be SaaS, with $370m generated over the period, followed by IaaS with $362m and PaaS with $66m. 

July Newsletter – Network Functions Virtualization (NFV)

Vega newsletter is published monthly by Vega BI, and distributed to our partners to facilitate pursuit of a common interest in top-notch technologies.

As networks are populated with a large variety of proprietary hardware appliances, launching a new network service becomes more and more complex, time consuming and expensive process while the demand for technology, services and innovation is accelerating. Network Functions Virtualization aims to address this challenge by leveraging standard IT virtualization technology to consolidate many network equipment types onto industry standard. 

Introduction

Network Operators’ networks are populated with a large and increasing variety of proprietary

hardware appliances. To launch a new network service often requires yet another variety and finding the space and power to accommodate these boxes is becoming increasingly difficult; compounded by the increasing costs of energy, capital investment challenges and the rarity of skills necessary to design, integrate and operate increasingly complex hardware-based appliances. Moreover, hardware-based appliances rapidly reach end of life, requiring much of the procure- design-integrate-deploy cycle to be repeated with little or no revenue benefit. Worse, hardware lifecycles are becoming shorter as technology and services innovation accelerates, inhibiting the roll out of new revenue earning network services and constraining innovation in an increasingly Network-centric connected world.

Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) aims to address these problems by leveraging standard IT virtualization technology to consolidate many network equipment types onto industry standard high volume servers, switches and storage, which could be located in Datacenters, Network Nodes and in the end user premises.

We believe Network Functions Virtualization is applicable to any data plane packet processing and control plane function in fixed and mobile network infrastructures.

We would like to emphasize that we see Network Functions Virtualization as highly complementary to Software Defined Networking (SDN). These topics are mutually beneficial but are not dependent on each other. Network Functions can be virtualized and deployed without an SDN being required and vice-versa.

The Benefits

Virtualizing Network Functions could potentially offer many benefits including, but not limited to:

P  Reduced equipment costs and reduced power consumption through consolidating equipment and exploiting the economies of scale of the IT industry.

P  Increased speed of Time to Market by minimizing the typical network operator cycle of innovation. Economies of scale required to cover investments in hardware-based functionalities are no longer applicable for software-based development, making feasible other modes of feature evolution. Network Functions Virtualization should enable network operators to significantly reduce the maturation cycle.

P  Availability of network appliance multi-version and multi-tenancy, which allows use of a single platform for different applications, users and tenants. This allows network operators to share resources across services and across different customer bases.

P  Targeted service introduction based on geography or customer sets is possible. Services can be rapidly scaled up/down as required.

P  Enables a wide variety of eco-systems and encourages openness. It opens the virtual appliance market to pure software entrants, small players and academia, encouraging more innovation to bring new services and new revenue streams quickly at much lower risk.

 For more ...... See Vega's July  Newsletter

Latin America Cyber Security Market is Expected to Reach $11 Billion in 2019

New Report by MicroMarket Monitor - Latin America Cyber Security report defines and segments the cyber security solutions and services market in Latin America with analysis and forecast of revenue. This market is estimated to grow from around $5.29 billion in 2014 to$11.91 billion by 2019, at a CAGR of 17.6% from 2014 to 2019.


Cyber security is a broad collection of technologies, solutions, services, compliances, and risk management approaches to protect an organizations’ and users’ personal and professional data from cyber crimes. The government, public utilities, and enterprises are all dependent on the internet,

wireless technologies, and cloud-based services. Due to this dependency, cyber attacks have shown exponential increase in the past few years and have generated the need for unified cyber security solutions to support the enhanced enterprise mobility and strict data disclosure laws. Cyber security products are defined by possessing the capability to provide access management, authentication procedures, detection and responses to incidents, security updates or patch management, data recovery, mitigation of impacts, and risk & compliance management. The cyber security market is experiencing a booming phase because of the need for global cyber security capacity establishment built for a secure and resilient cyberspace.

The Latin American region has a high percentage of cyber crimes such as banking fraud and thefts, DoS attack, phishing scams, spam, and so on, impacting the national critical infrastructure. Several countries in the region are coming up with self protective initiatives against cyber threats. Countries such as Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru have taken up cyber security as a political agenda and hence, security organizations are under soaring pressure to diversify their portfolios. Legal frameworks, infrastructure protection protocols, and best industry practices are the defining trends of the market and these factors are increasing the potential for domestic and foreign industries to expand in the Latin American cyber security market.

The report further provides competitive benchmarking of the leading players in the industry such as Cisco Systems, IBM, Northrop Grumman, CSC, and Symantec, among others, in terms of their product offerings, key strategies, and operational parameters. The report provides market trends, overall adoption scenarios, competitive landscapes, key drivers, restraints, and opportunities in this market. The report aims in estimating the current size and the future growth potential of this market across the different types, verticals, and countries.

Latin American countries such as Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru are taking security as a political agenda and hence, security forces are under soaring pressure to diversify the security portfolio. Moreover, legal frameworks, infrastructure protection protocols, and best industry practices are defining trends are significantly opening doors for domestic and foreign industries to explore opportunities in the Latin American cyber security market. Brazil is the biggest market in Latin America, and as of 2014, contributed a major share of around 60.6% to the market in this region.

This market is segmented and forecasted on the basis of solutions and services of cyber security, such as identity and access management, risk and compliance management, encryption, data loss protection, unified threat management, firewall, antivirus and antimalware, IDS/IPS, security and vulnerability management, disaster recovery, DDOS mitigation, web filtering, and others. Services include consulting, design and integration, risk and threat assessment, managed security service, and training and education. The market is further segmented and forecasted on the basis of major countries, such as Brazil and others.

Mobile Phones To Detect Cervical Cancer In Third-World Women

MobileOCT— a social startup which is using mobile phones to accurately detect cancer in people who live in the developing world.
By Michael Lefkoe, NoCamels

In 95 percent of cases, cervical cancer is an entirely treatable disease and can be treated for $28 in less than 40 minutes. Yet, due to lack of access to physicians and reliable medical equipment, hundreds of thousands of women in low-resource settings are dying unnecessarily every year simply because they are not getting diagnosed in time. However, one Israeli startup seems to be well on its way to changing that.


Five billion people have a phone, but no access to medical care

Recently featured on ‘Forbes’ list of 25 Hot Israeli Tech Startups To Watch, MobileOCT is trying to address the fact that while five billion people around the world have access to mobile phones, many of them do not have access to a physician. The company’s first project is to take on cervical cancer, the number one cause of cancer deaths for women in low-resource countries. To do so, they are producing a mobile colposcope that can be used with any mobile phone, anywhere in the world. “Technologically we’ve gotten to a place where we have very advanced sensors in everyday objects. And what MobileOCT is seeking to do is to help save lives with those sensors,” explained Ariel Beery, MobileOCT‘s CEO and Co-Founder, in an interview with NoCamels.
Sniffing out lung cancer is as easy as taking a breathalyzer test

Typical colposcopes used by Western physicians cost between $5,000 and $14,000, a price range that is undoubtedly out of reach for the 3.2 billion people who live on less than $3 of income per day. Clinically tested mobile colposcopies of comparable imaging quality produced by MobileOCT, on the other hand, will likely sell at the $400 price point, according to Beery. But diminishing the cost is only one of the ways that MobileOCT is impacting the future of cancer screening.

MobileOCT: A incrível startup social que usa telefones móveis para detectar o câncer do colo do útero em mulheres do terceiro mundo

É a MobileOCT— uma startup social que está usando telefones celulares para detectar com precisão o câncer em pessoas de países em desenvolvimento.

Em 95% dos casos, o câncer do colo do útero é uma doença totalmente tratável e pode ser tratada por US$ 28 em menos de 40 minutos. No entanto, devido à falta de acesso a médicos e equipamentos médicos de confiança, centenas de milhares de mulheres em ambientes de baixa renda estão morrendo desnecessariamente a cada ano, simplesmente porque não são diagnosticadas a tempo. No entanto, uma startup israelense parece estar prestes a mudar esse cenário.


Cinco bilhões de pessoas possuem telefone, mas não tem acesso a atendimento médico
Recentemente incluída na lista das 25 Startups Israelenses de Tecnologia Mais Promissoras da revista

Forbes, a MobileOCT tenta encontrar alguma vantagem no fato de que, enquanto cinco bilhões de pessoas em todo o mundo possuem telefones celulares, muitas delas não têm acesso a um médico. O primeiro projeto da empresa é dedicar-se ao câncer de colo do útero, a causa número um de mortes por câncer em mulheres de países com poucos recursos. Para isso, a companhia desenvolveu um colposcópio móvel, que pode ser usado com qualquer telefone celular, em qualquer parte do mundo. “Tecnologicamente, chegamos a um lugar onde temos sensores muito avançados em objetos do cotidiano. E o que a MobileOCT busca fazer é ajudar a salvar vidas com esses sensores”, explica Ariel Beery, CEO e cofundador da MobileOCT, em uma entrevista.

Os colposcópios convencionais usados ​​pelos médicos ocidentais custam entre 5 e 14 mil dólares, uma faixa de preço que é, sem dúvida, fora do orçamento de 3,2 bilhões de pessoas cuja renda não passa de 3 dólares por dia. Os colposcópios móveis produzidos pela MobileOCT, clinicamente testados e com qualidade de imagem comparável aos convencionais, por outro lado, devem ser vendidos a aproximadamente 400 dólares, segundo Beery. Mas diminuir o custo é apenas uma das maneiras que a MobileOCT está impactando o futuro do diagnóstico do câncer.

Brazil IT market expected to grow fast as government ups spending

New report covers the present scenario and the growth prospects of the IT market in Brazil for the period 2014-2018.

Brazil hopes to capitalize on the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics to advance its goal of becoming the world's third largest information technology and communications (ITC) market, according to recent research. The Brazil IT market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 10.12% from 2014-2018.

This report, IT Market in Brazil 2014-2018, provides a detailed analysis of the market and focuses on the growth trends, major players, recent developments and key drivers of the IT market in Brazil.

Market overview

Currently, the major reason behind the exponential growth of the IT market in Brazil is the rapid growth of the software and IT services market segment. The hardware segment is also expected to witness increased spending due to growth in the use of tablets and data servers over the forecast period. Currently, the Brazil IT market ranks fifth in the world and is worth around USD 210 billion. Experts coin that the World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics will act as a boon for Brazil and for the ITC industry, as the government is slated to invest billions of dollars in a wide range of infrastructure projects. The infrastructure being developed will be used subsequently for the benefit of health, development and broadband communications. Research has shown major sporting events will generate investment of about USD 57 billion, of which 10% will be devoted to IT, either directly in data and image transmission systems, and indirectly, in areas such as security, health care, transportation, infrastructure. The Brazilian IT industry currently has two million professionals.

Key players

The key players in this industry include Accenture Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co., IBM Corp., Xerox Corp., Ascenty Data Centers Rental and Services SA, Capgemini S.A., Cisco Systems Inc., CI&T Software S.A., Dell Inc., Elipse Software, Google Inc., ICTS Consulting Services, Kryptus Information Security Ltda., Lenovo Group Ltd., Microsoft Corp., Predicta, SAS Institute Inc., Stefanini IT Solutions, Syhunt Cyber-Security Co. and Serpro, Sydle System.

NFV - Network Functions Virtualization

 Executive Summary

Network Operators’ networks are populated with a large and increasing variety of proprietary hardware appliances. To launch a new network service often requires yet another variety and finding the space and power to accommodate these boxes is becoming increasingly difficult; compounded by the increasing costs of energy, capital investment challenges and the rarity of skills necessary to design, integrate and operate increasingly complex hardware-based appliances. Moreover, hardware-based appliances rapidly reach end of life, requiring much of the procure- design-integrate-deploy

cycle to be repeated with little or no revenue benefit. Worse, hardware lifecycles are becoming shorter as technology and services innovation accelerates, inhibiting the roll out of new revenue earning network services and constraining innovation in an increasingly Network-centric connected world.

Network Functions Virtualization aims to address these problems by leveraging standard IT virtualization technology to consolidate many network equipment types onto industry standard high volume servers, switches and storage, which could be located in Datacenters, Network Nodes and in the end user premises. We believe Network Functions Virtualization is applicable to any data plane packet processing and control plane function in fixed and mobile network infrastructures.

We would like to emphasize that we see Network Functions Virtualization as highly complementary to Software Defined Networking (SDN). These topics are mutually beneficial but are not dependent on each other. Network Functions can be virtualized and deployed without an SDN being required and vice-versa.

Virtualizing Network Functions could potentially offer many benefits including, but not limited to:

• Reduced equipment costs and reduced power consumption through consolidating equipment and exploiting the economies of scale of the IT industry.
• Increased speed of Time to Market by minimizing the typical network operator cycle of innovation. Economies of scale required to cover investments in hardware-based functionalities are no longer applicable for software-based development, making feasible other modes of feature evolution. Network Functions Virtualization should enable network operators to significantly reduce the maturation cycle.
• Availability of network appliance multi-version and multi-tenancy, which allows use of a single platform for different applications, users and tenants. This allows network operators to share resources across services and across different customer bases.
• Targeted service introduction based on geography or customer sets is possible. Services can be rapidly scaled up/down as required.
• Enables a wide variety of eco-systems and encourages openness. It opens the virtual appliance market to pure software entrants, small players and academia, encouraging more innovation to bring new services and new revenue streams quickly at much lower risk.

To leverage these benefits, there are a number of technical challenges which need to be addressed:

• Achieving high performance virtualized network appliances which are portable between different hardware vendors, and with different hypervisors.
•  Achieving co-existence with bespoke hardware based network platforms whilst enabling an efficient migration path to fully virtualized network platforms which re-use network operator OSS/BSS. OSS/BSS development needs to move to a model in-line with Network Functions Virtualization and this is where SDN can play a role.
•  Managing and orchestrating many virtual network appliances (particularly alongside legacy management systems) while ensuring security from attack and misconfiguration.
•  Network Functions Virtualization will only scale if all of the functions can be automated.
•  Ensuring the appropriate level of resilience to hardware and software failures.
• Integrating multiple virtual appliances from different vendors. Network operators need to be able to “mix & match” hardware from different vendors, hypervisors from different vendors and virtual appliances from different vendors without incurring significant integration costs and avoiding lock-in. 

Solutions to these technical challenges are available, or could be made available, it recommend that the IT and Networks industries combine their complementary expertise and resources in a joint collaborative effort to reach broad agreement  on standardized approaches and common architectures which address these technical challenges, and which are interoperable and have economies of scale.

To accelerate progress, a new network operator-led Industry Specification Group (ISG) with open membership is being setup under the auspices of ETSI to work through the technical challenges for Network Functions Virtualization as outlined in this white paper. The formal creation process of this ETSI ISG has been already started.

Keepod: $7 USB stick provide billions of people computer access

Mathare is 500,000-resident slum in Nairobi Kenya, where basic sanitation is non-existent, there’s no adequate water supply and no school system. Most of the locals are part of the five billion people in the world who are digitally excluded. Now, a new initiative called Keepod Unite aims to reduce the digital gap in Mathare by providing an OS that can be loaded onto a USB drive and plugged into just about any shared PC
By Dan Simmons, BBC

The USB flash drive is one of the most simple, everyday pieces of technology that many people take for granted.
Now it's being eyed as a possible solution to bridging the digital divide, by two colorful Israelis entrepreneurs behind the start-up Keepod.
Nissan Bahar and Franky Imbesi aim to combat the lack of access to computers by providing what amounts to an operating-system-on-a-stick.
In six weeks, their idea managed to raise more than $40,000 (£23,750)on fundraising site Indiegogo, providing the cash to begin a campaign to offer low-cost computing to the two-thirds of the globe's population that currently has little or no access.

The test bed for the project is the slums of Nairobi in Kenya.

The typical income for the half a million people in the city's Mathare district is about $2 (£1.20) a day.
Very few people here use a computer or have access to the net.

But Mr Bahar and Mr Imbesi want to change that with their Keepod USB stick.

It will allow old, discarded and potentially non-functional PCs to be revived, while allowing each user to have ownership of their own "personal computer" experience - with their chosen desktop layout, programs and data - at a fraction of the cost of providing a unique laptop, tablet or other machine to each person.
In addition, the project avoids a problem experienced by some other recycled PC schemes that resulted in machines becoming "clogged up" and running at a snail's pace after multiple users had saved different things to a single hard drive.

The two men hope to get up to 150,000 people signed up to their idea in the country.

Day One

To do so, the pair have teamed up with LiveInSlums - a non-governmental organisation operating in Mathare  to introduce the flash drives to students and staff at WhyNot Academy.

Like other schools in East Africa, the school uses text books and chalk boards to teach. Two years ago it was connected to the electricity supply.

During a visit to the school in March, Mr Bahar and Mr Imbesi decided to buy a router and a Sim card to hook the classrooms up to the internet.

Their solution involved hanging the router in a carrier bag nailed next to one of two plug sockets in the school. It looked makeshift, but that didn't prevent the children cheering when it was announced the academy had gone online.

The pair also brought five old laptops with their hard disks removed to the school.
As they gave each child one of the Keepod USB sticks to keep, they explained the second-hand computers would boot up directly from the flash drives.

In fact, any computer with a screen, keyboard and basic processor should play a perfect host because each Keepod stick comes with a unique desktop version of Google's Android 4.4 operating system on board.

The effect is to make any laptop or PC as simple to use as a smartphone, with icons displayed for each task or saved website that the user may want to see.

Each Keepod remembers its owner's settings, passwords and websites visited.
It stores any files or programs downloaded on the other half of its 8GB storage capacity. The information can be encrypted and is protected by a password needed for operation when it's plugged in.

"It makes it possible for anyone with a Keepod to use any computer and get the same experience," says Mr Bahar.

"Each child will see their own files and apps appear in exactly the same way each time, without the need to remember lots of passwords."

The amazement and excitement at seeing these old laptops come to life was palpable inside the classroom.
And the children stayed long after classes had ended to explore and set up their new devices.

Head teacher, Dominic Otieno believes the technology will help change the children's mind sets.

"It will help Africans help themselves, it will help them to start to learn the skills of business," he says.

"They are going to learn to read the story of people who have made it from nothing, but through business, people who did not go through a lot of education but they made it."

Before they left the school, there was more good news for the Keepod founders.
A teacher from the US had spotted their campaign and called mid-visit to say he would pay for more USB drives to be distributed in Nairobi if the founders also provided copies for pupils at his school.
The idea, he explained, would be that the children on each continent could communicate together and share a common experience.

Malware risk

Keepod is never going to be a huge money-spinner, but the idea is that it will eventually support itself.
Mr Bahar and Mr Imbesi's plan is for locally employed workers to buy the flash drives on the open market, install the operating system and a few essential apps, and then sell them on for a small gain.

The final price would be $7 (£4.15), delivering about a $2 profit on each device that would help cover wages and the further expansion of the project.

They explain an added benefit of their scheme over alternative computer-donation efforts is that even if a Keepod owner has their device infected with malware, it should not be able to spread to the host computer - meaning one person's misfortune should not affect others.

The start-up also plans to provide a Keepod back-up facility, offering a way to protect owners from losing their files if the USB device is lost or becomes corrupted.

Unwanted sales

Rita Anyango is one of the five people Keepod has trained up to maintain the Mathare project.

She likes the unique way in which the scheme, unlike others she has worked on, offers ownership of the computing experience to each user.

But she but fears that some parents may be tempted to trade the devices to put more expensive food on the family table, like meat, if they don't realise its long-term potential.

The tiny devices could be exchanged or worse stolen, she says, if they're not looked after.

Tony Roberts, former chief executive of the global charity Computer Aid International, also has concerns.

He warns it would be over-optimistic to place too much belief in technology being able to simply solve problems like improving education or making agriculture more efficient.

"In my experience it's always about how the people use the technology and not that technology itself as a magic bullet," he says.
"People will need to be trained and as more flash drives are sold even more people will need training, and more computer hubs will need more maintaining.
"Finding the resources to fund that within a $7 price tag will be tough."
He also makes a more pressing point. That most people in rural areas of the world are poor and it's in those areas where electricity and connectivity are often bigger challenges. Without those basics the scheme won't work.
Even so, he wishes the project well and would personally back it.

Next steps

Keepod's founders' next plan to roll it out to India, Israel, southern Italy, and other parts of sub-Saharan Africa.

The Keepod team want to take their device beyond Nairobi to other parts of the world
To help do so, they intend to sell starter packs so that anyone can supervise their own scheme with some old laptops and a bunch of cheap USB drives.

They'll be driven on by memories of the many smiling faces at the celebration thrown in Mathare to mark WhyNot Academy receiving the devices.
Here, at least, the party has already begun.


WATCH BBC : The Nairobi children's first day with the Keepod stick

M-commerce in Brazil up 84 percent in a year

Summary: The number of Brazilians using mobile devices for purchase of products and services has skyrocketed with an 84.2 percent increase over the last 12 months, according to recent research.
By Angelica Mari,  Brazil Tech

In June 2013, mobile transactions represented 3.8 percent of the total e-commerce pie in Brazil — by June 2014, that number had gone up to 7 percent.

During that period, 2.89 million transactions were carried out, the equivalent to R$1.13bn ($497m), according to the report WebShoppers by consultancy firm e-Bit. The key segments are fashion and accessories with 18 percent of all sales, followed by cosmetics and health products with 16 percent and electronics with 11 percent.

The report suggests that if the same growth rate is maintained, by the end of 2014, mobile transactions will represent 10 percent of all online commerce in Brazil. In addition, the report predicts that Brazilian online outlets will have served 63 million unique consumers by year's end.

By comparison, m-commerce in the United States will account for 29 percent of online purchases this year, according to Forrester Research.
In Brazil, the lack of readiness for mobile, the precarious 3G coverage and low penetration of residential wifi are the main hurdles for further development of mobile commerce in the country, says the e-Bit report.

But forecasts in terms of connectivity in Brazil are positive: Within five years, 68 percent of the Brazilian population will have access to the internet (142 million people, up from 81 million in 2013), with an average of 3.1 connected mobile devices per person, according to research by Cisco.

Israel Named Number-1 in Clean Tech market

A new report by clean-tech and environmental leaders calls Israel the best in clean tech.

Karin Kloosterman, Israel21C

According to the 2014 Global Cleantech Innovation Index, Israel has the most potential to start and commercialize clean-tech companies.  “Israel topped the 2014 index, with its relative out performance on the measure of startup companies per capita being a key reason that it did so. The country generates the culture,

education and ‘chutzpah’ necessary to breed innovation, plus it has the survival instincts,” the official statement said.

Could innovation be an offshoot of survival?

Here is a case in point: A normal demo day for young startups in Tel Aviv on July 10 — pitching their ideas on stage to a room of about 300 investors – gets interrupted by a siren indicating an incoming missile from Gaza.
There is a minute and a half to take cover. While huddling together in the stairwell, investors, industry executives and entrepreneurs exchange cards. Many of them once served in elite military units, and they take it all in stride.

One clean-tech expert tells ISRAEL21c it’s this unfortunate adversity that gives Israeli startups an edge. Experience with conflict could be a shaping force in defining Israel as the new clean-tech global leader, he believes.  “I say Israelis are great at managing crises so they have the skills to deal with it,” says our source, a leader in the industry who preferred not to be named.
“Why Israel is naturally good at dealing with crises is their innovative thinking and this is part of Israel’s DNA and entrepreneurial activity in general,” he notes.

“Clean-tech is one of the dominant areas because Israel is number one in reusing its water. Some 97 percent of its wastewater is used for agriculture and irrigation; while Spain is at 16%. Israel is many levels ahead of standards in the world. There are delegations every year that come to learn about our technologies.”

He adds that Israeli programs for accelerating water innovation are being replicated in Singapore and Korea. Put this together with international players in the investment space in Israel, like the IMF unit of the World Bank or Schneider Electric, and the energy in Israel becomes exciting.

“We don’t have natural resources and we’re good in security because we have a need for cyber and data in that area,” the expert points out.

Brazil's Oi fined for violating users' privacy

Summary: Brazilian telecommunications giant Oi has been fined 3.5 million reais ($1.59 million) for violating its users' privacy, the Brazilian government said Wednesday.

By EFE


The Consumer Protection and Defense Department, or DPDC, fined the fixed and wireless telephony and broadband Internet company Oi after determining that its customers' browsing data had been sold, the Justice Ministry said in a statement.

The fine was imposed after a DPDC investigation into an agreement between Oi, Brazil's largest telecommunications company, and British firm Phorm.

That accord provided for the development of a software program called "Navegador" that registers customers' data traffic and creates a profile of Internet users that Oi could then sell.

"The company, under the pretext of improving the browsing experience, hid from customers essential information about the service and its implications for privacy and the safety of their personal data," DPDC director Amaury Oliva was quoted as saying in the ministry statement.

"At no time were customers told that their browsing would be monitored by the company and that their profile would be sold to advertising companies," he added.

The amount of the fine was determined taking into account the criteria set forth in the Consumer Defense Code, the economic benefit received, the company's condition and the seriousness of the offense, the Justice Ministry said.

The proceeds from the fine will be deposited in a fund for reinvestment in actions to preserve the environment and public heritage assets and bolster consumer protection, the statement said

Three Israeli Women Nab Top Spots In ’22 Most Powerful Women Engineers In The World’ List

Because women are vastly outnumbered by men in the tech industry, at a ratio of about three to one, women in the highest positions are even more rare. But they do exist.

By NoCamels

Because women are vastly outnumbered by men in the tech industry, at a ratio of about three to one, women in the highest positions are even more rare. But they do exist.

Every year, Business Insider gives a shout-out to women in the tech industry with its list of “most powerful women engineers in the world.” This year, the publication featured 22 women, of which three were Israeli, by far the largest number of any country when compared to Israel’s small size and population.

Here are the Startup Nation’s three female engineering stars:

1. Tal Rabin, IBM

Who is she? 

Manager and a research staff member of the cryptography research group at IBM’s T.J. Watson Research Center.

Why Business Insider says she’s powerful:

“Rabin’s early career was almost like the movie “Good Will Hunting.” When she was a student, she solved a math problem that experts thought couldn’t be solved. (It’s complicated, something to do with calculating numbers when most of them are not known, she told Business Insider).

At IBM she leads a team working on inventing whole new ways to secure computer data. The work is so advanced that Rabin was awarded the top honor at The Anita Borg Institute’s 2014 Women of Vision awards.

She’s also chairs conferences and professional organizations in her field. She has a doctorate in computer science from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and was a postdoctoral Fellow at the MIT Laboratory for Computer Science.”

2. Yoelle Maarek, Yahoo

Who is she?

 Vice president of research at Yahoo

Why Business Insider says she’s powerful: 

“Maarek leads research for Yahoo and heads research teams in Israel and India.

She works on research projects with academia (and has published a boatload of academic papers on the topic) while also working with engineering and product teams to tackle scientific challenges that change Yahoo’s business.

Prior to Yahoo, Maarek founded the Google Haifa Engineering Center and was a Distinguished Engineer at IBM Research.

She was recently inducted as an Association for Computing Machinery Fellow for her work on web search.”

3. Tamar Bercovici, Box

Who is she? 

Senior manager of Backend Engineering at Box

Why Business Insider says she’s powerful: 

“Bercovici joined Box in February 2011 as the first woman hired to its infrastructure department, known as the “Backend Engineering” team.

She’s now a senior engineering manager where she leads a database project, known as Distributed Data Systems Team.

Bercovici is also in charge of Box’s twice-yearly Hackathon and is active on the speaking circuit. She’s given talks at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, Percona Live and Velocity Europe.

Prior to Box, Bercovici was an early-stage employee at XMPie (now a Xerox company).

She holds a doctorate in computer science from the Technion Institute of Technology, the Israeli version of MIT.”

To read the full article on Business Insider and find out who the other 19 women are, click here